UFO Whistleblower (Full Episode) | UFOs: Investigating the Unknown | National Geographic

Transcript

[♪ mysterious music playing] -I love UFOs. And the reason I love UFOs is 'cause I don't know what they are. -Hollywood has given us three scenarios for our first contact with an

alien civilization... Invasion. [explosion] The radio message from outer space. [electronic pulse] And then you have the lone,

stranded explorer scenario. Probably all 3 of them, every bit of that, is wrong. -Oh my God! -The truth probably is much more ambiguous and much more puzzling.

-The US Navy has finally acknowledged that videos appearing to show UFOS flying through the air are real. [pilot] Oh, my gosh, dude. -The lead pilot saw an object

zip right by his aircraft. -It was white, pure white. It had no windows, no wings. -Like, what the (bleep) was that? -In the last few years, we've gone from a

point where you couldn't touch this subject, to a point where the government acknowledges the videos of UAP are authentic. -Now, we have a duty as scientists to explain them.

-More and more scientists feel comfortable talking about this, and even investigating it. -Most UAP sightings are explainable.

98% of them. The 2% is what matters. -The hope is to find UAPs. Where are they hiding and why are they here? -I had had a number of

very strange encounters. They were so intrusive and so physical. -Alien abduction experiences are a mystery to this day.

-So many times I wondered what they saw in me, it's a profound question to have for an entire life. -Maybe these people have a common brain structure.

Supposedly the government has some things. Let's get the data. -What do they have inside the government? What do they actually

know about UFOs? And why can't more be released to the public? -I think belief is too easy. I think debunking is too easy. I think the truth of the matter is way more complicated and way weirder.

-We get reports every night. -I don't know what the hell it is. [overlapping radio chatter] [♪ theme music playing]. -Americans will soon

learn more about UFOs. The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. -It is going to be about UAP whistleblower claims.

Sort of the first of its kind. -If there's one issue that can bring Democrats and Republicans together, it's UFOs. -The House Oversight Committee

will hold a hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, UAPS... I prefer to call them UFOs. We're going to get to the bottom of it, daggummit, whatever the truth may be.

-I'm about to walk into a congressional hearing and witness something that I never thought I would see. It's the first hearing that we've actually had witnesses to events speak at.

Nothing like this has ever happened before and we don't know what they're going to say today. I've been writing and reporting on UFOs for over 20 years.

And all during those years, I was really up against the belief that UFOs aren't real. Saying UFOs are real does not mean that they're alien spacecraft. It just means these are real,

physical objects in our skies, and we don't know what they are. In 2017, I co-wrote a story for the New York Times about a secret program within the Department of Defense that was investigating UFOs and

no one knew about it. -The groundbreaking article that Leslie and I and Helene Cooper wrote revealed a secret Pentagon unit called AATIP, that investigated these things, that according to

the government, officially didn't exist. [Leslie Kean] The article also included official Navy videos of unexplained objects that pilots were witnessing. And we'd never seen

anything like that before. -The New York Times unveiled the existence of a real-life X-Files Department... [Leslie Kean] It was an explosive article, I mean front page

New York Times about UFOs. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] That article spurred an enormous amount of Congressional interest. They redefined UFO to UAP: Unidentified

Anomalous Phenomena, to account for objects that operate in space, in the air, and potentially underwater. So Congress recognizes that there is a major national security risk of

unidentified objects passing through restricted, sensitive airspace. After learning about AATIP, Congress formalizes the mission and forms the UAP Task Force, which then eventually becomes what we have now, the All Domain Anomaly

Resolution Office. Leave it to the government to come up with wonderful acronyms and names. AARO. And that is the entity that

is now the official government UFO analysis office. -So, the 2017 article kind of changed the climate on UFOs. And then a few years later, I was introduced to a man named David Grusch.

He was an intelligence official who wanted to come forward with some very stunning revelations. So Ralph and l wrote a story for an online publication called The Debrief and now, two months after the David Grusch story was published, a House

oversight committee is holding an open hearing and our article helped pave the way. People are lining up outside the building to get in. They flew in from all over

the place, even overseas. How early did you guys get in line? -Uh, 3:30 a.m., 3:16. -Incredible! Really? -Yeah.

[Leslie Kean] There are three witnesses being called today, but the first person that people really want to hear from is whistleblower David Grusch. -The subcommittee hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena or UAPs, will come to order.

Mr. Grusch... -Mr. Chairman, ranking members, and congressmen.

My name is David Charles Grusch. I was an intelligence officer for 14 years. My testimony is based on

information I've been given by individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country. Many of whom... [Leslie Kean] David Grusch

worked for both the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency. He had very high clearances within those agencies and he was the representative sent to the UAP task force when it was in operation.

He started looking into the questions of crashed retrieved objects within various programs that may have been hidden away. He told us for our article that he had evidence which he had gained from 40 people he

interviewed at high levels, that the government, or some agency within the government, possessed craft of non-human origin. [Ralph Blumenthal] He was talking about things that no country on earth could produce.

Alien spacecraft, I mean, there's no other way to put it. [Leslie Kean] He claimed that he could not be shown the craft, but he was shown documentation, photographs, and was able to gather very, very specific information

from people directly involved. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] He alleges that the government is operating a decades-long UFO retrieval and reverse engineering effort, illegally, outside of the purview and oversight of Congress.

[Leslie Kean] Oversight was not being provided to programs which were legally required to have oversight, and he felt it was his obligation to report them. -I have taken every step I can

to corroborate this evidence over a period of four years while I was with the UAP task force and do my due diligence on the individual sharing it. I became a whistleblower through a urgent concern filing in May 2022 with the

Intelligence Community Inspector General. -Mr. Grusch, why did you come forward on this issue? -Purely a sense of duty. I first swore an oath when

I was a cadet 18 years ago, and I still uphold that even out of the uniform. [Leslie Kean] During the time that he gave the information to the Inspector General, he was under oath and the ICIG had ruled that what he told them

was credible and urgent. -I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program. [Garrett Graff] A lot of

eyebrows went up both in the room and people who were watching that live around the country. As someone covering national security in Washington, I got interested in UFOs, not as someone who was raised on Star Trek, but because I began

to see serious people talking seriously about this subject. UFOs are real, you know, we know that there are unidentified objects in our airspace. Even John Brennan, the former CIA director, has said, effectively, "There's weird stuff

out there flying around. We don't know what it is. It puzzles me." -I figure there can't be that many things that puzzle John Brennan. [Marik Von Rennenkampff]

There's no question that the government retrieves objects that may have been abandoned or recovered from adversaries. [Garrett Graff] The US government has had a UFO crash retrieval program for 100 years. UFO in this case though, doesn't necessarily

mean alien spacecraft. You know, this is how, in World War II, this unit was able to get its hands on crashed Japanese Zeros or in the Cold War, Soviet MIG fighters.

-Dave Grusch is alleging something different, something, you know, quite more extraordinary. Evidence of extraterrestrial or off-Earth technology.

I think, you know, he presented as a very credible person in that he was an intelligence officer, he had security clearances. So this isn't somebody walking in from the outside.

This is an insider. -You say that the government is in possession of potentially non-human spacecraft, do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials? -That's something I can't

discuss in a public setting. -If you believe we have crashed craft as stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? -Biologics came with some of these recoveries.

Yeah. -Were they, I guess human or non-human biologics? -Non-human. And that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked

to that are currently still on the program. [Garrett Graff] Non-human biologics. Effectively alien bodies. You know, this is the

biggest possible secret that you could imagine any government really keeping. [Leslie Kean] To be sitting there and hearing members of Congress asking these questions in a very serious context was just astonishing.

-But as I stand here under oath now, I am speaking to the facts as I've been told them. I am driven by a commitment of both the truth and transparency.

I'm asking Congress to hold our government to this standard and thoroughly investigate these claims. I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of

increased transparency. [Leslie Kean] The congressional hearing in July of 2023 isn't the first time that we've had individuals advocating for greater transparency and trying to undo the secrecy involved with the UFO issue.

[Garrett Graff] Across all of human history, people have seen strange things in the sky. We see this, particularly In the early years of the Flying Saucer era, the late 1940s

and early 1950s, as pop culture and Hollywood movies began to link the ideas of UFOs and flying saucers with aliens. And key among that interest was a former military officer named Donald Keyhoe -Our first guest on

To Tell the Truth is one of the world's leading authorities on unidentified flying objects. What is your name, please? -My name is Donald Keyhoe. -My name is Donald Keyhoe. -My name is Donald Keyhoe.

-Only one of these gentlemen is the real Donald Keyhoe. [Christopher Mellon] Major Donald Keyhoe is one of a number of people, who encountered the UFO issue, were initially skeptical,

but the more they learned, the more they began to realize there's something going on here. -Now they do come in sort of different shapes and sizes, right? -Uh, the main... ...Most of the sightings

describe disk-shaped objects. [Garrett Graff] Donald Keyhoe was a respected former military officer. He gets interested in this subject of flying saucers and UFOs after being asked to

look into it by the editor of True Magazine, one of the nation's leading sci-fi and paranormal magazines of that era. -Keyhoe had begun as an airplane pilot. Then a writer.

He began to write for True Magazine. In 1949, the editor somehow learned that pilots were reporting strange things in the sky, that the Air Force

was denying it, and he felt this needed to be looked at. And Keyhoe, because of his background, was given the assignment. -He particularly becomes

interested in the case of Captain Thomas Mantell. Mantell, a decorated Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, World War II veteran, is dispatched to investigate the sighting of a UFO over the skies of Kentucky.

[Garrett Graff] Mantell spots it in the sky and sends back a series of radio messages. [Garrett Graff] And then all contact with him is lost. [reporter] Mantell had

crashed 5 miles southwest of Franklin, Kentucky. Captain Mantell was killed. [Garrett Graff] This is probably the nation's first UFO-related fatality. It's only years later, the

Air Force puts together, through, you know, various military and Navy records, that the path of a secret research balloon would have almost exactly matched the path of the object that Mantel encountered. [Linda Powell] But for

Keyhoe and many others, his crash has never been adequately explained. Keyhoe went to the Pentagon and asked them about this sighting but he didn't come away any the wiser.

[Garrett Graff] Donald Keyhoe remained convinced that the government was covering up the truth. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] There's been a long history of public perception of coverups

and nefarious activities by the government. That a very, very credible individuals like David Grusch are bringing back to the fore. -Mr. Grusch,

are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non-terrestrial craft? -Personally, yes. Mmm-hmm. -Have you seen the spacecraft? -I have to be careful to describe what I've seen firsthand,

and not in this environment, but I can answer that question behind closed doors. -Okay. And so, with that being said... -The controversy surrounding

David and his testimony is that he doesn't have firsthand knowledge. He has not seen any such craft. It's all secondhand.

-He would have very legitimate bans on being able to talk about so-called special access programs that he was a part of. It could lead to jail terms if you disclose knowledge of classified material that

you are sworn to protect and keep secret. [Shane Harris] The question of whether the government has already recovered evidence of extraterrestrial existence and is covering it up.

I mean, that's the part that I'm just really skeptical of. And even someone like Dave Grusch, who again, is a very compelling witness by his own testimony does not have

firsthand evidence of what he claims to exist. That does not mean that he's lying. It doesn't mean that he's wrong, but it's not the kind of

evidence that I think the public is gonna need to really believe that the government is hiding existence of terrestrials. -I think everybody wants to see that picture of that craft.

In Grusch's defense, he had already provided classified details such as program names, the people allegedly involved, and the locations of where craft apparently are stored, in many hours of closed briefings to Congress.

-Is there evidence that there are aliens? -No, not evidence that would convince a skeptical scientist, no. There are people holding their hand up, swearing to tell the

truth in Congress. That's not how we establish objective truths in science. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] But it wasn't just David Grusch making these allegations.

A former high-level army officer who worked on the UFO problem for the government, named Karl Nell also supported Grusch's allegation. [Karl Nell] Non-human

intelligence exists. Non-human intelligence has been interacting with humanity. This interaction is not new and it's been ongoing and there are unelected people

in the government that are aware of that. David Grusch has said the same thing. David Grusch cleared for presidentially level material.

So you're looking at people that are in a position to know this and they're telling you the same thing. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] The Congressional hearing was fascinating because there were

two narratives all about UFOs. One narrative is that the government is withholding an extraordinary secret from the American public. And the other is the fact that

military aircrews and aviators are observing objects, not just with eyeballs, but with multiple sensors, radar, infrared. -As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace, but they're grossly

under-reported. These sightings are not rare or isolated, they are routine. -Ryan Graves was there because he had been reporting Navy sightings.

Some of the pilots in Ryan's squadron had been picking up strange objects on radar and actually had a near collision with one of them. After hearing about these encounters, Ryan Graves realized

that this was a safety issue. And Commander David Fravor was there as a witness to the 2004 Nimitz incident, the famous Tic Tac case, which was one of the best-researched UFO cases ever.

He was a Navy pilot flying off the USS Nimitz. They'd been picking up these fast-moving objects on radar. He described it as

like a ping-pong ball zig-zagging around, no signs of propulsion. -The Tic Tac object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything we had on time, have today, or are looking to develop

in the next ten years. -I have a few questions for Mr. Graves. What percentage

of UAP sightings, in your belief, go unreported by our pilots? -I would estimate we're somewhere near 5% reporting perhaps. -So like 95% basically don't report? -That's just my

personal estimate. In the late 2013-2014 time period, that's when we first started to notice that there were other objects in the area with us.

-Frankly, I was scared that someone was going to hit one of these. And that's really what pushed me over the edge to speak publicly about this. I knew this hearing would be

an extremely important venue to be able to communicate for all these pilots and military operators that had been reaching out to me to share what they had been going through. Folks like Jeffery Nuccetelli, a former security officer

at Vandenberg Air Force Base. -Leading up to that hearing, it's hard to describe how I was feeling. The anticipation, I've been waiting for this for it seems like my whole life.

To me, it was like watching the biggest Super Bowl ever. And then Representative Luna brought up the Vandenberg case... -My next question would

actually be for Mr. Graves... -And I literally fell out of my chair. I literally could not

believe it was happening. -Can you please explain to me in detail the event that occurred at Vandenberg Air Force Base? -Certainly. In the 2003 timeframe, a large group of Boeing

contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base. -I was stationed there in 2003. At that time it was part of US

Space Command and our primary mission was to develop tests and launch space assets. Rockets and test technology to defend the country against incoming ballistic missiles and other threats of that nature.

The day began as a normal day. I showed up to work and as I pulled in, I could tell that there was something going on. Just all of a sudden everyone

starts to try to tell me this story about a real-world UFO event that had occurred that morning. -They observed a very large red square, estimated to be almost the size of a football field, approach the base

from the ocean and hover at low altitude over one of the launch facilities. This object remained for about 45 seconds or so before darting off over the mountains.

-Very quickly I realized, you know, that this is not a joke. They're not pranking me, that this is a real event that occurred. And then sometime after dark, a radio transmission

came in over the net. “Be advised, we have strange lights over the ocean.” -My name is Chaz King. I was on duty the night of the incident.

Probably between 12:00 and 1:00 in the morning, we were all in the intra-control facility, which is kinda like a big glass building that oversees everything. It started out

as, like, a big ball light over the ocean off the coast. Everyone kind of was like, okay, sometimes we have planes fly into the flight line area.

Just got our attention but nothing out of the ordinary until it started to come towards our position. -I was getting ready to jump in my car and head to that location.

And then just all hell broke loose. The radio transmissions start to pour in. People started to scream.

-As it became closer and closer to our position, you could no longer see the light. You could just see a massive object in the sky.

It stopped and hovered, right over the coastline. It was so massive, it was almost like a

football field long. There was no propulsion systems, no lights, no audible sounds, and it just hovered there. I remember

the five of us looking at each other, kinda dumbfounded, in disbelief. There was excitement, a little bit of fear, a little bit of panic,

a lot of chaos. [Jeffrey Nuccetelli] And that's when it became very difficult to hear the transmissions. These are people

I'd spent years with. We were very close, and they're not people that are easily frightened or intimidated, and they were frightened and they were terrified and they were screaming for help over the net.

[Chaz King] After a few seconds we kind of sprung into action. That's what we're trained to do, but then it just shot away up the coastline, seemed like it was a

million miles an hour, like it was shot out of a cannon and then it was gone. -Was this documented in any official form whether it was a police blotter? -Yes, they had official documentation and records from the event that the witness

held over the years. -So this is the Security Forces blotter, and this is the actual record of the event. The title is Patrol Response,

Unidentified Flying Object. So that's how it was officially logged, as a UFO. [Chaz King] We received a briefing, the next tour of duty, that it was an

unauthorized aircraft landing. And I remember all of us kind of looking at each other puzzled. One, it never landed. Two, the airfield wasn't

even open that day. I know personally, I can't explain it. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

The way it hovered, to make no sound, to have no propulsion system. Our aircraft don't do that.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli] At the time, I didn't know what to think other than, this is extraordinary. We didn't have any kind of protocols in place to deal with an incident like that.

But we upchannelled all the information that we had to higher headquarters. And then we would drive around just trying to keep an eye on the sky. [Jeffrey Nuccetelli]

Me and the people that experienced the Vandenberg encounters, we talked about it pretty regularly for a while. [Chaz King] Having conversations with family members, friends, “Do you think it was,

you know, an alien? Do you think it was this?” I can only describe that, I've never seen anything like it. You're always looking at the sky, wondering will it come back? What was it? And then, you know, 20 years later I'd kinda locked it away after being told to just forget about it.

-Some people believed it, other people didn't. And some people got very uncomfortable. And we realized, people really

don't know this is real, and they think that we're, you know, we're making it up. After a while I really just quit talking about it. There was really nowhere to go, and then I found the

Merged podcast with Ryan. -Welcome to Merged. I'm Ryan Graves. I wanted to create a platform where pilots and reputable professionals could

discuss this topic, safe from ridicule. -I said, this guy seems like someone that I can trust, that will take me seriously. And I stayed up all night one night typing up emails.

It took a lot of courage, but I hit that send button, and I think within hours he replied. And then things moved very rapidly from there.

Ryan introduced me to some lawmakers, and then eventually to the investigators at AARO. So I provided them all the documentation I had, I gave them additional

witnesses that they could follow up on. They're looking for historical records that could back up the story. And they're gonna find if there is any radar data.

Vandenberg is covered in cameras. There might be some video or still pictures. Hopefully, they can get

enough information where they can try to resolve the case. -Jeff, thanks for joining me today. -Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

[Jeffrey Nuccetelli] I ended up being invited onto the podcast, and I thought to myself, you know, what are you doing, man? You're getting ready to go out in front of the whole world and talk about UFOs. We want the stigma reduced.

The big shift now are people like you and some of the other people that are, have come out in the open and be like, these events are real. They're happening. We're in the fight now.

-One step at a time. Well, Jeff, thanks for coming on... [Jeffrey Nuccetelli] I think the more witnesses we can encourage to come out,

especially if they have some kind of data or evidence, the stronger position that we will be in to force the government to disclose. -Major Keyhoe, you will agree that most people in the United States don't believe in flying saucers from outer space.

They probably hold the view of Columnist Bob Considine, who wrote that flying saucers are products of, for the most part, "pranksters, half-wits, cranks, publicity hounds, fanatics in general, and screwballs." -Well I wish I could show

him at any time a list of about 800 witnesses, some of the big names in aviation, including up to the rank of Colonel in the Air Force. If they're screwballs and incompetents, why are they still on the job? [Leslie Kean] In the

late 40s and early 50s, there were sightings across the United States. It was in the middle of the Cold War, so government officials were trying to figure out what these objects were.

-The government set up a series of research programs charged by the Air Force with investigating UFO claims and trying to solve the mystery. First was Project Sign, then Project Grudge, then Project Blue Book.

[reporter] Project Blue Book investigated 12,518 sightings. [Garrett Graff] With time, these projects would end up running for about a quarter century.

-Donald Keyhoe was interested in all sightings. And of course, the project Blue Book sightings were of tremendous interest to him. [Leslie Kean] Project Blue Book

would often issue very silly explanations for cases that did not seem to fit the case. [Linda Powell] They were birds, the planet Venus, a balloon, seagulls were favored as being the culprits.

-They ignored lots of cases, they were not respectful of witnesses. -And the ridicule that was piled on these individuals afterwards is astounding. -Of this great mass of reports, we have been able,

adequately, to explain the great bulk of them. -But Keyhoe was very direct in his criticisms of the Air Force. -They are simply following orders to explain away all UFO sightings as quickly as

possible when they become public and deny that UFOs really exist. -Keyhoe put the absurdity of the Air Force's explanations on display for all to see and I think by many accounts, the number of reports actually

started to drop because people didn't want to subject themselves to the public ridicule. [Garrett Graff] So Keyhoe becomes the driving force behind NICAP, The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.

Which becomes the model for civilian investigation into UFOs. -Instead of being a subject for ridicule, and a big joke, actually it's a serious matter which could affect the lives of all of us.

[Garrett Graff] NICAP is conducting its own investigations, talking to witnesses, as well as trying to put pressure on the government to release the knowledge that it does have about the

reality of UFOs. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] In many cases, the Air Force didn't send anybody to investigate. They just took in reports

and stamped an explanation on these incidents. Whereas Keyhoe and his organization, they had investigators around the country that met, and analyzed a lot of these incidents.

It's an important counterpoint to the Air Force's decades of saying, “Nothing to see here.” -I think that Project Blue Book started off as a sincere effort to try to get to the bottom of what this phenomenon was.

But there was a sense in the general public that there was a coverup going on that they were not telling us the truth about what they really knew about UFOs. -In the mid-1960s, the Air Force decided that

it would be prudent to have an external academic review of UFOs and the UFO cases. And so in the mid-1960s, the Condon Committee was formed. -Dr.

Condon, do you hope to find people from outer space here on earth? -Well I don't know for sure but we'll try to just study the reports and get as much additional information as we can to see. -Dr.

Edward Condon was a physicist who had a track record that was quite respectable. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] In the years and months before the final report came out, Condon was on record

belittling the topic. -Before the study even began, he said in a speech that the government should get out of the UFO business, there's nothing to it. He later wrote the

authors of UFO books should be horsewhipped. [Leslie Kean] Condon is actually on the record saying that he didn't think the Air Force should have anything to do with UFOs, but, he said, “I'm not supposed to make that conclusion for another year.” [Marik Von Rennenkampff]

One of his staff members wrote a memo that says, the trick is to make this thing appear objective. And when the report actually came out, Condon wrote the top-level conclusion.

[Leslie Kean] He wrote a summary of his own report, which basically said there's nothing to any of it, it's not worthy of scientific investigation. Whereas if you read the report, there are many cases inside

of it that were not explained and were stated as such in the report. -There are contradictions in this report. They state in the

beginning that all the evidence is negative, there is no evidence indicating any reality of UFOs as devices under intelligent control. However, in the report itself, you will find numerous cases which say that these,

apparently the object in there was real and it looks as though it could be a UFO. [Linda Powell] Keyhoe went all out to try and discredit the report. And he undermined

confidence in it, but not sufficient to overturn it. -The government in 1969 closed its official investigation of UFOs with Project Blue Book and said, "There's no alien craft,

you know, in the atmosphere, end of story." [Leslie Kean] In 1969, Keyhoe retired, and NICAP was really never the same without his leadership. -As for Major Donald Keyhoe himself, like most of us, he's

never seen a flying saucer. Which may just make him like a mystic who's never seen a ghost. But one must give him credit. He has much faith.

[Linda Powell] Keyhoe was always pushing at the door to try and get disclosure. He was permanently optimistic it was going to come. He never changed.

I think his role is historically important. It shows us how history has repeated itself. [Garrett Graff] In many ways

this feels like the same cycle. Every 20 years the government comes out with a new report saying, “We're definitely sure that UFOs aren't aliens.” As far as I'm concerned, the government is not engaged in some large-scale cover-up

of alien spacecraft and alien bodies. But it does cover up some chunk of the truth about UFOs because the government doesn't want to talk about its own secret research and development projects or

advanced adversary technology. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] But the U.S. government will now need to reckon with some very serious politicians, including Senate

majority leader Chuck Schumer, and the UAP Disclosure Act. This is a very serious, very cautious politician proposing some of the most extraordinary legislation about UFOs that has perhaps ever been seen in the United States Congress.

-Is there anything else you think that we can do with the government to encourage and facilitate more civilian reporting? -I think we're doing it right now. -Okay, great.

-I think this hearing is going to show the American people that their government takes this topic seriously. [Christopher Mellon] It's easy in theory to say, well, of course, you know,

transparency. We should put everything out there. And I lean that way myself, but I don't think we should blithely assume that

it's an easy call. If you're the President of the United States, why do you want to terrify the American public, the world public, with this information, when we can't do

anything about it? The markets are gonna be rattled, and your entire political agenda is probably gonna be overtaken. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] So with UFOs, it's not surprising that there

is some level of secrecy. But in July of 2023, in a move that nobody really saw coming, Senator Chuck Schumer, along with Senator Mike Rounds and a bipartisan group of four other senators, announced the UAP Disclosure Act.

[reporter] Schumer is backing legislation that would create a commission with broad authority to declassify documents about Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. -For a number of years, members of the Senate have

questioned whether or not we were getting all the facts surrounding what was actually going on with unidentified flying objects. Senator Schumer and I had decided that what we really wanted to do was two things.

Number one, provide a central collection facility or location with the National Archives. And then second, we wanted a board of esteemed, capable individuals that

would actually look through a lot of this material and decide what could be released to the public and what should, for national security purposes, be kept private. -The United States government

has gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people. That is wrong, and additionally, it breeds mistrust.

-By allowing for an outside, independent collection of these records, we can make progress in terms of dispelling myths and providing accurate information to the American people. [Marik Von Rennenkampff]

Perhaps most shockingly, the legislation made references to non-human intelligence. -Non-human intelligence. That is what the actual text of that amendment says.

-We've gone from a point in which this entire topic was not taken seriously by the government. And now Congress is talking about the possibility of aliens in legislation.

[Leslie Kean] Non-human intelligence was cited in the legislation at least 18 times or more. -What's impressive to me is that it appeared at all.

-We knew that the question was gonna be, “Do you have knowledge of non-human intelligence?” We haven't seen that, but at least we tried to put it into statute to say we want to get that reported in the future.

-The truth may be out there. But you won't find it in the annual defense bill. The intelligence community nixed provisions to declassify what the government

knows about the unknown. -100%. They just gutted it. The gloves are off, man. -Unfortunately, we didn't

get the whole bill through. We did get it out of the Senate, but the House had a different point of view. They were more concerned

about the disclosure of items that might be sensitive to national security. And they didn't want to make a big deal about UAPs. -You had a very strong

amendment for government transparency on this issue. Whether you believe my allegations or not, this is a government transparency issue at large. I mean, total failure.

It's one of the biggest failures, probably, in the history of Congress. [Marik Von Rennenkampff] Despite the House gutting some of the elements of the Schumer Disclosure Act, President Biden signed into

law a very significant element of that legislation. -Basically, we got part of the bill done, and that was a central location where material would be archived, but we didn't get the disclosure board included.

So we'll continue to work on the issue. -We will keep working, I want to assure the American people, Senator Rounds and I will keep working to change the status quo.

[Marik Von Rennenkampff] We've seen testimony from pilots, we've seen the videos, we've heard from the witnesses. We're seeing, finally, a true interest in addressing this mystery, solving this riddle,

and we should all be intrigued by the unknown. -I received a email on the Navy's secret network. “Urgent safety of flight.” The next day, that email was wiped from my computer.

-There's no doubt that what we saw was the same type of light formations that were reported and well-documented from the ground. -I can remember the

apprehension, the helplessness, abject terror. -Pilots are scared that if they come forward individually, they're out the door. But if we all go together, the door's not big enough to get us all through it at the same time.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.