- [Tony] Tonight on the Proof is Out There: Alien Edition.
It's the case that put Texas on the UFO map.
What were the mysterious Lubbock Lights?
- I can't think of a single
rational explanation for this photo.
- [Tony] Can this anomaly shed light
on why Southern California is a magnet for UFOs?
- There's a lot of people who believe
that UFOs open up wormholes or portals.
The Catalina Islands would be a sort of entry point
for UFOs to use.
- [Tony] And is Las Vegas' UFO spike tied to Area 51?
- They're only about 80 miles from the famed Area 51
where the US government has been going on retrieval missions
to collect crashed UFOs.
- [Tony] With UFO reports at an all time high,
we're examining the most compelling
evidence caught on camera.
Tonight's focus, UFO hotspots around the world.
Our experts will analyze the evidence
and then pass a verdict.
- [Matthew] Is it alien?
Is it extraterrestrial?
- Consensus was this is a UFO.
- [Brett] Oh my God.
- [Tony] The Proof starts now.
[uptempo music]
Good evening and welcome to The Proof is Out There.
UFO sightings happen all over the world,
but UFO hotspots,
those are the places they just keep coming back to.
Our first stop is Texas where everything is supersized,
including the UFO sightings.
We've analyzed video from across the state,
but we are zeroing in on Lubbock.
For more than seven decades,
it's been home to a phenomenon that has baffled experts.
Let's see if we can shed some light on the Texas-sized
mystery of the Lubbock Lights.
August 31st, 1951, 18-year-old Carl Hart Jr.
has his bed pushed next to an open window
in his Lubbock, Texas home.
He's waiting for a strange recurring phenomenon
he'd read about in the papers.
Suddenly it appears, Hart grabs his camera
and runs out into the backyard
to capture the stunning sight.
A V-shaped formation of 15 to 30 lights
appears in the night sky.
Eyewitnesses say the lights were bluish green in color,
traveling silently overhead from north to south.
The lights then disappeared
only to reappear a few minutes later.
- Five days earlier on August 25th,
the same formation appeared in the sky
in view of three college professors,
one of which was an engineer and another was a physicist.
If any group of people had the skills
to figure out what this was, it was that group.
- [Tony] After that first sighting,
the professors would often observe these lights
two or three times a night for the next few weeks
before they disappeared forever.
Despite no shortage of eyewitnesses,
Carl was the only one able
to successfully capture the lights on film.
- [Amy] Carl Hart was ultimately interrogated by the US Air Force
and eventually the FBI as part of Project Blue Book
- [Tony] Project Blue Book was the code name
for the systematic study of UFOs by the US Air Force
from 1947 to 1969,
- [Amy] Lieutenant Edward Ruppelt,
who was the lead investigator on Project Blue Book,
also got in on Hart's story.
He looked at the negatives of the photographs
and determined they were authentic and untempered with.
- [Tony] Project Blue Book reviewed over 12,000 cases.
About 700 of them were determined to be genuine UFOs,
including the Lubbock Lights.
However, Lieutenant Ruppelt also conducted
his own investigation and later claimed to have learned
what caused the Lubbock Lights.
But don't get excited just yet.
- [Amy] On the condition that he remain anonymous,
a scientist confided in Ruppelt
that these lights were actually consistent
with a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Ruppelt kept the secret of what the natural phenomenon is
because he realized that any discussion
or any information would lead people back to the scientist.
- [Tony] So while Ruppelt may have had an answer,
as far as we're concerned,
the Lubbock lights remain an unsolved mystery.
- [Amy] No one knows exactly what these lights are
and many question that Ruppelt ever had
an anonymous scientific source.
Whatever this naturally occurring phenomena is,
it has eluded other scientists for decades.
- [Tony] This isn't your typical UFO sighting.
This happened multiple times a night over two weeks
and hundreds of people saw it,
but we still don't have confirmation of what it was
unless you believe Lieutenant Ruppelt
really did have an anonymous source who figured it out.
Let's see if our experts can shed
some light on this mystery.
[intriguing music]
Could this be a flock of birds
reflecting the streetlights below them?
- Birds generally aren't going to be reflective enough
to shine this brightly at night.
I've photographed birds at night many times.
They never show up as brighter than the surrounding sky.
The birds are always silhouetted.
These lights were incredibly bright.
- [Tony] Others speculate that these
were secret military craft.
- If we are to assume that each of the points of light
that are on the photograph are an individual aircraft
that would suggest that these would be aircraft
that are extremely densely packed together,
far more so than what would be safe
in conventional airborne operations.
And so it leads me to believe
that we're not looking at individual planes.
- [Tony] Perhaps then this was one aircraft
with several lights?
But according to Ruppelt's independent investigation,
the Lubbock Lights were thought to be flying at an altitude
of only 800 to 1,000 feet,
just a fraction of the height
of a standard commercial aircraft.
McMillan says any plane at that altitude
should have been heard as well as seen.
- [LT. Tim] Eyewitnesses said that they didn't hear any noise.
The idea that you would be able to do that silently,
it's not consistent with the technology we have today,
much less in 1951.
- [Tony] What about Ruppelt's anonymous scientist?
He claimed the Lubbock Lights were quote,
"A very commonplace
and easily explainable natural phenomenon."
- I can confidently say this is not meteorological.
There are reports say that this happened
over and over continuous days.
That is unlike weather, the wind conditions,
the temperature, all that is gonna change
on a day-to-day basis.
It's not astronomical either.
Whether we're talking about meteors or comets.
Objects from outer space never fall in perfect formation.
- [Tony] Which of course leaves only one more option.
- [Juan] Whether or not it's out of this world,
that's not for me to decide.
[intriguing music]
- [Tony] Our verdict, the same as Project Blue Book's,
we're calling this a genuine UFO.
At least until Lieutenant Ruppelt's
anonymous source is revealed,
along with his explanation.
[mysterious music]
Lubbock has continued to be a hotspot
with over 60 reported sightings in the last two decades.
Take a look at our next sighting,
which has one loyal proof viewer seeing double.
Memorial Day 2022.
Lubbock, Texas Insurance agent Blake Bednarz
is lounging by the pool with his family
when he spots something odd,
or more specifically, two somethings
flying in the sky above his house.
It prompts him to begin recording on his smartphone.
- These were unlike anything I've ever seen before.
They made no sound whatsoever.
- [Tony] Look closely.
The objects appear to fly in perfect formation
at a very tight distance to one another.
They coordinate every turn,
seeming to anticipate one another's changes.
- [Blake] What's strange is no one said bird,
that never came to anyone's mind because of the sheer size.
In my opinion, the two objects were about the size
of a small Cessna aircraft.
- [Tony] As we saw in our first story,
the Lubbock Lights put this Texas town
on the UFO map in 1951.
- [Narrator] And down in Lubbock, Texas
reports of lights that streaked across the sky
on a clear dark night.
- [Tony] But before we call the Men in Black,
let's consider another reason why Lubbock
might have such busy skies.
- [Amy] Lubbock is very close to multiple military bases
in Clovis, Wichita Falls, and Abilene.
So it's very possible that this is something
that originated from one of those military bases.
- [Tony] Blake is clearly a dogged UFO investigator.
In fact, he said he later tried to search
for the objects he saw on public flight radar sites,
but he came up empty-handed.
Will our experts?
[intriguing music]
Let's start with the biggest question.
Could Blake have captured an alien spacecraft?
- [LT. Tim] You see wings on both objects.
What that tells us is A, we can rule out spacecraft.
Airplanes are designed to fly within the earth's atmosphere
by using gravity and using air currents to generate lift.
Now, in the vacuum of space, you don't need wings.
- [Tony] Could it be a military plane then?
Online speculation of Blake's footage
noted similarities to the T-6 Texan II.
It's a plane often used in air force training.
As you can see by this cockpit footage,
instructors use the T-6
to help new pilots get over the fear of flying
very close in combat formation.
But a T-6 should show up on radar
and remember, Blake's radar data research
turned up a whole lot of nada
and McMillan says something else is missing too.
- [LT. Tim] A T-6 is a World War II era propeller plane
that is still in use to this day.
That wouldn't be what we're looking at
because we don't see the tail stabilizers of that aircraft.
We're just missing that really key component.
- [Tony] So if it's not a spacecraft
and not a typical military fighter,
can it just be a pair of large birds soaring
as more than a few online critics insist?
- [LT. Tim] Large birds are very likely what we're seeing here.
If you look very closely throughout the video,
there are certain portions
where you can actually see what appears to be the wings
dip and flap slightly especially towards the corners.
- [Tony] Now consider this,
in this footage of soaring white pelicans,
you'll see that they do soar in a similar manner
to Blake's objects,
but notice how often they flap compared to Blake's footage
and when they do flap, it's never with just one wing
the way Blake's objects appear to.
Plus the wings on Blake's objects seem extremely rigid.
- If those wings don't move,
it's possible that we're looking
at a pair of Jones flying in formation.
There is a certain point when they turn to the side,
look where the wings are relative to the
back of the body.
The wings seem to be further back
and the front seems to be extended.
That reminds me of an aircraft rather than a bird.
These are definitely human made
and I know that the military experiments
with bird-shaped drones, I've seen them.
So, this is a possibility.
[intriguing music]
- [Tony] Our verdict, bird-shaped drones,
we're gonna go with D'Antonio.
The motion of the craft is what does it,
but did we witness some sort of brand new technology?
According to reports,
scientists are looking into transforming
the bodies of deceased birds
into actual flapping wing drones
that might enable new ways of spying for military purposes.
If you think you've seen one, let us know.
- [Tony] California ranks as one of the top spots
for UFO reports in the US
with more than 16,000 sightings in the last three decades
and in Southern California, they are so frequent
that as you're about to see even a normal day at the park
can turn into a UFO encounter.
January 30th, 2022. Laguna Niguel, California.
Steven Greenstreet and his family are spending the day
in Ocean Breeze Park
when his wife points out a mysterious object in the sky.
- [Steven] Man.
- [Tony] As Steven peers through the branches of a tree,
he begins to record this.
- [Steven] No idea what the heck this is.
- [Tony] Take a closer look.
Steven zooms into an elongated shiny object
hovering in the clear blue sky.
Now we've seen plenty of UFOs on this show,
but this one is kind of different.
Look here, it appears to be made up
of three different sections of circular
or possibly cylindrical parts on top of each other.
I'm not seeing any wings or visible means or propulsion,
at least not at this angle.
Steven shot it from multiple angles around the park
and he admits he has no idea what he's seeing.
- The longer I look at it, the less it makes any sense
because there was wind,
but this object was stuck in the sky.
I was just baffled as to what the heck this could be.
Yep.
I swear to God, it's been there 20 minutes.
- This isn't the first time a local in Laguna Niguel
has seen something strange in the sky.
Most of the sightings in Laguna Niguel
actually happened a decade ago
with residents seeing bright orange lights,
white lights, chasing red lights,
and even bright green fireballs.
- [Tony] In fact, some believe the evidence points
to an alien presence in southern California
dating back centuries.
- [Amy] Some caves that feature petroglyphs
that some say are evidence
of ancient civilizations visited by aliens.
The drawings on these cave walls depict shapes
and some figures that many believe hint at aliens.
- [Tony] Google UFO and Laguna Niguel
and you'll see multiple sightings
that have been reported in recent years.
But why all the sudden activity?
Well, many think Catalina Island
just across from Laguna Niguel might be a factor.
In 1967, two 12-year-old boys were allegedly
abducted by aliens from a boat docked near the island.
And even our own expert,
Matthew Szydagis has been studying strange phenomena
over Catalina Island with the research group UAPX.
But what do our experts think Steven saw?
Let's find out.
[intriguing music]
Could this floating object just be a balloon?
- Shape-wise, a balloon would be our best fit.
However, we should see it floating away.
So whatever we're looking at
is able to maintain a stationary position
far longer than a balloon would be able to.
- [Tony] On the other hand, there's no telltale signs
of UFO-like movement.
- We don't see any of the behaviors that seem impossible.
When we think of UFOs,
extreme acceleration, right angle turns.
Nothing that we see this object exhibiting
is something that couldn't technically be done.
- [Tony] Thanks to Steven's solid camera work,
we can rule out one possibility.
- [Mick] One of the gold standards of UFO videos
is to get multiple shots
of the same thing from different locations.
- [Steven] Again, using branches as reference.
- So this is definitely not a camera artifact
because it appears in the right position in multiple videos.
It's definitely something that's out there in the scene.
- [Tony] What about a drone?
We're not seeing the standard quadcopter rotors,
but West says, don't be fooled by the slim vertical shape.
- [Mick] The only thing that's is left is a coaxial drone.
Now a coaxial drone is a drone where all the propellers
are in line one above the other.
Some of them look like vertical cylinders.
- [Tony] Coaxial drones are designed
with two centrally positioned rotors,
which provide more lift,
allowing them to carry heavy payloads
and also fly within tight spaces.
And this object appears to have the same shape
and design seen in a coaxial drone.
McMillan likes that theory,
though he adds that if it's a coaxial drone
it would be something unusual to see in the sky.
- [LT. Tim] They're not extremely common.
But one of the things that coaxial drones
have been developed for
is the idea of delivery of goods or products.
- [Tony] However, drone delivery is only available
in a few test markets
and this one doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
So why else would a coaxial drone be hanging in the sky
above Laguna Niguel?
Mick West has an idea.
- [Mick] Traditionally, area surveillance
has been done with a helicopter,
but now police departments around the country
are increasingly using drones.
So I think that's the most likely explanation
based on what we see in these videos.
[intriguing music]
- [Tony] Our verdict, we think this is likely a coaxial drone.
Not only do the police use them to surveil,
but fire departments often use them
to aid in wildfire prevention.
However, the purpose of this apparent coaxial drone
remains a mystery because when we contacted
the town of Laguna Niguel,
they assured us they don't use any such drones.
- [Tony] Catalina Island is a key location
in California's hotspot UFO history
and some believe it holds clues
to whether we are alone in the universe.
Our next video is from a small team of researchers
who have banded together to try and answer that question,
and they were shocked by what they found.
Friday, July 16th, 2021.
It's a foggy night and a team of scientists
from the research group UAPX is on a week long expedition
near Catalina Island off the coast of California.
Then shortly before 4:00 AM,
one of their motion detector cameras
in night vision mode captures this.
[intriguing music]
In the upper right hand corner of the frame,
a black hole suddenly appears in the sky.
But take a closer look.
Do you see that?
A cluster of small dots begins to materialize inside
and researchers don't think they're mere stars?
Physicist, Dr. Matthew Szydagis
is one of the researchers with the project.
- [Matthew] This is very strange
because this timestamp of this video
does match with one of our most anomalous,
highest energy events that we recorded
in our radiation sensor.
- [Tony] Because UFO cases have historically
involved radiation,
the team came prepared with a radiation sensor.
In normal circumstances, the average reading
is about one to two mega electron volts,
but at the time of the anomaly, it jumped to 43.
This isn't surprising considering Catalina Island's
long history of strange and anomalous phenomena.
In fact, what may be one of the most important
UFO sightings in history
was documented only miles away in 2004.
- [MJ] So as the story goes, onboard the USS Princeton,
on their radar they encountered some sort
of anomalous object between Catalina Island
and several other islands in the channel.
- [Tony] Two fighter jets are dispatched
from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to investigate.
- [MJ] They approached what looked like
to be a 40-foot long shaped tic tac hovering,
making erratic maneuvers
just above the surface of the water.
Then the pilots played chase with this object
back and forth for several minutes
before being ordered to return back
to their aircraft carrier.
- [Tony] But how did it get here?
Banias lays out one popular theory.
- [MJ] There's a lot of people who believe
that UFOs open up wormholes or portals
between their world and travel through dimensions.
This idea that we can open a gateway
between place X and place Y and move between them.
The Catalina Islands would be a sort of entry point
for UFOs to use.
- [Tony] When the scientists from UAPX filed
a freedom of information request
to get either satellite imagery
or logs from any navy ships in the area that night,
they were told files either don't exist,
or if they do, they're classified.
That's only added to the mystery.
What exactly did they witness?
We take that question to our experts.
[intriguing music]
- So I've spent a lot of time looking at
everything from aircraft to clouds,
to helicopters to birds, to kites,
to you name it
and it doesn't match anything like that.
It's within reason that it's a camera artifact.
You can have all kinds of interference
when you're working with electronics of any kind.
- [Tony] One thing is clear, these aren't known stars.
There's no constellation that matches.
But might they be stars from another universe?
Is it possible this is a wormhole?
- Think of a universe here
with another parallel universe right next to it.
You might be able to create a gateway
that connects two universes,
but the energy necessary to open a stable gateway
between universes is that of a black hole.
But there should be side effects
and that would be the force of intense gravitational fields.
However, in this videotape,
we don't see any examples of that.
- [Tony] However, Kaku notes
there is a scientific phenomenon
which may explain what we're seeing.
- [Dr. Michio] Fallstreak is when you have
a massive super cold air in the sky
and there's a sudden influx of ice crystals.
- [Tony] These ice crystals cause the water droplets
that compose clouds to freeze and fall,
- [Dr. Michio] Which creates a hole.
In fact, many of the fall streaks were
created by airplanes that went right by this massive super cold
air causing literally a hole in space.
- [Tony] Is this the result of a fallstreak hole?
Matthew Szydagis confirms it was one possibility
among many explored by the UAPX researchers.
- [Matthew] We considered fallstreak hole.
However, we checked the FAA records
of this day and time.
There was no airplane at that location.
- [Tony] And the idea that it's a camera glitch,
Szydagis says no way.
- [Matthew] We find no evidence of a camera glitch
in the entire week of the expedition that looks like this.
How likely is it that this was a camera glitch
that by coincidence happens to align
with one of our most anomalous detections
also in our radiation sensor?
Is it alien? Is it extraterrestrial?
As a scientist, I've gotta see the evidence
or the proof of something.
But the flip side of that is I'm not so skeptical
that I refuse to listen to a crazy idea
just because there's no evidence for it yet.
[intriguing music]
- Our verdict, until we get more definitive evidence,
we have to go with unexplained phenomenon.
While our experts were able to come up
with some interesting theories, none can be confirmed.
And if the team of scientists at UAPX
isn't sure what's going on,
it's clear there is more work to be done.
When they do figure it out,
we'll be the first to bring it to you.
- [Tony] The lights of Las Vegas attract more than
40 million earthly visitors each year.
So it should be no surprise
that it's also ranked third in the US for UFO sightings.
Some UFO sightings make the rounds on the internet.
Some hit the local news
and others make headlines around the world,
especially if the witnesses don't just report
seeing something in the sky,
but something on the ground too.
It's April 30th, 2023 at 11:49 PM in Las Vegas,
a police officer whose name has not been disclosed
is speaking with several individuals on a sidewalk
when his body camera captures something unexpected.
- [Passerby] I don't know.
- [Tony] Let's see that again zoomed in and slowed down.
- You see this green flash in the sky,
the people have been blurred out.
But the point of interest is this green object.
The video in itself isn't anything too remarkable,
but what happens next is really interesting.
- [Tony] At around 12:30 AM, a frantic call
comes into the Las Vegas Metro Police 911 Dispatch.
- [Amy] A Las Vegas resident made a 911 call
saying that there was some 100% not human being
staring at him from his backyard.
- [Tony] Dispatch takes the call seriously enough
that two officers respond.
Body cams rolling as they roll up.
- [Officer] What'd you see?
- [Officer] A big creature?
- [Tony] The officers are aware
of what happened in the sky an hour earlier.
- I'm not gonna BS you guys,
one of my partners said they saw
something fall out of the sky too.
So that's why I'm kinda curious.
Did you see anything land in your backyard?
- [Tony] The incident garnered national media attention,
especially because it coincided
with the biggest UFO news of 2023.
- [Amy] These two incidents tie into a recent report
from an Air Force official
saying that the US government
has been going on retrieval missions to collect crashed UFOs
to recover their bodies and study them.
It's also worth noting that they're only about
80 miles from the famed Area 51
where most people believe these alien autopsies
are taking place.
- Area 51 isn't the only secret base in Nevada.
Area 52 is said to be a vast underground complex
that can house up to 25,000 people.
Area 6, a mysterious mile long landing strip,
is believed to be related to a top secret fleet of drones.
So, could this nearby close encounter have anything to do
with yet another secret government program?
[intriguing music]
In an era of AI video and deep fakes,
we have to start with a basic question.
Is this body cam footage authentic?
- So the Axon system is the most common type
of surveillance camera that officers wear
to capture their perspective.
We noted no evidence of manipulation.
These recordings were unlikely CGI..
- [Tony] So what are we seeing in the video?
Could it be a satellite falling back to earth?
- Reentering satellites generally
seem to move a lot slower
because they burn up in the upper atmosphere
'cause that's what they're designed to do.
But this is something that's made it
through the Earth's atmosphere to a lower level.
And so, its apparent speed is actually quite a bit faster
than orbital debris.
- [Tony] So could this footage be a genuine
UFO crash landing?
- [Mick] UFOs generally maneuver in different ways.
They would hover in the sky,
they would make strange motions,
they would have flashing lights.
They generally don't leave trails like this
and they don't generally appear to be green.
- [Tony] Based on the color, speed,
and timing of this event,
West plays a hunch and thinks he's got the winning hand.
- [Mick] What we do know is that
this is very consistent with a meteor.
It's green, which it comes from the composition
of the nickel in the meteor.
It's leaving a slight trail
and it's moving at about the same speed
that we've seen other meteors fly across the sky.
- [Tony] West is also ready to double down
by saying not only is this not a UFO,
it didn't even land in a backyard in Vegas.
- [Mick] This event here was actually observed
by many, many people.
It was also seen by people as far away as in California,
Arizona, and even in Utah and in Northern California.
The most likely location of where this thing landed
is actually up here in Central Nevada,
approximately 200 miles away from Las Vegas.
- [Tony] So if this isn't a UFO
and it didn't land in Vegas,
what about the family's claims
of a close encounter with 10 foot aliens?
- [Mick] We have the eyewitness account,
but I think the most likely thing
is that they simply saw something in the backyard,
perhaps a raccoon standing on the fence or something
and it startled them
and then they ran back inside, called the cops,
and there was some giant being in the backyard.
And then we roll in the other story
of the fireball being seen and it becomes a thing.
[intriguing music]
- Our verdict, we believe that the green light in the video
is a meteor, which was later confirmed
by NASA's Planetary Defense Office.
As for the family's alleged backyard encounter with aliens,
the Las Vegas police ultimately closed
their investigation into those claims as unfounded.
- You know what they say.
What happens in Vegas,
yeah, stays in Vegas.
But what about what happens above Vegas?
It was two nights before Christmas 2022
and all through the Las Vegas strip,
every creature was stirring,
but the party atmosphere is broken
when club manager Brett Feinstein
spots a commotion outside his gentleman's club.
- I was walking through the club
and one of our security guards told me
that there was a UFO above the club.
- [Tony] As the club empties into the street
to see the spectacle,
Brett hits record on his smartphone.
- [Brett] I pointed the camera up into the sky.
There was a big red light, two long white lights
and then on each end of this thing were white lights.
And the consensus was this is a UFO.
- [Tony] With the Vegas city limits
only a hop from the legendary Area 51
and other remote military bases,
many wonder what kind of strange aircraft
populate the Vegas airspace.
- We know that more than a dozen miles from area 51
inside the Yucca Flats lays Area 6.
It's a lone landing strip, it has a handful of hangars.
It's still classified
by the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.
It's very possible that what we're seeing in this footage
is some type of a night test of drones
or some type of an advanced aircraft.
- [Tony] But in an age where billionaires
have their own rocket ships,
it's not just the military launching experimental aircraft.
- [Jason] We know that Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon,
had started his own drone company called Nova Sky Stories
based out of Nevada.
In August of 2022, they had launched a series
of blue light drones over Vegas.
When the local community saw these lights in the sky,
they quickly thought that this was some type
of UFO activity.
- [Tony] It takes 12 million lights
to illuminate the Las Vegas strip,
making it the brightest city on earth
when viewed from space.
Could these lights serve as a beacon to ET visitors
or are they playing tricks on the eyes
of the city's hard partying humans?
I'd put pretty good odds on the experts
getting to the bottom of this one.
[intriguing music]
Given the already crowded skies above Las Vegas,
it's unlikely to be an alien spaceship
or experimental aircraft.
- Given that the Las Vegas airport is quite active,
we would've heard from air traffic control
if there was something
that was hovering atop of Las Vegas strip.
- [Tony] So could this be a different kind
of flying machine, like a drone?
- If it was a military drone it would be moving.
Military drones generally don't hover.
If it was a a smaller drone,
you would see the individual points of light.
Here we see things that look like big objects.
You could theoretically get a cluster of drones
very, very close together like 20,000 feet up
but that's something that's, you know,
technically extraordinarily difficult to pull off
and it doesn't seem very likely in this case.
- [Tony] Hernandez thinks the real clue may lie
in those clouds and the Christmas weather.
- [Juan] It was a chilly night in Las Vegas.
It was 39 degrees.
The clouds were at about 15,000 feet,
which is important because at 15,000 feet
it was just cold enough for these clouds
to have some ice particles,
which would then promote the development of light pillars.
- [Tony] Light pillars, you say?
Well yes.
- [Juan] We have ice crystals that are suspended in the air
that are acting as tiny mirrors.
Each tiny mirror reflecting a beam of light
towards the viewer.
Oftentimes people think they're UFOs,
in reality it's an optical illusion.
- [Tony] According to West,
to figure out the source of those reflections,
you first need a map of the strip.
- [Mick] Someone noticed that this light here and this light
here look kinda similar to two hotels,
the Wynn Hotel and the Encore Hotel.
And the red one here is the Hilton Hotel.
And we can kind of demonstrate this
by taking this particular image
and overlaying it on top of a map of Las Vegas.
Here are the hotels that Wynn and the Encore.
And over here we have the Hilton.
And if we take the photo that we were just looking at
and we overlay it,
we kinda see that they're in the same position.
This is a light pillar map.
It's a reflection of the lights on the Las Vegas strip
on the ice crystals in the cloud.
[intriguing music]
- [Tony] Our verdict, light pillars.
The odds of witnessing them
are longer than hitting blackjack.
So that Vegas Christmas crowd
should still feel pretty lucky.
- [Tony] Occasionally, reports of unidentified flying objects
emerge from the same geographic area for no apparent reason.
It turns out Medellin, Columbia
has become one of those places.
And our next video may be more proof that something strange
is happening in South America.
June 2020, Juan Morales is hanging out with his cousin
when a strange light in the sky
suddenly grabs his attention.
He rushes to the window and captures this.
A small string of light floats above the hills
in the night sky.
Zooming in reveals what appears to be a rectangular object
lit by four green orb-like lights.
Whatever it is, Juan and his cousin
can't contain their astonishment.
[Cousin speaking in foreign language].
[Juan speaking in foreign language]
- We really think that was really UFO
because it didn't move.
And when it disappeared, it disappeared in a second.
- [Tony] This sighting isn't just a random occurrence.
In fact, a more recent sighting over Medellin
that we plan to analyze on a future show
is now being touted as some of the best UFO footage ever.
- A pilot saw a strange object outside of his aircraft
and was able to film it with his cell phone.
- [Tony] The craft races passed at a stunning speed
what appears to be a metallic sphere
with a point on either end.
- [MJ] That particular video went viral
and people all over the internet were commenting about
whether this was some sort of alien spacecraft
because of its strange shape
and how it moved through the air.
- [Tony] So have the aliens reemerged over Columbia?
- [Juan] After this video, I'm certain that the UFO exists.
- [Tony] But others believe these aerial sightings
are connected to a far more earthly concern.
- [MJ] We know that within recent years
with the shift in drone technology to
becoming quite cheap.
drug cartels are utilizing drones
to essentially deliver or traffic drugs across borders
or into other countries or locally.
So there has been some speculation
that this particular video actually shows
a Colombian cartel's use of a drone
to traffic drugs into the area.
- A spike in UFO sightings in 2014 earned Medellin
the honor of UFO hotspot status.
But will our experts be able to identify
this strange object in the Colombian skies?
[intriguing music]
First, is this craft just something we see all the time?
Could our green disc simply be a passing airplane?
- There doesn't appear to be
any kind of motion whatsoever with the object.
And then the fact that it doesn't have
the navigations lights like you would expect on an aircraft
you would see some potentially other kinda colors
like white or red maybe on the object.
But there's nothing that makes me believe
that it's an aircraft.
- [Tony] But maybe it's a cartel drone.
Cartel drones seized by the Columbia military
had the ability to carry 22 pounds of cocaine
and could travel about 60 miles in a single trip.
But those drones were transporting drugs
over the border to Panama, not in cities,
which is one reason why Marc D'Antonio
doesn't think the theory makes sense.
- If you were a drug smuggler, would you have a drone
with big bright lights on it up in the sky?
Yeah probably not.
If so, the drug smugglers are pretty imbecilic.
- [Tony] He thinks the lights also rule out
any legitimate use.
- [Marc] Drones have mandated lighting,
so you would see some red lights and some green lights.
You have to have those lights in order to fly.
It doesn't look to me a drone
with known lighting configuration that I've seen.
- [Tony] So are we looking at something
from beyond our world?
In determining UFO activity,
experts look for traits called the five observables,
as seen in the UFOs recorded by the US military.
Anti-gravity capabilities,
instantaneous acceleration,
hypersonic velocity,
low observability,
and finally, the ability to move in space, air, and water.
- [Rich] Of the observables, it's very indistinct.
You can't make out anything in terms of
other than the lights to be able to determine
if it had any control surfaces on it.
The fact that it didn't make any kind of
things like hypersonic speed, it wasn't transmedium.
There's nothing that calls out that it's like, you know,
the big mothership from another planet that's coming down.
- [Tony] However, D'Antonio believes he sees a clue
to the object's identity not in the lights but its shape.
- [Marc] This could be a delta wing where we're missing
a couple of the lights
because they're sort of foreshortened in our view
along the line of the side here.
- [Tony] A delta wing is a triangular
swept back airplane wing named for its similarity
to the uppercase Greek letter delta.
- [Marc] And what kinda delta wing thing do we have
that we fly in the air and it's relatively stationary.
Well, a kite.
- [Tony] D'Antonio thinks the surrounding landscape
seals the deal.
- [Marc] This is bright green throughout,
so it's somewhat closer to us.
When they zoom out, there's some fields down here.
It would probably be close to 300 feet off the ground.
Based in the size of the details in this area down here
and looking at the size of street lamps and windows,
with a delta wing kite about four feet across,
it would actually fit this profile
if it was over that field down below.
[intriguing music]
- Our verdict, while we think D'Antonio's reasoning
that this is a lit up kite with green bulbs is sound,
in our minds, the image is just too far away
and indistinct to come to a definitive conclusion.
So we're going to say this is an unidentified object,
at least for now.
New UFO hotspots continue to light up all over the world.
And with each report, the same question still arises.
Are we alone or is the proof out there?
Thank you for watching this special episode
of The Proof is Out There.
Please send us any videos, images, or sound
that you think we should investigate
and remember to keep those cameras rolling.
[uptempo music]