NARRATOR: Flying disks
make impossible maneuvers.
MAN: Oh!
MICHIO KAKU: Gravitational forces
inside these objects
would crush any living individual.
NARRATOR: Triangular craft
- appear out of thin air.
He actually was a hundred feet away from that flying triangle
and could see through it and the stars above.
NARRATOR: Enormous cylindrical objects
fill the sky.
RICHARD DOLAN: It had the radar return equivalent
to ten aircraft carriers,
except this was up in the air.
NARRATOR: UFO witnesses
have reported objects of all shapes and sizes.
Could they offer important clues
about other intelligent life in our galaxy?
NICK POPE: Might there be links
between the shapes of UFOs
and the different types of entities
that are sometimes reported?
GEORGE NOORY: It's very conceivable they're coming
from different planetary systems
throughout the universe.
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.
At dawn on April 14, 1561,
the citizens of this Bavarian city
at the center of Europe awake to a commotion in the sky
unlike anything they have ever experienced before.
People went outside,
and they saw what they described as a celestial battle.
The witnesses observed seeing hundreds
of these strange‐shaped objects.
What were these strange shapes that they were describing?
NARRATOR: The aerial scene,
illustrated in this contemporary woodcut,
is described in the accompanying text
as a very frightful spectacle.
Strange objects seemed to launch projectiles
as onlookers below watch in amazement.
This was actually witnessed
by thousands of people.
Had it been a meteor shower
or something like this, then the reports
would have been, "Okay, this happened before
because we've seen this before."
But that was new.
HENRY: The witnesses
wouldn't have had a conception
of some kind of a mechanical spacecraft,
but that seems to be exactly what they were describing.
And this has to be
one of the greatest mass sightings
of a UFO phenomena in all of recorded history.
NARRATOR: Incredibly,
a very similar incident was reported
in Basel, Switzerland five years later
and was illustrated in a woodcut
that still exists to this day.
Is it possible
that these two events witnessed by thousands
represent the first mass UFO sightings on record?
TSOUKALOS: The UFO phenomenon is not modern.
It goes back as far as we can remember,
because we have accounts of lights and craft
not only in modern times
but also in ancient times.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists find it remarkable
that the depictions of these 16th century sightings
include every shape of craft that has been reported
by UFO witnesses in modern times.
But it also poses an important question.
If these are, in fact,
representations of alien vehicles,
what could explain all the different shapes?
BIRNES: So, it well might be that different types
of UFOs are tasked for different purposes.
There are scout ships.
There are ships that only orbit.
There are mother ships.
They're all tasked for different purposes.
NOORY: If you look at our planet today,
almost every country has some kind of flying machine
that is different from what we have.
I think the same thing is the case with extraterrestrials.
Let's assume there's ten different E.T. races
within our Milky Way galaxy.
Each one could have a different shape to its craft
because that's just the way they created it.
And I think that's very conceivable when we see
cigar‐shaped UFOs, triangular‐shaped UFOs,
round UFOs.
They're coming from different planetary systems
throughout the universe.
NARRATOR: Could the various shapes that have been witnessed in the sky
for hundreds of years
all represent extraterrestrial crafts,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?
And if so, with a more advanced technological
frame of reference, might modern humans be able to gain insight
about who, or what, is visiting Earth
by examining these shapes?
Are there conclusions that you can make about
the different shapes of UFOs that are reported?
Might there be links even between the shapes of UFOs
and the different types of entities
that are sometimes reported?
NARRATOR: In modern times, the most commonly reported UFO shape
is the iconic "flying saucer."
The term was coined in 1947
after pilot Kenneth Arnold spotted a number
of flying objects near Mount Rainier in Washington,
traveling at incredible speeds.
He described them as skipping through the air
"like a saucer," he said.
And this is really where the term "a flying saucer" arrives
in English language, is from Kenneth Arnold's description.
NARRATOR: With more saucer‐shaped objects reported around the globe,
the United States government began to investigate reports
of UFO activity.
It wasn't just the United States that was interested
in potential UFOs in the mid‐century.
Canada, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom
and Brazil all had various programs to determine
whether or not it was a threat for humans.
NARRATOR: Could it be that reports of flying saucers
caught the attention of world governments because they have
a shape unlike any man‐made aircraft?
Ufologists suggest that these sightings triggered
a competition by world powers to manufacture their own craft
based on this exotic design.
A design that many presumed must have some unknown
but inherent advantage for flight.
There's no question that, historically,
governments have attempted to recreate the shape
of UFO craft that have been seen, spotted or crashed.
NARRATOR: In the 1950s, the Pentagon funded a prototype
for a disc‐shaped craft.
This once‐classified project yielded
a nearly three‐ton flying saucer:
the VZ‐9 Avrocar.
TEITEL: The Avrocar was one attempt
to develop a flying saucer.
And it was a VTOL design. A vertical takeoff and landing.
It was designed by a Canadian company, Avro,
for the U.S. military.
The U.S. Air Force wanted it to be a supersonic interceptor
and fighter,
and the U.S. Army wanted it to be something stealthy
that could hover above the ground in silence
and detect radar.
Avro engineers thought that this big circular wing might be
the design that could meet both requirements.
NARRATOR: In 1959,
after years of top secret development,
this flying saucer prototype was finally put to the test.
ANNOUNCER: In preparation for the final contractual demonstration,
a representative course was selected
where the vehicle could demonstrate its capability
while remaining in view of the observers.
TEITEL: It turned out that the cushion of air under that wing
became extremely unstable just a few feet off the ground.
There was one model built, and some wind tunnel tests done,
but ultimately it was deemed completely
aerodynamically unstable.
NARRATOR: While the Avrocar failed,
in 2019, Romanian engineer Razvan Sabie
and aerodynamicist Iosif Taposu unveiled their answer
to the flying saucer problem.
The "All Directional Flying Saucer," or ADIFO,
demonstrates precision maneuverability,
and outperforms all previously known flying saucers
constructed by humans.
TEITEL: The ADIFO design looks really interesting.
It looks like a highly maneuverable
flying saucer design.
But it's small, and it's a drone.
It would be interesting to see how the engineering works
with a full‐size design,
because engineering is very difficult,
and usually doesn't scale up very cleanly.
NARRATOR: This saucer utilizes four ducted fans
like a quad copter drone,
and it is also equipped with jets for added thrust,
and lateral nozzles that provide side‐to‐side mobility
and rotation.
The saucer only currently exists as a miniature prototype,
but its creators plan to pursue a full‐sized, manned version
capable of hypersonic speed.
If successful, will we have finally achieved the same
technology as extraterrestrial space travelers?
Or could recent events reveal
that they are still light‐years ahead of us?
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists have speculated that one reason
extraterrestrials might have designed disc‐shaped craft
is so that they can instantly change direction,
and at tremendous speeds.
CHILDRESS: We can learn a lot from modern UFO reports.
These disc‐shaped craft are able to make sudden turns,
turning at‐at high speeds in any direction.
DOLAN: When you're thinking in terms of aerodynamics,
shape should matter a great deal.
But what if aerodynamics is not really relevant?
What if these objects are able to employ a different kind
of a science that makes aerodynamics irrelevant?
CHILDRESS: One of the concepts here
is that these circular or disc‐shaped craft
are using antigravity for propulsion.
They're not rockets.
They're antigravity.
They're generating their own gravitational field,
which would likely be
a spherical field around the craft.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that reports of disc‐shaped objects
changing direction at incredible speeds,
some of which have even been captured on video,
are alien craft with antigravity technology?
While there is no hard evidence
that antigravity aircraft do exist,
there has been much speculation
as to how such craft might function.
One theory is that they could be,
in part, driven by centrifugal force,
the force that is felt by a rotating or spinning object.
The shape of these craft is consistent
with these different models of rotation
around a central axis
involving something with high mass
and high energy.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists point out
that such spinning wheel‐like machines
bear an eerie resemblance to one of the most famous
and enigmatic stories from the Hebrew Bible,
the story of Ezekiel's wheel.
TSOUKALOS: When you have these ideas
that are currently proposed
of these gigantic wheels in the sky
that spin on their own axis
in order to create artificial gravity,
I might as well be reading Ezekiel.
It's very similar.
NARRATOR: In the Bible's Book of Ezekiel,
the prophet describes a fiery chariot
drawn by four living creatures.
Each creature is flanked by a metallic object,
a wheel within a wheel,
that Ezekiel observes as it descends,
making a tremendous amount of noise.
In his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods?,
ancient astronaut theory pioneer Erich Von Daniken
proposed that what was actually being described in Ezekiel
was a spaceship.
NASA engineer Josef Blumrich
was determined to debunk this controversial theory.
But after painstaking research,
the author was shocked to find himself agreeing
with Erich Von Daniken.
In 1974,
he published his own book supporting Erich's theory,
entitled The Spaceships of Ezekiel.
TSOUKALOS: Blumrich reads Ezekiel,
and he has an epiphany.
Because what is he describing?
He's describing a wheel up in space.
Blumrich says,
"By gosh, Erich is right."
And so he conceived what Ezekiel may have described
in that ancient biblical text.
TAYLOR: Ezekiel describes
that the outside of the wheel doesn't spin.
The inside of the wheel spins.
So he's‐he's telling us that's the engines.
None of this necessarily has to be magic.
This could all be technology.
HENRY: Perhaps what the wheel actually signifies
is the secret of the gods,
the secret of their extraterrestrial spacecraft
and how humans might be able to reverse engineer that wheel
and ultimately make their own craft.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that a story from the Bible's Old Testament
describes the propulsion system
of an extraterrestrial spacecraft?
While Ezekiel's description of wheels within wheels
may represent a primitive interpretation
of highly advanced technology,
one man claims to have firsthand knowledge
that antigravity craft do exist:
Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar.
Investigative journalist George Knapp was the first
to interview him in 1989
about the notorious military base
that has long been rumored to be hiding alien technology.
He told this incredible story, that he'd been working
at this facility called S4, south of Groom Lake.
That they had a hangar hidden in the desert to make it look
like it was actually a part of the desert terrain,
and inside those hangers were, uh, nine flying saucers.
So Bob Lazar was tasked at area S4, a subsite of Area 51,
to reverse engineer the power and propulsion
of what we know as a flying saucer.
All of the nine craft that Lazar was able to see with his eyes
were said to have worked on the same gravity system.
Bob Lazar said the craft would turn belly‐first
and the gravity wave amplifiers would all point to the place
in time‐space where you want it to go.
We're talking about a gravity‐propelled craft.
We're talking about something that...
y‐you don't have any effect of the inertia or‐or momentum.
It's just instantaneously voom‐voom‐voom!
One place, then the next.
BOB LAZAR: Element 115 was
what we would call the fuel that provided the power
for the reactor to work.
Element 115 affects gravity.
Element 115 produces its own gravitational energy.
The resulting gravity wave creates a distortion
in front of it, allowing the craft to slide forward.
And that's how it proceeds.
NARRATOR: Could Bob Lazar's extraordinary claims
about the flying saucers he allegedly worked on at S4,
along with video evidence of UFOs,
reveal that there are alien aircraft in our skies
equipped with antigravity technology?
KAKU: Antigravity is not possible with the known laws of physics.
So when I talk to my physicist friends about flying saucers
and stuff like that, I get the giggle factor.
They start to giggle, their eyes roll up into the heavens,
because, you see, I think they make a mistake.
They assume that the aliens are maybe
100 years more advanced than us, in which case, yeah,
it is impossible for a civilization 100 years from us
to reach us from the stars.
But what if, what if they are a million years ahead of us?
New laws of physics are gonna open up
once you have a civilization
that is a million years more advanced than us.
And a million years is nothing but a blink of an eye
compared to the age of the universe.
NARRATOR: Many UFO researchers believe the flying saucer
is designed to take advantage
of an antigravity propulsion system,
and is the optimal shape
for maneuvering quickly in any direction.
But what could explain the numerous other types
of unidentified craft that have been reported?
Perhaps further clues can be found by examining a UFO shape
that more closely resembles man‐made aircraft:
the flying triangle.
NARRATOR: At 6:55 p.m., local police receive a report
of a massive V‐shaped object
traveling southeast across the night sky.
Over the next three hours,
the craft is witnessed by thousands of people
as it journeys down through Arizona and into Sonora, Mexico.
With most of the reports coming from Phoenix,
as well as photographs and video footage,
the incident becomes known as the Phoenix Lights.
DOLAN: The entire city of Phoenix was able to see
this half a mile‐long display of lights over the city
in a very, very distinctive pattern.
It was a triangular‐ish shaped object seen very reliably
by quite a large number of witnesses.
BIRNES: Who's our best witness
to that, the best one?
Governor Fife Symington of Arizona.
FIFE SYMINGTON: As a pilot and a former Air Force officer,
uh, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble
any man‐made object that I'd ever seen.
BIRNES: He says, "Yeah, I really did see the UFO," and he describes it.
He actually was, maybe, 100 feet away from that flying triangle,
and could see through it and the stars above.
DOLAN: Governor Symington was a qualified pilot,
and in the Air Force Reserve as well.
I think he knew what he was seeing.
NARRATOR: The governor of Arizona described
a strange triangular UFO that appeared translucent,
camouflaging itself amidst the star field above.
This incredible mass UFO sighting
made the front page of USA Today.
And then three years later, it happened again.
At 4:00 a.m.,
three large triangular objects are seen by multiple witnesses,
including police officers,
flying silently in the night sky.
I looked up in the sky and observed
this huge arrow‐shaped, triangular‐shaped object.
NARRATOR: They are observed for at least two hours
and over more than one town.
SCHRATT: This is known as the famous
Southern Illinois Flying Triangle.
We have about four different police officers.
What they describe seeing
are three distinct arrowhead‐shaped craft.
Officer Craig Stevens...
he was directly below one of these triangles.
And he said
that it was trying to cloak
or camouflage itself against the night sky,
and was projecting the star field above it
on the bottom surface,
allowing it to effectively blend in with its background.
NARRATOR: The ability
of triangular‐shaped objects to hide in plain sight
reminds many observers of modern stealth technology.
Developed by the U.S. military
in the 1970s and '80s,
stealth technology allows triangular‐shaped aircraft
to appear invisible to radar,
sonar and other detection methods.
MICHAEL DENNIN: To make something invisible to radar,
all you have to do is make sure
that the radar doesn't reflect back to the receiver.
So, you send out a radio signal, you bounce it off the plane,
you get the signal back, and now you detect it by radar.
This all comes down to mostly the shape of the planes,
though it's a little bit the material, too,
but it's predominantly the shape.
You want it shaped in a way
so that the radar either scatters in random directions
or literally just bounces off in a completely opposite way.
NARRATOR: Could the masking technology
attributed to the Illinois flying triangle
and to the craft observed during the Phoenix Lights incident
be a highly advanced version of this same principle?
Some kind of alien stealth?
MICHAEL SALLA: Stealth technology has been developed
to hide some of these spacecraft
to simulate an environment behind the craft.
So this can be done in a way to make a craft disappear.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest
that the triangular shape employed
by the Phoenix and Illinois craft,
and now by the U.S. military,
has populated the skies since ancient times.
As proof, they point to evidence
of triangular E.T. surveillance craft in the ancient world,
in the form of a symbol often called the "all‐seeing eye."
BRUCE FENTON: The triangle with an eye in the center
is commonly used as a depiction of God, particularly
in ancient Egypt, but we also see this
in the Catholic faith, Masonic circles.
We see it on the U.S. dollar bill,
and indeed, you know, in some of the ancient artwork.
Now, could it be because the craft,
which we have reported in the skies...
they look like a triangle with a light in the center,
rather like an eye looking down on us?
NARRATOR: Some believe that the eerie similarity
between triangle‐shaped UFOs and the U.S. military's
stealth aircraft is no mere coincidence.
Stealth technology traces its roots back to
a single series of papers written by a Soviet physicist.
This Soviet physicist realized
radar doesn't see the way that the human eye sees.
And so, if you change the shape or composition of an object,
that'll affect how it shows up on radar.
American engineers, when they learned about this,
went back and started experimenting with
how to apply that to an aircraft.
And a lot of their test work was done at Area 51 and Groom Lake,
which, of course, has just made it a mecca
for conspiracy theorists.
And then, later, people started to wonder if there were actually
alien technologies there.
NARRATOR: Area 51?
The U.S. Air Force installation in Nevada,
long suspected to be hiding alien technology?
Is it possible that the conspiracy theorists are right,
and that the stealth bomber is the result of
reverse engineering extraterrestrial craft?
A lot of people say this is actually something
we've developed,
back engineered from extraterrestrial technology.
This is absolutely quantum leap technology.
NOORY: I think there's no question that
we have reverse engineered,
or have looked at the shapes of these craft,
and have tried to create it for ourselves.
Look at some of the new stealth jets
that are coming out right now.
They're amazingly close to what we saw 20 years ago
from UFO reports.
NARRATOR: UFOs shaped like triangles and saucers,
reported in the skies for centuries,
can potentially teach mankind a lot about the alien entities
who may be piloting them.
But are these craft the actual mother ships
that carried alien visitors across the vast distances
of interstellar space?
Or are they simply smaller probes designed to enter
and navigate the Earth's unique atmosphere?
And if so, did these probes arrive here on board
much larger vessels...
vessels with entirely different shapes,
and with sizes that would stagger the human imagination?
NARRATOR: Two Chilean pilots are conducting a training mission
at 35,000 feet when they detect something highly unexpected:
a massive cigar‐shaped object.
They encountered visually and on their airborne radar
an absolutely enormous object in the sky.
And in fact, two separate ground‐based radars
tracked this object.
We are told that it had the radar return
equivalent to ten aircraft carriers.
Except this wasn't floating on the water,
this was up in the air.
NARRATOR: One aircraft carrier alone is a massive vessel that stretches
to about 1,000 feet in length,
and towers 30 stories above the water.
Some can hold upwards of 75 aircraft,
and can accommodate over 4,000 personnel.
DOLAN: I don't know what could be as large as ten aircraft carriers
up in the sky, but this was quite immense.
As the pilots approached this object...
and you have to imagine they had to be somewhat terrified...
one of them described it as a very elongated object
swathed in smoke.
As they got to a certain distance,
this thing instantly accelerated and was just gone.
NARRATOR: Based on the descriptions of the two pilots,
many researchers believe this to be
the largest UFO ever reported.
And, in fact, many of the larger UFOs on record
have a similarly cylindrical shape.
The cylindrical craft is a typical UFO shape,
one that we see a lot of.
And, in fact, the very first photo of a UFO is of a huge
cylindrical craft over Mount Washington in New Hampshire,
taken in 1870, right at the very beginning of photography.
NARRATOR: On March 25, 1989,
an infrared image was taken by an unmanned
Soviet Martian probe called Phobos 2
that was beamed back to Earth.
It captured a massive 15‐mile long, cylinder‐shaped UFO
approaching one of the two small moons of Mars.
Mysteriously, moments after the photo was taken,
the Soviet probe disappeared.
PAUL STONEHILL: JPL was in the know.
They kept watching, I think, every second of the mission.
They knew when the probe disappeared
and then was destroyed.
So I think there is something on that moonlet
that is capable of destroying spacecraft from Earth,
and they know it.
NARRATOR Officially, the loss of the Phobos 2 probe
was blamed on a malfunction of the onboard computer,
but no explanation was ever provided for the enormous
cylindrical object that was captured by its camera.
Could it be that the cylindrical craft was in fact a mother ship
from a distant star system?
In 2017, another massive cigar‐shaped object was spotted
traveling towards Earth.
And this time, astronomers made international headlines
when they announced that this strange intruder had, indeed,
arrived from a distant star...
the first interstellar object ever proven to have entered
Earth's solar system.
In October of 2017, there was the very strange object...
...very cylindrical and long called Oumuamua,
which was, I believe, sent to our solar system.
POPE: We've had some space stories
which have been pretty eye‐opening, like Oumuamua,
where we've had open speculation about how this thing might be
an interstellar spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that massive cigar‐shaped objects
like Oumuamua, the image captured by the Phobos 2 probe,
and the UFO witnessed by pilots in Chile represent alien craft?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and believe that these craft serve a specific purpose,
one that can be found by examining sacred Hindu texts
that date back thousands of years.
DEEPAK SHIMKHADA: In Hindu texts, such as
the Ramayana or the Mahabharata,
a vimana is primarily a flying ship that God use
to travel back and forth between spaces...
in heaven, from one planet to another planet,
from one universe to another universe,
and also come to Earth.
CHILDRESS: The vimana texts describe at least five different types
of vimanas that have different shapes.
Some vimanas are tubular, cylindrical craft
that can carry large amounts of people in them.
All these Vedic texts speak of a time
when three cities were orbiting Earth.
And from these cities, smaller vehicles were used
in order to reach the realm of the Earth.
Even extraterrestrials
with their advanced technology
would have to arrive with a larger mother ship
orbiting the Earth. And from that mother ship,
smaller vehicles will enter the Earth's atmosphere,
going back and forth.
And this is why we have these stories of vehicles
with which to reach the larger palaces up in the sky.
Personally, I also think that whatever it is seen today
with the modern UFO phenomenon, the big craft is out there.
The so‐called cigar shape could be the larger vehicles,
which were orbiting the Earth.
NARRATOR: Could it be that reports of cigar‐shaped UFOs
are really sightings of alien mother ships?
Are these the interstellar barges
that transport both extraterrestrials
and their fleet of aircraft across vast distances of space?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest that by more closely examining
the behavior of these variously shaped UFOs,
we may learn something about the beings that pilot them,
or if they are even piloted at all.
NARRATOR: An unidentified glowing object descends from the darkness
and hovers above the Temple Mount,
a holy site revered in Judaism, Christianity
and Islam for thousands of years.
The 2011 UFO sighting over the Temple Mount
is absolutely fascinating.
You see this light slowly descend.
RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: That happened in Jerusalem
on a Friday night on a Sabbath.
We have too many witnesses from too many sources
that can prove that this actually happened.
And this is what happened.
There was a light that appeared over the Temple Mount.
And it was just there. A glowing globe.
And it was picked up on film by multiple different people
from multiple different forms.
‐And suddenly... ‐MAN: Oh! God!
...it accelerates vertically upwards at immense speed,
and you can hear some of the passersby gasping
‐in shock and amazement. ‐MAN: Oh!
If this is genuine, it's of extreme significance.
NARRATOR: The Jerusalem UFO exhibited astounding acceleration
and maneuverability, but it's hardly alone.
MAN: Whoa!
NARRATOR: On September 18, 2013,
in Wittenberge, Germany,
a witness records an unidentified
triangular object that is also capable
of accelerating at impossible speed.
And in December 2017, infrared footage goes public
showing a Tic Tac shaped object off the coast of California
that radio operators track at 3,600 miles an hour.
The fastest man‐made aircraft, the Lockheed SR‐71 Blackbird,
tops out at just over 2,000 miles an hour.
DOLAN: When you're looking at all of the different UFO reports
over the many years, with all of the shapes
and types of performance that are noted...
flying saucer‐shaped objects,
spherical‐shaped objects,
cigar‐shaped objects...
all of these have shown incredible ability
to accelerate. All of them.
NARRATOR: For UFO researchers,
the most compelling accounts are those in which the object
maneuvers in such a way that it not only exceeds
the abilities of any man‐made aircraft,
but would actually kill a human pilot.
DENNIN: So when you think about things moving
and having very high accelerations in g‐forces,
we know that most things based on organic matter
that are living are going to be unlikely
to survive those forces.
TEITEL: There's only so many g‐forces the human body can take
before you run into a lot of medical problems.
So with some of these fast‐moving objects...
people have seen move in ways that would kill a pilot.
NARRATOR: Are extraterrestrial crafts
flown by incredibly resilient beings
capable of withstanding forces
that would otherwise kill a human pilot?
There was this DIA report, Defense Intelligence Agency,
about these different types of alien creatures,
one of which is fascinating. It's called transmorphic.
And what that means is,
these creatures aren't corporeal the way we are.
They're energy beings, they're light beings.
NARRATOR: Some believe these objects that fly at bone‐crushing speeds
could be piloted by beings that are not bound
to a rigid physical form.
But others suggest a more likely explanation
is that the craft don't have pilots inside them at all.
KAKU: These are hypersonic devices.
They can also zigzag, and the amount of zigzagging
is so great that the gravitational forces
inside these objects as they jerk through space and time
would crush any living individual.
In my opinion, whatever these objects are,
they're guided either by remote control
or by an autonomous cybernetic system.
FENTON: Now when we look at the cutting edge
of science today,
we realize that space exploration
probably won't be carried out by living people,
but instead by robot craft,
and this is already happening.
You know, our explorations of Mars and of the solar system
involve robot craft, not human beings.
Could it be that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization
would have gone down the same route
and sent living AI craft to explore our planet?
NARRATOR: If aircraft of all shapes and sizes
have been sent to Earth from alien mother ships,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,
could they be robotic drones that are remotely controlled
from far above the planet?
Or is it even possible that the craft possess
highly advanced artificial intelligence,
and fly autonomously?
And if there are no pilots to accommodate,
could this suggest that these crafts are capable
of more than we ever imagined?
NARRATOR: A robotics team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
announces a new prototype robotic system
that will one day be able to explore
the most inaccessible areas of distant worlds.
Mini‐robots that can combine and transform
to roll, fly, float,
and swim in any environment.
NASA is calling them "Shapeshifters."
NASA is looking at shape‐shifting robots
to explore other moons and planets.
Like Saturn's moon, Titan.
It's looking at having a shape‐shifting robot
as part of a probe that could adapt
to the different environment on Titan's surface.
Flying through the air, exploring the ground,
and even going into the methane and ethane seas.
The individual components are kind of
self‐contained Mini‐robots
that work together as a collective
and create new and interesting shapes,
depending on what you need to go through.
It's been noted with a number of UFOs that have been observed,
sometimes they change shape.
At one point, they look like a triangle
and then they look like a disc.
NARRATOR: Another technology that NASA is developing
for deep space travel is self‐replicating robots:
artificially intelligent machines
that are able to use the resources found
on celestial bodies to create more of themselves,
colonize planets,
and even evolve into more sophisticated machines.
This has led some to speculate
that the UFOs witnessed in our skies
are not dependent on external control at all.
KAKU: If you're an alien civilization
looking at the galaxy with a hundred billion stars,
you may not want to send Captain Kirk hopping one by one.
You'd send self‐replicating robots.
They would land on the planet,
make hundreds of carbon copies of themselves
that would launch off and colonize other moons.
From one robot, you would get a hundred, then a thousand,
then a million, billion.
While we are certainly dealing with technological craft
in certain instances,
it's also true that we are finding evidence
for conscious entities that are spacecraft.
NARRATOR: From an ancient Egyptian symbol
to a 16th century Swiss illustration,
and modern‐day footage captured by military aircraft,
is there overwhelming evidence that UFOs
and extraterrestrial craft not only exist,
but they have been present on planet Earth
for thousands of years?
Flying discs with exotic propulsion systems,
stealth aircraft that can appear and disappear at will,
and massive mother ships carrying space travelers
from light‐years away.
As new technologies allow us to capture more and more
unidentified flying objects,
perhaps we will soon discover
that their numbers are far greater
than we ever imagined,
and it is not that they are in our airspace,
but that we are in theirs.