Inside America’s UFO Mysteries *Marathon* | UFO Files

Video: "Inside America’s UFO Mysteries *Marathon* | UFO Files" (History Channel)

Full auto-transcript: If the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it either. And I want to know, >> is it possible for the military to keep secrets about UFOs from the president? >> There's always things like that going on. They're flying saucers and they've had other things. You know >> what does the commander-in-chief really know about extraterrestrials? >> We were facing an alien threat from outside this world. >> How many times has the United States defended itself from UFOs? Since World War II, every chief executive has tackled the national security threat posed by unidentified flying objects. Discover the evidence behind these presidential predicaments as we open the UFO files on UFOs and the White House. It's the early morning hours of February 25th, 1942, just 2 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. All is quiet at the White House while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sleeps. But 3,000 mi away, the west coast border of the United States is encroached by an enemy. An unidentified flying enemy. Chaos erupts with a blip on a radar screen. A sequence of events may have involved the alarm or the report coming through to the radio, the radio operator notifying the duty sergeant. >> Alert, alert, this is not a drill. This is not a drill. Alert. >> The duty sergeant uh sounding the alarm or ordering the alarm sounded. From that point on, it would have been somewhat pandemonium at at the beginning. Of course, the initial shock, but then of course the troops are very professional and immediately went to their task and went to the assigned positions. Uh the people operating the search lights would have manned the lights. People operating the guns, man the guns, ready to uh take on the enemy. Within minutes, the dark Southern California coast is riddled with beams of light and streaks of anti-aircraft fire. Fire, fire, fire, fire. >> Perhaps a conservative estimate is maybe about 2,000 rounds fired that night, which would have been a very loud night for a town used to peace time. >> But as defenses come to play, confusion reigns. But no one seems to know exactly where the enemy is. Well, that's the big mystery and it's still a mystery today. You talk to many veterans and they will swear to you that they saw aircraft that night. Uh you will talk to many officers who will tell you there was nothing in the air that night. You will talk to civilians who saw aircraft that night. So, it's really it's really somewhat of a of a mystery still. The army officially concluded that there probably were airplanes up there, but there's no uh information as to whether they were US or Japanese or whose they were. By definition, I think a UFO. Now, if you want me to say it's Little Green Man, I'm not prepared to commit to that, but yes, it was an unidentified flying object, I think, is fair to say. >> For nearly an hour, the ballistic barrage peppers the skies. But as day breaks, it becomes apparent that the only damage caused by the soldiers is to the city of Los Angeles. >> Everything that goes up must come down. And of course, the uh the surrounding areas were littered with shrapnel fragments. So flack was raining down and uh in some cases live shells actually came down and detonated. Of course, the media responded as media does much of the time with you know, let's sell some newspapers. So perhaps the stories were exaggerated, perhaps not. In fact, one of the stories was going around about the LA thing was that they the Japanese had submarines and that they were launching planes off of submarines, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you take eyewitness reports, they said that it was hovering, not just going slow, it was hovering. They have the one photograph where this thing has the all the lights focused on it and uh basically doesn't look like any type of plane that was available at that time. Accounts of citywide wreckage are explained to President Roosevelt in Washington. The task falls to General George C. Marshall, the War Department's chief of staff. >> Well, Marshall's letter is probably one of the most curious documents to ever be issued about the event. Says as many as 15 airplanes may have been there, varying at speeds from very slow to immediately increasing to 200 mph, ranging from altitude from 9,000 to 18,000 ft. And again, no bombs were dropped, no casualties inflicted, no Allied or or US Navy or Army airplanes in the air that night. It just doesn't seem to make sense. Uh if the Japanese had come all this way, we would have thought that there would have at least been some some bombing and certainly if there was more than one aircraft. >> Nobody can say for sure how FDR first reacted to word that his military responded to what some claim to have been an unidentified flying object. The only thing that came back from u the president was a memo from him to uh Stimson who was the secretary of war. >> The president sent a curtain message to Harry Stimson demanding to know who was responsible for the air alarm systems in the United States and if anyone other than authorized officials could have triggered them. How Stimson replied to FDR and how he explained the unidentified enemy remains a mystery. No records of his response were found in the National Archives or FDR's presidential library. >> That time I don't think they saw it as an extraterrestrial phenomena. >> And I believe in 1942 it would have been a curiosity type item. >> The Axis powers will control the continents. I think President Roosevelt was so caught up with the war effort and his failing health that UFOs didn't rank high in his list of concerns. July 1947. New threats of war and a new enemy, the Soviet Union. >> That false philosophy is communism. >> Has Americans looking to the sky. Some say they see UFOs. President Harry S. Truman is informed of a possible incident in New Mexico. Suddenly Roswald occurs. They have a press leak. Uh it start getting picked up all over the country. I see him as the first president to actually deal with the UFO issue in a public sense. >> And Truman was the man on the spot when this stuff hit big time. Truman is an absolute critical key in looking at the entire UFO phenomenon in the early years. We know that these presidents were being briefed orally, if nothing else, on the topic of flying saucers. Now, this is not something that you're going to read in Harry Truman's memoirs, and it's not something that you're going to read about in an academic treatment of the Truman administration. And yet, we know absolutely that it happened. How do we know this? We know it from the man who gave Truman his briefings, and that was General Robert Landry, who was a colonel at the time in the Air Force. President Truman rewarded Landry, his personal pilot, for his exemplary service by appointing him as his Air Force aid on UFOs to consult with the CIA on the subject. >> And that he was told to report to the president orally and brief him orally every 3 months on the subject in UFOs, which he said he did up until the president left office. >> By my estimation, that could be as many as 18 briefings. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall of some of those conversations? >> It's done orally. We don't want uh records. If you don't want it on the front page of the New York Times, don't put it in a file. That kind of idea. >> But an incident said to have occurred in the nation's capital was impossible to ignore. >> 1952 is just again one of these very significant years in UFO history. a massive wave of of very high quality sightings by military and civilians all across the US culminating in successive weekends in July of 1952 of UFOs over the capital was like invasion type stuff. Things would disappear, the fighter jets would go back, the things would reappear and it showed that the government was very um sort of out of out of control. They couldn't control it. It was such a big thing that the the press made it the front page. It was the front page of the New York Times. >> Truman took the subject head on. >> So there was less hesitation on the part of public leaders to talk about flying saucers. Harry Truman did so um in the 1950s during one press conference. >> Did the Joint Chiefs of Staff uh talk to you or concern you about the unknown and the unidentified flying object? 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 >> Do you have anything on the subject, sir? >> No, I haven't. I haven't anything on the subject and they there's always things like that going on. They're flying saucers and they've had other things, you know. We shall never try to plate an aggressor by the false and wicked bargain of trading honor for security. >> While Truman addressed the subject publicly, he was never said to have a close encounter himself. However, Dwight Eisenhower, according to eupfologists, experienced a sighting in the early 1950s. And the story was that he was off the British coast 1952 and that this object, a bluish type object appeared off the the side of the ship. I think it occurred for about 10 minutes. Um Eisenhower and the admiral uh at on the ship had come out onto the deck and and Eisenhower was in in PJs. He stood there and watched this thing and that um Eisenhower basically said, "Well, I better go look into this. Uh I I wouldn't mention it right now." and went in and the the fellow who reported it said he never heard anything more about it again. >> During Eisenhower's term, UFOs became part of America's pop culture through movies and TV shows. But the White House may have had more than a movie script to read. Eisenhower was on the job when UFO secrecy really started to formulate in a systematic way. It was under Eisenhower's administration that even within the military, the UFO topic was becoming much more restrictive. >> There were perhaps off-the- cuff remarks from people close to the White House. In May 1954, during a speech in Amarillo, Texas, General Nathan Twining, Eisenhower's Air Force Chief of Staff made a surprising statement. >> He said, "And if they come from Mars and they're this advanced, I don't think we have anything to worry about. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house. 1963, President John F. Kennedy was boating near his Hyannisport home. There's a reported uh an alleged sighting that he was sailing off Cape Cod that an object uh silver object whatever it was 60 ft across something like that came down and uh everybody saw the object and Kennedy basically uh said let's let's not uh let's not tell anybody about this. Hard to substantiate the story. It's uh something which you can either believe or disbelieve. JFK's knowledge on UFOs is hard to gauge. His tragically short term in office left few UFO records in his presidential library. >> Kennedy is a great mystery with the UFO topic because there's reason to believe that Kennedy had some real information on UFOs. >> He was concerned about avoiding a war >> to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere. >> Remember the Cuban missile crisis and all this kind of thing. This will produce the greatest crisis which the world has faced in its history. >> Well aware that saucers might cause us to start a war or the Russians to start a war. But I think he would have been very diplomatic about making sure that we didn't go shooting down flying saucers, for example. >> Records show that Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's brother and the attorney general, did share letters from UFO researchers with Congressman Gerald Ford and Air Force officials. Robert Kennedy was very interested in UFOs. There's a number of letters that have surfaced where he dealt with UFOs. So, it's very rare to get somebody in that high in office to actually deal with the subject in writing. Many UFO researchers believe that political differences may affect access to certain information and that some US presidents have not been fully briefed about UFOs by the intelligence community. The same researchers suggest JFK may have been the first president to be kept from the whole truth. >> He was interested in beating the Russians to the moon, but he wasn't interested in space. It was more of a uh a competition type thing. It was a political thing. >> Johnson, on the other hand, was extremely interested in space. Against such force, the combined destructive power of every battle ever fought by man is like a firecracker thrown against the sun. >> Lyndon Baines Johnson first served in the White House as President John Kennedy's vice president. In September 1961, he responded to a letter from a UFO researcher regarding extraterrestrial visitation. >> Johnson replied to the letter and said to him rather than going to the Air Force, he told him to go to the executive secretary at NASA. And it was very strange that he go to NASA, not the Air Force, and very strange that the vice president would be answering UFO mail. During LBJ's term, military officials were said to have investigated an alleged UFO crash near Kexsburg, Pennsylvania. The events of Thursday, December 9th, 1965 remain an important chapter in the history of UFOs and the White House. There was a recovery team. NASA was identified as being there. Air Force was identified as being there. The object was moved away and end of story. They said it was a meteorite. That was the official explanation. What I do in a lot of my presidential research is I take major UFO events. I go to the White House records and then I start looking at who was there. Uh where was the president? Where was the secretary of defense? So anyway, I went to the Johnson Library and I started looking at where was the president. He was at the ranch in Austin, Texas. The next morning, all the right people seem to appear at the ranch. For example, James Webb, the head of Nassau, flew into the presidential ranch. The next morning, the governor of the state of uh Pennsylvania was there. All the joint chiefs of staff, the entire joint chiefs of staff, and they have photographs there of of them arriving uh arrived at the the ranch. Now, the way they describe the meeting with the joint chiefs of staff is a Vietnam War meeting. So, even though there's nothing that you can actually nail down, the president uh had got pictures of the craft or whatever you want as proof, it did show some circumstantial evidence that's that something was happening around the president the morning after the crash. President Richard Milhouse Nixon's interest in UFOs is harder to calculate. I've talked to people who claim they talked to Nixon about UFOs. He was very interested. There was a rumored story that he had a huge UFO book collection, which I was never able to substantiate. >> Many UFO researchers believe Nixon received specific briefings, information he may have wanted to take public. There's some very good indications that he planned to reveal data that UFOs past, present, and future, a book by Robert Emgger, uh, television program that was done with that title. I talked to Emgar and he got asked by the Republican party to produce that show using only government people cuz the idea was they were going to release data. Bob Emmagger was an advertising executive and television producer who happened to know an important man inside the Nixon White House. >> Bob Halddederman was someone I knew from UCLA Beta House, which is a fraternity. Then, as you know, he went on to be chief of staff under Nixon. >> In the mid 1970s, Emgar and his partner researched military stories for their TV production at Norton Air Force Base's film archives. Paul Shart is the one who took us in there and said, "What would you think if we told you we had a landing at Hollowman Air Force Base of an alien craft and it was filmed by our TDY, our temporary duty guys, and the film was sent here to Norton where all films usually are sent." And I thought, "This sounds outrageous that uh you know, UFOs and all." He said, "Well, look, if you're interested, uh, check with the Pentagon, but bury those under those other projects because it's a red flag to get into the subject of UFOs." George Wein Brener was the commander of foreign technology. He has a private bunker down at Wright Patterson. I went down the long hall. I could see all the little uh, cameras, surveillance cameras. walked right up to his desk and said, "I want to ask you, what about the landing of an alien craft at Hollowman Air Force Base?" And I sort of expected him to say, "What the what?" He didn't. So he reached up, pulled out a book, handed it to me. So I opened the book up and said to my friend, Colonel George Weinbrer, signed Dr. Alan Heinik. And the book was all on UFOs. Well, Heinik was the the uh scientific adviser to the Air Force at that time on UFOs. >> Perplexed, Emgger contacted his friend and Nixon's chief of staff, Bob Halddeerman. >> He was at the White House and I asked if he had heard anything about the landing at Hollowman Air Force Base, and he said, "Well, I heard something, but I don't know whether the president knew. I have no idea." While Igger never obtained the Hullman film for the 1974 nationally broadcast program, his firstand experience provides researchers insight on what American presidents may have known about UFOs. A friend of mine helping me out talked to two ex-presidents. They both confirmed that they had been shown the Halman aerospace film. The Congress should investigate the rash of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects in southern Michigan and other parts of the country. >> Gerald R. Ford had shown interest in the UFO subject as a congressman due to sightings by people in his district during the 1960s. What a lot of people don't realize is that the primary function of a congressman is to serve his constituents. So Jerry in out of service to his constituents saw to it that there would be a hearing. So Gerald Ford went to the bat for the people who wanted an answer and he made a lot of very very strong statements saying that he wanted a congressional investigation. On April 5th, 1966, the House Armed Services Committee held public hearings on the subject of unidentified flying objects. Air Force Secretary Harold Brown concluded, >> "We have not been hiding anything. The investigations have been made public. The hearing this morning was public for just that reason." It's unknown whether the hearings actually had an impact on Ford's view of UFOs after becoming president, but many researchers maintain Ford selected advisers who showed an understanding of the potential threat posed by UFOs. >> He had some advisers who at the time may not may not have been all that important. There was Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Had George uh George Bush senior as his CIA director. had some people who could he could trust and who could trust him. >> After leaving the White House, Ford replied to a letter from a former Air Force intelligence officer who researched UFOs. During my public career in Congress as vice president and president, I made various requests for information on UFOs. The official authorities always denied the UFO allegations. >> As President, Ford said nothing on this topic. So, you can either think someone got to him or he just lost interest. But I think more likely he decided it wasn't politically prudent to discuss this matter. While there are some documents connecting UFOs in the White House and a few reports that presidents may have seen them, there's only one public admission. President Jimmy Carter was the first commander-in-chief to admit to seeing a UFO. >> Carter was known as UFO president because he actually talked about a sighting. A UFO group had contacted him, wrote him a letter and said, "Could you fill out our sighting report?" Jimmy Carter filled out the sighting report and the rest is history. >> Well, Carter himself said the incident happened in October of 1969 uh when he was down in Ly, Georgia speaking at a Lions Club. He spoke very strongly about it. And one thing I think it also is very impressive to the public is the fact that Carter was a state legislator here in Georgia when he's saw the sighting and he went on record about it and spoke of it quite publicly and even becoming governor and then later becoming president. He's never waffled on it. He's always been quite upfront about it. Yes, I saw something and uh no, it was not. I could not identify it. >> I don't make fun of people, you know, who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky. >> He'll always say that he can associate with people who have had the experience. That he would never laugh at anybody who's had a UFO sighting because he's experienced it himself. >> Carter's UFO report gives a vivid account of what he saw that night. >> I never have tried to identify what I saw. It was a, you know, a light in the western sky. It was very unique. I never seen it before. There were about 20 of us who saw it. >> Carter said the object he saw was u had firm edges. It was circular. It seemed self luminous. It was about 1,000 yards away and it it retreated and then it came forward and then it left. Basically, when you talk about UFOs, people look at you strangely. And uh for that reason, I think a lot of people would not be willing to to be like Carter and go on the line and actually fill out a report. and he's never disavowed the content of his report, which tells me that Jimmy Carter, just as honest as a man as you'll ever find in or out of government, has left that bit of legacy to be savored by future UFO researchers who can point to it as a milestone in the fact that the government does know more than it has been telling about the subject. And this was enough inspiration for Jimmy to try to funnel out some of that knowledge. >> While running for the presidency, Carter made campaign promises that he would release all he could about UFOs once he took office. >> Well, no, but I would uh, you know, make information that we have about those sightings available to the public. I didn't sign. >> And how did they try to hold Jimmy Carter to his promise? They wrote letters to him as soon as he got in office saying, "Jimmy, you're now where you can fulfill your promise. Please do so." >> As many as 9,000 UFO related letters from citizens reached the White House during Carter's term. >> Naturally, he didn't answer it all himself, hardly any of it, but there were many people. Some of them uh were interested in the follow-up to that 1976 promise and others were just interested in telling their own little uh experience where they might have seen something that they wanted to go on record. >> But some researchers suggest other reasons why Carter may not have been able to deliver on his campaign promise. >> The CIA comes in and briefs the president on the most important intelligence stuff. And the person who briefed Jimmy Carter on the intelligence matters was George Bush senior, the CIA director. Jimmy Carter asked for the UFO file. The story was that George Bush said, "You don't have a need to know. This works on a need to know, and curiosity on the part of the president isn't sufficient need to know." >> To those who claim that George Bush was uh briefing Carter on UFOs, I think the burden of the proof would be on them. I mean, there were other much more likely subjects for them to be talking about. Regardless, President Carter did release UFO related documents during his administration. The UFO community considers it the golden years. Half of all the UFO documents, there's thousands of UFO documents that have been released under the Freedom Information Act request over the last uh 30 or 40 years. Over half of them were released under four years of Jimmy Carter. >> These newly declassified documents were sourced from numerous agencies. They contain information about many UFO sightings and the military responses. Access to the declassified material continues to bolster UFO research. We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding. We are going to begin to act. >> There are reports that Ronald Reagan had two UFO experiences prior to serving as president. The story of his first sighting reached the public through the memoirs of actress Lucille Ball. She recalled that Reagan and wife Nancy arrived late to a Hollywood party. And she stated that when Mr. Reagan and Nancy arrived at the party, they were all excited. They um told everybody about this sighting that this thing had uh had they had seen it coming down the coast. They had watched this whole thing. Ronald Reagan was very interested in the topic of UFOs privately very much so. And indeed um has been said to have seen one while flying on an in an aircraft as governor of California. Apparently a very interesting sighting. Allegedly, Reagan saw a white light zigzagging alongside his aircraft. He stepped into the cockpit and told the pilot to follow it. >> His pilot had 30,000 hours as a pilot, which is an incredible number and the whole plane load of them saw this thing. >> They reportedly chased the mysterious light for several minutes until it shot skyward out of sight. Could these alleged sightings have fueled Reagan's repeated references to UFOs and alien life during his presidency? February 11th, 1988. In a speech called remarks at the annual conservative political action conference dinner, Reagan said, >> "Our unshakable, rootdeep, allencompassing skepticism about the capital city's answer to the UFO, that bizarre ever tattertering but ever flickering saucer in the sky called the prevailing Washington wisdom." A presidential speech is a very complex thing. It has many drafts. that has uh people who who proof every word as to whether every word is accurate in their figures, facts. It's a very long and involved process. There's there's up to 25 agencies who have to sign off. State Department, everybody gets to put their little two cents in what they want taken out. So, I started checking the speeches and I went through every Ronald Reagan speech that had this alien invasion. >> Reagan asked his speech writers to address the alien UFO subject. He believed that if we were invaded by people from another planet that the world would come together, the world would unite. He called it his fantasy. One of the more compelling exchanges was between speech writer Rhett Dawson, who sought to keep the fantasy out of Reagan's speeches and away from the commander-in-chief. The discussion preceded President Reagan's address to the 1987 UN General Assembly. >> There's a memo that comes from the the speech writer that says, "Mr. Reagan, this is your speech and uh go over it and let me know. And he noticed that this particular item about the alien invasion had been removed. >> The president responded with a handwritten demand scribbled on the memo. >> And on the bottom in in Reagan's handwriting, Reagan says, "There's too much anti-siet stuff in here. I want you back away from this." And oh, by the way, could you put my fantasy back in how the world would unite if faced with creatures from another planet? and he used the word creatures. >> Clearly grasping the president's determination, Dawson rewrote the speech. And during the 42nd General Assembly of the United Nations on September 21st, 1987, Reagan said, "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? And the reason is simple. More up to see a UFO than you are his plan. UFO researchers insist that George Herbert Bush is the key to present-day UFO knowledge. George Bush senior I think is one of the key presidents when it comes to eupfology. He's a very important president because he is always been believed by a lot of researchers to be a guy who knows what's going on. He was former CIA director under um President Ford. He was vice president under Ronald Reagan for 8 years. Would have gotten briefings on many issues including uh UFOs. He was trusted by the military. He was trusted mostly by the intelligence community. In fact, now they've actually named a building at at the CIA headquarters after George Bush. >> Herbert Walker Bush when he was uh in his earlier days had served as chief of the CIA. Now, some people think in that capacity, he was bound to have known about what was going on euphologically at the agency. If he did, it still probably won't ever be disclosed until after he's long gone. Just like the other president, people did write to the agency. By the way, probably when he was serving there, they would send freedom of information request to the agency for any EUO material in in its possession, say 900 pages worth and counting. They claim they no longer look into the subject. But how many Americans today are going to accept out of hand such a claim as that? >> However, little evidence can actually link President Bush to UFOs. >> For example, when I wrote the Bush Library, I asked them about UFO documents. They said they only had one UFO document. >> And there are no public documents linking George Bush Senior to UFOs. But I think there's very little doubt in any researcher's mind that this man knew a lot about the topic. The answer may lie beneath some of the most heavily blacked out government documents recently declassified from a number of military agencies. To many UFO researchers, George H. Bush and members of his staff, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, was the power team who kept the UFO files closely guarded within military and intelligence circles. George Bush is a man who by all accounts knows a lot of what's going on in let's call it the secret world that is the world behind the presidency the world of rail power and wealth >> he's a guy that behind the scenes he's got a oil money all the right connections and if you want to know what's going on George Bush will know what's going on he's the Okay. As far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. >> William Jefferson Clinton's presidential archives contain extensive records pertaining to UFOs from Roswell to alleged close encounters. I would say that if uh UFOs are cars, Clinton is the is the royal flush. I mean, Clinton was into UFOs big time. The Clintons have said that the library in Little Rock is got a lot of windows. It's got a lot of glass because they wanted to be show that it was an open administration. It's just a a gold mine for for a researcher. I think Clinton on the one hand did more than any other president to get classified material declassified and he was did more to open up government disclosure than any other president as far as I know. >> Bill Clinton is another president who had a publicly stated interest in the topic of UFOs and and wasn't afraid to say so from time to time publicly. >> He he would talk about social security. I mean, I saw a survey the other day that said that some people in a lot of people in their 20s thought it was more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would ever draw social security. >> So, of course, every time they're trying to push social security, the president, they go to this little funny thing that they stick in the speech. And Clinton used it eight times. >> Yet, many researchers believe the Clinton White House was sympathetic about the need to disclose secret UFO files. Perhaps President Clinton's most impressive comment regarding UFOs was delivered during a speech on November 30th, 1995. When a presidential speech is written, it is not just something the guy makes up. This is something that'll take days, weeks, months to put together. It will be vetted by everybody. Something that's in a presidential speech is there for a reason. So, Bill Clinton is making a a peace speech in front of 80,000 people in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He stands up and in this speech he's talking about um kids and he reads a letter from Ryan and he said, "Ryan, if you're out in the audience today, here's the answer to your question. >> If the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it either. And I want to know. I want to know. I want to know." >> This is the part that the press all over America played. The second part of the statement is what I believe is a challenge, a shot across the bow to the military. He said, "But if they did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it either, and I want to know." And when you look at the first Roswell report that was put out by the Air Force in 1994, 1995, it doesn't talk about the bodies. That's good. How are you? Good to see you, sir. If you're elected president, will you finally trust the people enough to tell me about you know what story is? Half the public believes that they are real. Would you finally tell us what the hell's going on? >> Sure, I will. According to some UFO researchers, George Walker Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, has reconstituted his father's powerful White House staff partially to maintain a grip on UFO secrecy. >> Two big uh ones uh Cheney Rumsfeld, people that have always been considered by Euphology to be people who have the right connections, who uh probably are in the know. Regarding the administration of George W. Bush, it's unclear how much this man knows about the topic of UFOs. There are many who argue that the vice president, Dick Cheney, is the man on the spot here in relation to this matter. >> On April 11th, 2001, presidential UFO researcher Grant Cameron was able to query Vice President Dick Cheney on UFO disclosure. Cameron knew he'd have to ask pertinent questions. >> Have you seen a UFO? Who cares? What do you think about UFOs? Who cares? The important question is, have you been briefed? Did someone walk in your office one day, get you to sign a piece of paper acknowledging that you've been briefed on the subject? And if we can show that the president has been briefed on the subject of UFOs, it would show that not only does it exist, but it's an important subject. I did manage to get the question asked to Dick Cheney. He was on a radio talk show in Washington DC on the Diana Ree show and I was the first caller up. I called in and I said to him and my question was Mr. Cheney >> since the statement made by George Bush last July there's been a vicious rumor circulating in the UFO community that you've been read into the UFO program. So my question to you is in any of your government jobs have you ever been briefed on the subject of UFOs? And if you have when was it and what were you told? Well, if I had been briefed on that, I'm sure it was probably classified and I couldn't talk about it. >> And it stunned me. It was significant because first of all, he basically stated it would probably be classified and stated I wouldn't be talking about it, which means it's it they're going to continue to keep it secret. And he basically acknowledged that yes, he's in the loop and yes, there is something to this. It's secret and it's important. The issue of government disclosure on UFOs as they relate to national security issues has long been debated. >> The chief executive either knows or should know what the inner sanctum of official UFO research is all about. The question is why can't we get more information from the White House? And I don't know the answer to that. The politics of disclosure about UFO reality is I can think only would be a nightmare for any president of the United States. It's like being a little bit pregnant. You can't do a little bit of disclosure. It won't sell. >> There's always some idea that some office somewhere is accumulating all this data and all that. But again, uh you'd have to know who's doing it. Uh this gives a lot of ground to conspiracy theorists. I think presidents all recognize that presidents come and go. They're short-lived when it comes to the Washington establishment. Intelligence agencies go on forever. So, I think keeping the status quo about UFOs is the easiest way for all of them to behave. It really is a situation where the people, ordinary people have got to recognize that it's in their interest to have disclosure on UFOs really for the survival of the system of government that we all grew up believing we had. A government of the people, by the people, for the people. And disclosure is is a critical way in attaining that because it is the opening up of a huge part of our history that has been denied to us for 60 years. That's a big deal. >> And how much has really changed in the days since FDR was president? With the advances in technology and security, unidentified flying objects are still seen as a credible threat to the White House and the president. >> Well, Leon, a report came in late this morning that an unidentified aircraft had entered a restricted area. Folks at the White House took it very seriously. >> Come on. Come on. Go. Go. Go. Let's go. >> April 27th, 2005. Radar spotted an unidentified flying object over the White House. The alert that an unidentified >> aircraft had violated a no-fly zone caused a whirlwind of activity at the White House as the Secret Service jumped into action. Sharpshooters took their position and agents rushed to clear the area. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were hurried into underground bunkers. Security forces responded to a perceived threat with pandemonium. Strikingly similar to the confusion of the troops who defended against an unidentified flying object in 1942. >> Well, what sparked all this? According to the Department of Homeland Security, it was just a blip on the radar screen. No aircraft. A UFO leaves. leaves behind a mysterious glowing rainbow. >> Its contrast to the soil in the center and the soil around it is remarkable. >> Strange pieces of metal are found in the human body after an alien encounter. >> There's absolutely no inflammatory response by the body to the object, which is quote unquote impossible. >> An entire Mexican recovery team allegedly perishes when inspecting a UFO crash site. They were able to see there were a number of dead bodies which led them to believe that something extraordinary had happened >> and flying saucers are caught on film. >> It looks like a very faint star but then emits a very bright white green light. >> The 1970s was an era of some of the most extraordinary UFO sightings ever reported. November 2nd, 1971, Delos, Kansas. 16-year-old Ronnie Johnson was doing his chores on a small farm at approximately 6:30 in the evening. What occurs next changes Ronnie's life forever. As he's working, suddenly he hears a noise which sounds he said like a large out of balance washing machine. It was very loud and the area lit up and there hovering about 5 ft above the ground was an object some 8 ft in diameter the top of which was about 10 ft above the ground. Ronnie watches in fear as the glowing multicolored object lingers above the ground. >> Toward the end of this period, the brightness of the object increased, the sound increased, and the glow at the base of the object increased. And the glow appeared to be like a shimmering steam that was falling from the base toward the ground. And as he watched, it flared up in brightness and it blinded him as it took off. He could hear the sound receding to the south slowly and finally re started regaining his vision, ran to the house, told his parents. They ran outside, also saw the object. After they observed the object in the sky, the Johnson's walk over to where the young boy had said the craft was hovering. The family is astonished by what they see. >> They saw this big luminescent ring in the ground in luminescence on the trees nearby. >> So they ran to the house and they drug out the old Polaroid camera and it had one image left and they went out and she