NARRATOR: Mysterious orbs of light...
BILL BIRNES: Reagan says, "I just saw a UFO."
He's not just being crazy.
He knows exactly what it is.
NARRATOR: ...strange visions...
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: George Washington sees this glowing,
beautiful creature who describes
the future history of the United States.
NARRATOR: ...and glowing humanoid figures,
all reported by presidents of the United States.
NICK POPE: We have an extraordinary series of stories.
President after president after president
being associated with a sighting.
NARRATOR: For decades,
the White House has denied
having any knowledge of alien craft visiting Earth.
JOHN PODESTA: Even discussing UFOs tends
to be viewed as a career‐ender.
NARRATOR: But is it possible that extraterrestrials
have been monitoring
and even influencing America's presidents?
LAURA EISENHOWER: It's really hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact
that there was all this E.T. contact going on.
DENNIS KUCINICH: There's a line, "You shall know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free."
NARRATOR: There is a doorway
in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
In a wide‐ranging interview,
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson asks
President Donald Trump his thoughts about UFOs.
You gave an interview the other day
in which you said you've been briefed
on unidentified flying objects.
Are they... are they real?
Personally, I tend to doubt it.
We have had people saying that they've seen things.
I don't assume it's correct, but,
you know, I have an open mind, Tucker.
NARRATOR: To UFO experts,
the president's response raises a key question.
If U.S. intelligence officials
have secret knowledge of alien visitations,
are American presidents informed or kept in the dark?
In August 2019,
former British Ministry of Defense UFO investigator
Nick Pope posed this question to Tucker Carlson.
Do you think he knows more than he's letting on?
Or do you think, as some people say,
even the president doesn't know?
My impression was
that the president does know more than he said.
Once in office,
every president has become mum on the subject.
And what it tells you is
they likely know something
that they've decided to keep from the public.
Look, I don't know what they know.
And so perhaps they have a good reason
to lie to the public about it,
but... I doubt it.
NARRATOR: Months later,
as the 2020 election year begins to heat up,
several of Donald Trump's presidential challengers
are asked by New Hampshire based reporter Daymond Steer
of The Conway Daily Sun
about where he or she stands on the issue of UFOs
and government disclosure.
It's very unlikely that we're alone in the universe.
I think one of the things a president could do
is to look into what's there,
uh, in terms of what's the... what does the science say,
what does our military say.
Of course, we have to explore that
and look at that, if it is true.
NARRATOR: Many people would be surprised to discover
that 36% of all U.S. presidents
have had encounters with unidentified
or unexplained UFO phenomena.
This, according to a recent poll,
is a full 20 points higher
than the number of similar encounters experienced
by average Americans.
We have an extraordinary series of stories.
President after president after president
either seeing a UFO,
commenting on a UFO,
being associated with a sighting.
MARTIN MORGAN: It's not something that just flashed
in American culture briefly.
We can date it back to 1800.
We can date it earlier than that.
This is not a new phenomenon.
Presidents throughout history have been encountering this
during almost the entire history of the American nation.
NARRATOR: Could aliens be trying to steer the destiny of America
by influencing its presidents?
Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining the very first presidential encounter
on record.
Amid freezing conditions,
epidemic disease
and shortages of food, clothing and supplies,
General George Washington's Continental Army
faces possible destruction.
MORGAN: In late 1777,
George Washington was kind of at his lowest point.
The Continental Army had been driven out
of the national capital of Philadelphia
to a winter encampment at Valley Forge.
There was an optimism that they would eventually be able
to push the British out of Philadelphia.
But that optimism was dim and bleak
in December 1777 at Valley Forge.
NARRATOR: Years later,
an aide to General Washington revealed what happened next.
BIRNES: Washington went out into the woods at Valley Forge to pray.
And he saw this image
of this spirit garbed in white
that assured him, "You will win this war."
And the spirit laid out for Washington
the history of what would be the United States of America.
After this meeting,
Washington was‐was invigorated.
He was inspired.
And he realized this is divine fate,
for the United States to exist.
But he first had to defeat the British, which he did.
NARRATOR: Could George Washington really have had
an otherworldly visitation at Valley Forge?
If so, he isn't the only Founding Father
associated with an alien encounter.
In 1801,
Thomas Jefferson filed
one of the country's first official UFO reports
after astronomer William Dunbar told him
about an unexplained aerial sighting
at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
In his report,
Jefferson wrote of a fast‐moving, luminous object
about 70 to 80 feet long
that flew by at about 200 yards above the ground.
After it disappeared over the horizon,
the witnesses heard a tremendous impact in a nearby forest.
Upon investigating,
they found a crash site
where everything had been burned and scorched.
Thomas Jefferson, when he was vice president,
wrote up an official report
of a UFO sighting that had happened in Baton Rouge.
He wrote it up for the American Philosophical Association.
So that, arguably, is the first case
where someone who would go on to be president
made an official UFO report.
NARRATOR: The American Philosophical Society
was founded by Benjamin Franklin,
who, like Thomas Jefferson,
openly expressed his belief
in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
MORGAN: The Founding Fathers' worldview
accommodated the idea that there would be people in other worlds.
And that was principled upon this idea
that you cannot limit God's creativity
just to the world that you observe.
They literally had a vision
of not just the world where we live
but the world beyond it.
And that‐that world beyond theirs,
um, was populated by extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Could the Founding Fathers have been aware
of an otherworldly presence that was helping to ensure
the success of the American experiment?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest that so, too, was the man who took office
at another crucial moment in the nation's history,
Abraham Lincoln.
On April 14, 1865,
just hours before he would be assassinated,
President Lincoln made a shocking admission
to General Ulysses S. Grant.
WILLIAM HENRY: Lincoln met with Grant,
who was awaiting news from General Sherman
about a battle in North Carolina,
and Lincoln assured General Grant
that news would come and it would be positive.
And Lincoln told him that, on the eve of every great battle...
Antietam, Gettysburg, Bull Run...
he had the same dream.
He was in some kind of indescribable vessel
that he was sailing at a very rapid pace
and that this, in fact, led him to understand
that this would be a positive outcome for the Union forces
and lead to the doom of the Confederacy.
POPE: It's almost as if,
at these pivotal turning points in human history,
the president is shown how the United States
will ultimately triumph.
It's a sort of galactic manifest destiny.
NARRATOR: For many,
UFO sightings and strange encounters reported
by U.S. presidents may seem
like little more than frivolous trivia.
But could such events indicate
that there is an unseen hand
guiding the course of the nation?
And if so, where is it leading us?
At the estate of Theodore Roosevelt,
the 26th president of the United States,
a giant orb of light is witnessed by dozens of neighbors
hovering in the sky for nearly two hours.
In 1907,
there was a spectacular UFO sighting
over Sagamore Hill,
one of the residences of President Teddy Roosevelt.
Now, Roosevelt, at the time,
was working on a critically important speech,
and in this speech, he would set out a strategic vision
for the United States to develop a truly modern navy
that would propel the United States
into the position of a global superpower.
MORGAN: As a part of his vision,
Roosevelt wanted to develop Pearl Harbor.
It could be said that were it not for Roosevelt
realizing that vision for the future of the nation,
that American intervention in the First World War
might not have been as significant as it was.
BIRNES: So...
were the UFOs, were the strange lights over Sagamore Hill,
at the same time Theodore Roosevelt was coming up
with this vision of a world consortium of nations,
are they somehow linked?
NARRATOR: Researchers find this incident compelling,
not only because it is connected with a U.S. president
at a critical moment in history, but also because reports
of UFO sightings were incredibly rare
at the beginning of the 20th century.
After World War II, however, this was no longer the case.
And it happened under the watch
of the country's 33rd president,
Harry S. Truman.
LARRY HOLCOMBE: The Truman Administration
was really the golden years
of flying saucers, as they were known then.
You had Kenneth Arnold's sighting.
You had Roswell.
But then the great incident was
the great Washington merry‐go‐round,
where, in two weekends in July 1952,
Washington D.C. was overrun
with strange objects that were tracked
by the radar at National Airport
and radar at Andrews Air Force Base.
This is David Brinkley in the radar room
at Washington National Airport.
On these radar screens last Saturday,
they saw something strange and unusual
and, at the moment, unexplainable.
It was not an airplane. It was not a cloud.
Nobody knows what it was.
HOLCOMBE: The second weekend, jets were scrambled...
...and one pilot called and said,
"What should I do?" Meaning, should I fire on them?
And the strange objects
all of a sudden backed off and disappeared.
NARRATOR: When President Truman was questioned
about UFO incidents, like the Washington D.C. sightings,
he remarkably did not deny the possibility of flying saucers.
Oh, yes, we discussed it at every conference
that we had with the military, and they never had been...
never were able to make me a concrete report on...
There's always things like that going on, uh, flying saucers.
NARRATOR: Many researchers point out
that it was at this point in history...
the dawn of the Cold War... that Truman established a policy
of government secrecy that has come to be known
as the National Security State.
MORGAN: President Truman really sends us down the path
to the modern security state,
with the National Security Act of 1947.
It created the National Security Council,
and it created the Central Intelligence Agency.
Truman is responding to what is now the oncoming Cold War,
this new conflict that will dominate our global politics
for the next five decades.
NARRATOR: Whatever Truman's motivation
for drastically increasing government secrecy,
the topic of UFOs was caught in the web.
UFOs were something that people were experiencing,
and right at the moment when it appears that that activity
is kind of reaching a head, suddenly we have the creation
of the modern National Security State.
Truman clamps down on the open discussion of such things.
STEVEN BASSETT: That's a critical moment in history.
Truman made a decision that was fateful,
and had he gone a different way,
it would have changed the entire 20th century.
When we look at the relationship between presidents and UFOs,
we can split this into two categories.
The historic sightings and encounters.
Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt.
We can say that there's almost a benign element here.
It's almost as if the United States
is being guided and helped.
But then the development of atomic weapons seemed to be
the ultimate game changer.
NARRATOR: Harry Truman's successor,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
is on a golfing vacation
when he fails to show up for a scheduled public dinner.
The press corps is given no explanation
until the president finally reappears the next day,
at which time his staff announces
that he had been at an emergency dentist appointment
for a chipped tooth.
But curiously, Eisenhower's medical and dental records
contain no reference to this dentist visit.
Eisenhower goes to Palm Springs,
and he actually disappears.
There's no doubt about this from the presidential records.
BIRNES: It's really an astounding story.
He's secreted out to this Air Force base
where he meets with aliens.
And he and the aliens strike up a treaty.
And here's the treaty:
"You can stay in our skies, surveil us.
"You can study us.
"In return,
"we want all of your technology,
and we agree not to disclose your existence."
Why?
Because this is after the 1952 invasion
of the UFOs over Washington,
so there's an urgency to Eisenhower
striking a treaty with them.
NARRATOR: Numerous whistleblowers later came forward
claiming that Eisenhower met with extraterrestrial beings
not just once but three times.
And many who have researched these events,
including Eisenhower's own great‐granddaughter,
are convinced a treaty was actually signed.
I just feel like I was just born into this family
to be the one willing to tackle it, willing to give it a voice,
willing to... kind of disseminate it.
And I know it's really hard for people to wrap their heads
around the fact that, during Eisenhower's administration,
there was all this contact going on.
And it's gotten to the point
where there's so much information about it
that it‐it really can't be denied.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that, after World War II
and humankind's development of atomic weapons,
alien visitors communicated directly
with officials within the United States government,
perhaps even Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower?
Ufologists say yes
and suggest further evidence of communication
between extraterrestrials and the White House
can be found by examining a strange incident
that involved President Richard Nixon
and an alien body.
37th President of the United States Richard Nixon
is entering his fifth year in office,
mired in a seemingly never‐ending
military conflict in Southeast Asia.
MORGAN: Richard Nixon was under a great deal of pressure by 1973.
He was heralded into office with the recognition
that he would be our savior from Vietnam.
He gets into office basically promising the American people,
"I'm gonna get you out of that."
But I do promise action,
a new policy for peace abroad,
a new policy for peace and progress
and justice at home.
MORGAN: And then what does he do when he gets into office?
He expands the military mission in Vietnam.
NARRATOR: To escape the daily rigors of his tumultuous presidency,
Nixon schedules a golf outing with his friend Jackie Gleason,
the famous actor and comedian who starred
in the 1950s hit TV series The Honeymooners.
Nixon and‐and Jackie Gleason...
they were very good friends
and frequently played golf together,
in Florida, usually.
And Nixon knew that Jackie Gleason was known to be
a very, uh, big UFO buff.
He had probably one of the largest libraries
on the subject in the world at that time.
EISENHOWER: His house was designed to look like a‐a UFO
and same with his guesthouse.
He was always asking, you know, Nixon questions,
and Nixon, you know, disclosed a lot to him.
NARRATOR: According to an article written by Beverly Gleason,
who was Jackie Gleason's wife at the time,
the actor's golf outing with the president
led to an extraordinary experience.
Hours after Gleason returned home,
a limousine arrived unannounced.
Who's in the car?
It's President Richard Nixon.
And, by the way, there's no Secret Service.
He tells Gleason to climb in.
"This is your dream."
They drive to an Air Force base in Florida.
And what does Nixon show Gleason?
He shows him alien artifacts,
pieces of a UFO
and a dead alien in cold storage.
When he got home, he told his wife all about it...
what he had seen
and how Nixon had taken him there.
And he told other people.
I actually got the interview with Beverly Gleason.
We actually interviewed her.
She stayed to the story.
Jackie was very shaken up when he came home after this thing.
And he was very angry when she made public
the fact that he had seen these bodies.
BASSETT: This is extremely important,
because it indicates that, almost certainly,
Nixon was fully briefed on the E.T. issue.
And if the president wants to go see an E.T. body,
by God, he's gonna get to see one.
And if he's got Jackie Gleason with him, fine.
NARRATOR: When his ex‐wife's story was published in 1983,
67‐year‐old Gleason remained silent about it.
So, too, did Nixon.
Is it possible that the incredible story is true?
UFO historians suggest
that Nixon's actions led to a clampdown
on the information shared with future presidents
and what they were allowed to say publicly.
Attendees of a local Lions Club meeting
spot a mysterious object hovering in the night sky.
Among the witnesses
is future President of the United States Jimmy Carter.
HOLCOMBE: At the time,
Jimmy Carter was standing outside with a group of men,
and they saw a great orb,
uh, in the sky.
Something very unusual that changed color
from orange to a bluish color and back again
and‐and grew in size.
NARRATOR: Nearly four years later,
Carter remained so intrigued by what he witnessed
that he filed an official report
with the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena,
or NICAP.
CAMERON: Jimmy Carter,
when he was running for president,
he had made the promise, "If I become president,
I will release all the files."
POPE: What happened?
He was elected president
and then he walked it back and he said,
"Well, maybe there are some UFO sightings that have
"national security implications,
and perhaps not everything can be released."
BASSETT: The question is,
what role have presidents played
in maintaining this truth embargo,
authorizing it and so forth?
Well, that's somewhat dependent
upon whether they were briefed or not.
Truman was briefed on everything that happened at Roswell
and anything else E.T.‐related.
Eisenhower absolutely would have been briefed in full.
Kennedy, maybe not.
Nixon, we think, was briefed.
Carter, stonewalled and so forth.
One of the stories that's been floating
around the UFO community is that the Democrats don't get
a proper briefing because they don't have the connection
to the military the way the Republicans...
The Republicans know more.
So, the story has always been
that Jimmy Carter didn't get told anything.
Bill Clinton didn't get told anything.
But Ford, Reagan and Bush all knew what was going on.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that there is a party bias
when it comes to what an incoming president is told
about the UFO phenomenon?
Or could Jimmy Carter have been denied access
to government UFO files
because he had promised to release them to the public
during his campaign?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining what happened to a presidential candidate
after he admitted to his own UFO sighting.
TIM RUSSERT: Did you see a UFO?
During the Democratic primary debate at Drexel University,
moderator Tim RUSSERT turns
and addresses presidential candidate Dennis KUCINICH.
RUSSERT: Congressman KUCINICH, a serious question.
Shirley MacLaine writes in her new book
that you sighted a UFO
‐over her home in Washington State,
that you found the encounter extremely moving,
that it was a triangular craft.
Now, did you see a UFO?
Uh, I‐I did.
‐And, uh, the rest of the account...
Hold... I‐I didn't... I...
It was an unidentified flying object, okay?
It's like... It's unidentified.
I saw something. Now...
And, also, you have to keep in mind that more...
that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO
and also that more people in this country,
uh, uh, have seen UFOs
than I think approve of George Bush's presidency.
NARRATOR: The debate moment made national headlines.
Many political commentators speculated
that this admission damaged his campaign.
PODESTA: I think, uh, for most people, it's been
the‐the notion that you are even discussing UFOs
tends to be viewed as a career‐ender.
You know, people think you're a little bit wacky if you're...
if you're, uh, taking the phenomena seriously.
NARRATOR: But just what did Dennis KUCINICH experience?
Former British Ministry of Defense
UFO investigator Nick Pope
has arranged to meet with Dennis KUCINICH at the location
of his 1982 UFO encounter,
the former home
of Academy Award‐winning actress Shirley MacLaine.
The home, which has since been sold,
overlooks Mount Rainier,
the site of the infamous Kenneth Arnold flying saucer incident
that ignited the UFO craze in 1947.
‐Hey there! Welcome! ‐Hi. ‐Hi.
NARRATOR: The current owner agreed to allow Nick and Dennis
to take a look around.
‐Come on in. ‐Go ahead. ‐Thank you.
Wow.
‐Yeah, really.
What a fabulous view.
Oh, look, there's nothing like this.
This is, of course, the location where you had your UFO sighting.
Can you tell me about it?
Well, uh, Nick, I was seated
at a dinner table with myself and two friends.
And I noticed a light in the distance.
Came from the hill directly over the house.
‐Come on. Let me show you, okay? ‐Okay.
‐Wow. Fabulous. ‐So, I was standing out here.
The‐the scope was here.
I‐I brought it up here...
...so that I could get a look at the light.
And when I looked at it, I saw it wasn't just, uh, one light.
It was a series of lights, like a grid,
one stacked on another.
I went back and I looked
and then I saw something that was extraordinary.
I‐I said the lights were separating.
They were definitely moving in this direction.
So, at that point, I came right to the edge here,
and I looked out into the hills to watch
what proved to be three crafts moving in this direction.
Just to be clear,
first seen over there
‐to directly over the house. ‐Right.
Right in the hills in the distance
and then in a straight line.
That straight line would just go right overhead here
and then above the house and then...
‐and then quickly accelerating out of sight. ‐Right. And then whoosh.
Just like that, gone.
‐And that was the last you saw of them? ‐Oh, yeah.
NARRATOR: The next day,
KUCINICH described the experience to Shirley MacLaine.
He would say nothing more about it for 26 years.
And then, when running for the Democratic nomination in 2008,
his private UFO sighting would become a public event,
affecting presidential politics in a most unexpected way.
When the question was asked,
I‐I think there was mention of, you know, feeling almost a...
an emotional connection,
that it spoke to you.
I mean, not in a literal sense but feelings.
I don't know that I ever communicated that to anyone.
But I will tell you this,
that it‐it was extraordinary.
It was exciting.
How could it not be?
I mean, anybody who would see anything like that
would have to be excited.
And was I?
Uh, yeah.
NARRATOR: After the debate,
commentators like Chris Matthews questioned
whether Kucinich's admission had, in effect, disqualified him
from the presidential race.
But he was surprised by the reaction of another candidate,
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Is that disqualifying for a presidential candidate,
‐to say you've seen UFOs?
You know, I've never seen one.
Uh, you know, Roswell, New Mexico, is the hotbed of UFOs,
‐and I promote Roswell as a tourism issue. ‐I know.
The federal government has not come clean on all that issue,
and it should. But, no, I've never seen one.
‐It's an incredible... ‐Wait a minute! Stop the music!
‐Stop the music, Governor.
Did you say the United States government is covering up
a history of the UFO sighting in your state?
‐You said the government hasn't cleared this up yet. ‐Well, the answer there is...
‐What are they hiding, that you say about a UFO? ‐No, they haven't.
Well, they‐they don't produce documents, Chris.
They should just get it all out.
‐And there's a known history about this. ‐What...
‐What is the conspir... What is your belief that they're hiding? ‐I think if they came clean,
if they released all documents...
Look, I don't believe there are UFOs,
but the government has not handled this well
over the years. That's a historical fact.
NARRATOR: Three months after Kucinich's admission,
he withdrew from the Democratic race,
but he remains committed to a policy of disclosure.
KUCINICH: Information ought to be open for people to see
so we know what our government's actually about.
Let the people know. Let the people know
what's going on with unexplained aerial phenomenon.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials have been monitoring
and perhaps guiding the course of the United States
since the time of George Washington,
where is it all leading?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the president
who was most vocal when it came to speculating
about an alien invasion,
Ronald Reagan.
California Governor Ronald Reagan,
along with his security detail,
boards a Cessna aircraft bound for a fundraising event
in Bakersfield.
As the aircraft reaches an altitude of 35,000 feet,
Governor Reagan is startled by a mysterious orb of light,
which appears to be flying alongside his plane.
Ronald Reagan was flying in an airplane
and had an encounter with an unidentified flying object.
He asked the pilot to follow it.
They followed it for a period of time.
Reagan is enthusiastic about this.
When he lands,
he says, "I just saw a UFO."
He's not just being crazy.
He saw the UFO.
He knows exactly what it is.
NARRATOR: The pilot that corroborated Reagan's sighting
was Air Force Colonel Bill Paynter,
who claimed that the UFO appeared to elongate
and then rapidly shoot up into the sky.
HOLCOMBE: Some years later,
the pilot was asked,
did he really think that Reagan believed in UFOs?
And the pilot said, "After what we saw
"in the sky that night,
how could anybody not believe in them?"
NARRATOR: According to historians,
it was this incident
that sparked Ronald Reagan's lifelong interest
and belief in UFOs.
But unlike other politicians
who suffered ridicule for such beliefs,
Reagan did not, and for a very simple reason.
His closest aides kept him from speaking publicly
about his UFO experience
and his belief in extraterrestrials.
HOLCOMBE: The people that worked for him really tried
to keep Reagan under control, so to speak,
because they knew that he was very interested
in this subject and wanted to talk about it publicly.
So they had to kind of keep the lid on it, if you will.
NARRATOR: But did the UFO sighting
influence Ronald Reagan's policies
after he became the 40th president of the United States?
And, if so, could this have also been due
to the fact that, once elected,
he was given even more direct knowledge
of an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth?
Ancient astronaut theorists say "yes," and for proof,
they point to a mysterious document that surfaced in 2005.
I became exposed
to a very, very important document
that March 6 to 8, 1981,
then brand‐new President Ronald Reagan
was taken by his new CIA director,
William Casey, to Camp David.
With them were analysts from the CIA, the NSA, DIA.
And this briefing boiled down to an introduction
to Ronald Reagan of extraterrestrial species
that William Casey was saying, "Sir, you need to understand
that we are dealing with others on this planet."
NARRATOR: Curiously,
throughout his presidency,
Ronald Reagan brought up the subject of what would happen
in the case of an alien invasion
most famously in 1987, when addressing
the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Perhaps we need some outside universal threat
to make us recognize this common bound.
I occasionally think,
how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish
if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.
And yet, I ask you,
is not an alien force already among us?
TSOUKALOS: Reagan was the first one
who said publicly,
"It just needs one extraterrestrial threat,
and that would bring together the entire planet."
So, you have to ask yourself the question,
"Did he know something?"
POPE: Both in discussions
with the Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev,
Reagan alluded to an alien presence.
And Gorbachev says
he was quite taken aback when Reagan said this to him
at the critically‐important point of
pivotal arms negotiations.
And‐and suddenly, Ronald Reagan starts talking
about extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Years later, during a symposium
in New York, President Gorbachev recounted the incident.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that Ronald Reagan knew the truth
about extraterrestrial activity on Earth,
and then kept the facts a secret
for fear of creating a global panic?
As far as many researchers are concerned,
further evidence that President Reagan had knowledge
of an alien presence can be found
by examining one of his most high‐profile
and controversial initiatives... Star Wars.
NARRATOR: On March 23, 1983,
U.S. President Ronald Reagan
launches the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Nicknamed "Star Wars," its stated purpose is
to deter a Soviet attack
by basing defensive weapons in outer space.
I have approved a research program to find, if we can,
a security shield that will destroy nuclear missiles
before they reach their target.
MORGAN: Isn't it interesting
that this man who had this encounter in 1974
is the man who then, less than a decade later,
authorizes the Strategic Defense Initiative,
also known as "Star Wars"?
If you will pardon my stealing a film line,
"The force is with us."
NARRATOR: But was defending the United States
against Soviet nuclear aggression
Ronald Reagan's only motivation?
Some believe that the real purpose
of the Star Wars campaign was to fight extraterrestrials.
It's all about arming planet Earth so that
if the extraterrestrial presence
suddenly turns hostile,
we have the military hardware to resist.
NARRATOR: While Ronald Reagan's
Star Wars program was dissolved in 1993,
some researchers believe it set the nation on a course
for taking the next crucial step
towards connecting with other intelligences.
President Donald Trump reveals the official logo
for the newest branch of the armed services... Space Force.
With my signature today,
you will witness the birth of the Space Force.
And that will be now officially the sixth branch
of the United States armed forces.
That is something really incredible.
NARRATOR: The USSF,
an offshoot of the Air Force,
was established by the Trump administration
to oversee military operations beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
POPE: One of President Trump's
most famous initiatives relates to the Space Force.
Inevitably, the UFO community have said,
"Well, this is about the aliens."
This is almost a carbon copy
of what happened under Reagan's presidency with Star Wars.
MORGAN: Trump's announcement
that the United States is going to have a Space Force
says something important about what he knows
as the president of the United States.
There have been disclosures since he became president
that seem to suggest that his move
in‐in establishing a Space Force has merit.
Space.
There'll be a lot of things happening in space.
Because space is the world's newest war‐fighting domain.
NARRATOR: The final push to create a Space Force
came just months after three leaked military videos
of unidentified aerial phenomena became widely circulated online.
CAMERON: The Navy goes in and shows Trump three videos...
the Go Fast, the Gimbal, and the Tic Tac video,
and basically give him the video.
So what is Trump gonna say? "So what is it?"
And they had to have said, "We don't know, Mr. President.
"We're working on it. We're working on it.
We don't know. We know it's for real."
NARRATOR: Could the formation of Space Force indicate
that we are nearing the point
when an American president will finally reveal
to the world that aliens are among us?
BASSETT: The escalation of the UFO
presence has stimulated the awareness of the world,
driving the process forward
towards an announcement or confirmation
by government, which I call disclosure.
One of the fundamental purposes of the modern era is
to get the world to the point where it will confirm
the presence of these extraterrestrials.
Once the world has had some time
to adjust to that new, profound information,
open contact then becomes not particularly dramatic.
HOWE: In 2019 onward,
I think we're not in disclosure.
I think we're in confirmation.
Donald Trump, as president of the United States,
is admitting that we've got some of our best
military pilots who are reporting UFOs,
and he in the White House and the Department of Defense...
they are watching what the Navy pilots are reporting.
The human race is now more ready than ever to accept the reality
of extraterrestrial involvement in human affairs.
And I think this is ultimately
the end game of the extraterrestrial plan.
And they're here to guide us, to assist us
and to help us to manifest a new future for humanity.
NARRATOR: George Washington encountering a glowing being,
Ronald Reagan witnessing
an orb of light through an airplane window.
Is it possible that America's presidents have known
for centuries the truth
about an extraterrestrial agenda?
If so, then perhaps we are on the threshold of learning,
not only the full history of the United States,
but also the hidden facts about an alien presence
right here on Earth.