Unsealed: Alien Files (2012–…): Season 2, Episode 24 - Atmospheric Anomalies - full transcript

[narrator] Near the Earth's atmosphere

is a swirling cauldron of gases,

producing spectacular phenomena

that science is still struggling
to understand.

But some experts believe
many atmospheric light shows

are actually caused by extraterrestrials.

Could the atmosphere's greatest displays
in fact be otherworldly organisms?

And if they are,
what is their ultimate goal?

Do they pose an imminent threat
to humanity?

From foo fighters to life-forms
from outer space,

join us as the alien secrets
behind atmospheric anomalies



are unsealed.

A global effort has begun.

Secret files hidden
from the public for decades,

detailing every UFO account,
are now available to the public.

We are about to uncover the truth
behind these classified documents.

Find out what the government
doesn't want you to know.

Unsealed: Alien Files,

exposing the biggest secrets
on planet Earth.

Hessdalen, Norway. January 18, 1982.

At 7:30 pm, local resident Lars Lillevold

steps out of his house
into the deepening twilight.

Here in the far North,

the winter skies grow dim at night,
but darkness never fully falls.

The skies regularly blaze
with the Northern Lights.



But, looking up on this particular night,

Lillevold's eyes are met by something
unlike anything he's ever seen before.

It's a bright red, cigar-shaped object
some 10 to 40 meters in length,

hovering perfectly still in the air.

Lillevold is struck by its eerie silence

and states later
he expected to hear sounds,

but instead,
heard only the murmur of the forest.

Then suddenly, the object springs to life

in a blinding flash
of light and red smoke

as it speeds away to the north.

Lillevold is just one of dozens
of local residents

who report such an encounter
in the early 1980s,

as the skies over this sleepy village
erupt in a bizarre light show.

Between 1981 and 1984,

as many as twenty objects
are sighted each week,

bringing Hessdalen to the attention
of both ufologists and scientists

from around the world.

An ongoing research project is
established to collect eyewitness accounts

and analyze the data.

Astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani

has since concluded
the majority of the Hessdalen objects

are likely comprised of plasma,
a cloud of highly charged particles

known to demonstrate colorful qualities.

[narrator reading]

And he speculates

that if an alien intelligence
is behind the objects,

they may be using plasma
as a kind of atmospheric camouflage.

Are UFOs cloaking themselves with plasma
in the skies over Hessdalen?

And if they are,

why are they concentrated
over the small Norwegian town?

The answer is still under investigation.

But Norway isn't the only European nation

that has been visited
by mysterious lights.

Unsealed case file:

foo fighters.

Hagenau, France. December 23, 1944.

American pilots
are on patrol over the city

when they notice a strange orange light
following one of the planes.

The light pursues the plane
for two tension-filled minutes,

until it breaks away with a maneuver

far beyond the capability
of any existing aircraft.

It's the first of dozens
of wartime encounters

with glowing UFOs
that will become known as...

foo fighters.

The foo fighters was a phenomenon
seen by American pilots during the war,

where they would look outside
of their aircraft and see balls of light

or craft flying in the sky.

They would exhibit technology
that they didn't have,

and they got a little scared,

because they thought
that that was Nazi technology,

that that was going to be the aircraft
that they were going to be facing.

[narrator] But in the years
following the war's end,

allied airmen would learn they weren't
the only ones threatened by foo fighters.

After the war, we found out
both sides were seeing

this highly advanced technology,

and to this day,
no one's been able to identify it.

[narrator] For decades,
experts have attempted to solve

the riddle of the flying lights.

Many believe the foo fighters
were in reality

a weather phenomenon
known as St. Elmo's Fire,

bursts of glowing plasma
that appear at the tips of ships' masts

and aircraft wings.

But unlike St. Elmo's Fire,

the foo fighters moved
independently of the plane,

in a way that points
to an advanced intelligence.

Are the Hessdalen objects
and the foo fighters

naturally occurring phenomena?

Or are they UFOs in disguise?

And if so, why do they choose
to remain hidden?

Plasma reactions have been cited
as one possible answer

to the growing concern of strange
glowing balls of light in modern skies.

But their behavior
often seems too intelligent

to be mere atmospheric anomalies.

Washington, DC, 1952.

The Cold War is at its height,

and the sky over America's capital

is the most heavily guarded airspace
in the world.

But on the night of July 12th,

an air traffic controller
at Washington National Airport

spots seven unidentified objects on radar
to the southwest of the city.

Shortly after,
a pilot preparing for takeoff

contacts the tower to report
six fast-moving lights.

The objects make a sudden turn
toward the White House and the Capitol.

Fighter jets scramble
and attempt to pursue the UFOs,

but shortly before they arrive,

the mysterious craft disappear
from radar.

But this isn't the last Washington
will see of the mysterious lights.

Wave after wave of similar UFOs will
menace the area for the next three weeks

before disappearing for good.

A terrified public
looks to the military for answers.

[John] This was a huge deal.

Because this was not only a big threat
to our national security, even in 1952,

but it was also something
that the government and the military

could not explain.

The sightings were confirmed on radar.

They knew the objects were there,
and yet they weren't ours.

[narrator] General John Samford,

Director of Air Force Intelligence,
holds a press conference,

in which he claims the UFOs
were likely a simple optical illusion

caused by a natural weather phenomenon
known as temperature inversion.

It happens when a layer of warm air
becomes trapped above a layer of cold air,

resulting in unusual light refractions
and visual distortions.

But the Washington sightings
occurred in the dead of night,

when any such effects would be difficult,
if not impossible, to detect.

Nonetheless, temperature inversion
becomes the military's go-to explanation

to debunk UFO claims for decades.

Were the Washington lights
really just an atmospheric anomaly?

Or were they UFOs?

And why is the government
so quick to dismiss them?

Decades later, another anomaly
will reopen the investigation

of mysterious lights
in the nighttime sky.

Western China. July 24, 1981.

Thousands witness a giant spiral of light

winding its way up through the night sky
into the upper atmosphere.

Planetary astronomer
Professor Wang Sichao

conducts an in-depth analysis
of the data from the incident

and concludes
the objects' spiraling motion

indicates the presence
of anti-gravity technology

in its drive system.

[narrator reading]

Nearly three decades later,

a virtually identical anomaly
will appear half a world away,

causing both a media sensation

and a bizarre cover-up
by one of the world's superpowers.

Unsealed case file:

the Norway spiral.

Trondelag, Norway. December 9, 2009.

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute
is flooded with calls,

as thousands witness
a giant spiral of light

form in the night sky above the city.

It hovers in the air
for nearly three minutes

before disappearing into the night.

Some believe the spiral
to be the byproduct of experiments

being conducted hundreds of miles
to the south

at CERN's Large Hadron Collider
in Switzerland.

Others believe it to be the result
of a failed Russian rocket test.

But ufologists
have a very different explanation.

They believe those who saw the spiral
were actually witnessing

the opening of a wormhole,

a passage across the fabric
of space and time

through which aliens can travel
vast distances of interstellar space

in the blink of an eye.

But after denying any involvement,
the Russians change their story

and confirm the anomaly
was in fact one of their rockets

that had spiraled out of control.

Were the China and Norway spirals
really interstellar wormholes?

And why did the Russians
change their story?

Did the spiral represent
a potential leak of vital intelligence?

Or does it pose a danger
that might cause worldwide panic?

Atmospheric anomalies
have been denied by governments

as mere temperature inversions,
but recent multiple-witness sightings

of strange spirals moving through the sky
have many experts believing

something else may be
behind their existence.

Fargo, North Dakota, October 1, 1948.

An Air National Guard pilot
on routine maneuvers

catches sight of a strange ball of light
flying at incredible speed.

Though only
six to eight inches in diameter,

the object races toward the fighter.

The pilot sets off in pursuit,

beginning a dangerous game
of cat-and-mouse.

After nearly 30 minutes,
the bizarre dogfight comes to an end,

with the tiny UFO darting out of sight.

The Fargo object
bears a striking resemblance

to a rare atmospheric phenomenon

known as ball lightning,

spheres of electrical energy
that appear during thunderstorms.

[thunder rumbles]

Rather than instantly traveling to Earth
like most conventional strikes,

ball lightning can last much longer

and move in any direction,
before exploding.

But the Fargo incident
lasted upwards of 30 minutes,

far longer than any recorded occurrence
of ball lightning.

And in the pilot's official report,

he states that he could sense
thought behind the UFO's behavior.

Not long after,

the military initiates a study
of all of its recent UFO encounters.

They speculate the Fargo object
may in fact have been some kind of animal.

Is it possible?

Could some UFOs
actually be a type of bioform

living high in our atmosphere?

In the 1970s,
renowned astrophysicist Carl Sagan

hypothesized that gelatinous organisms
he called floaters

could be living
in the outer atmosphere of Jupiter.

Little did he know that similar creatures
may already be swimming

in Earth's upper atmosphere.

Unsealed case file:

the Amoeba UFO.

San Pablo, California, September 1948.

Retired U.S. Army colonel Horace Eakins
and a friend

look up at the sky as a low-flying bomber
passes overhead.

Beyond it, they catch sight of a UFO
unlike anything seen before or since.

They later describe it
as a massive undulating amoeba

with a dark spot near the center,

like the nucleus
of a single massive cell.

The anomaly speeds off to the east
before disappearing without a trace.

Just two years later,

another encounter points to the presence
of strange creatures living in the sky.

Philadelphia, September 1950.

Two police officers catch sight
of a UFO and pursue it into a field,

where they believe it has landed.

But instead of a spacecraft,

they find a mass of glistening
lavender-colored material

that appears organic in nature.

Experts call it star jelly.

But before the star jelly
can be collected for analysis,

it dissolves, leaving authorities
baffled as to its origins.

According to folklore,
these jelly deposits

tend to follow meteor showers.

Is this strange substance
really of extraterrestrial origin

and being transported
to Earth on meteors?

Or could meteors be knocking
large atmospheric beasts out of the sky?

We've had two instances
in the past decade

where a meteor or comet has come
very close, if not within our atmosphere,

and left something behind.

[narrator] What type of creature
could possibly exist

in Earth's upper atmosphere?

And what clues
have scientists been chasing

that may finally explain
these chilling phenomena?

Unsealed case file:

alien bacteria.

In 2009, Indian scientists

launch a balloon
into the Earth's stratosphere

to collect particle samples,
but the craft returns

bearing an unknown bacteria
that demonstrate

a significantly higher resistance
to ultraviolet radiation,

far beyond
any similar kind on Earth.

Do these strange microscopic life-forms
come from outer space?

In February 2013, discoveries
of star jelly in England

are thought
by some to have been deposited

in the wake
of the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor.

Can strange jelly-like
substances be the carcasses

of fallen giant amoeba-like creatures
living in our atmosphere?

Decades of UFO sightings
have revealed

that many of
the brilliant atmospheric anomalies

that light up our skies
may be alien life-forms.

Some are camouflaged UFOs,

while others may in fact be
amoeba-like creatures

living in the upper reaches
of the Earth's atmosphere

that ufologists have
dubbed "critters."

And their presence raises
a series of disturbing questions.

How many types of these
non-intelligent life-forms are there?

What is the size
of their population?

And do they pose a danger to humanity?

If Earth's vulnerable atmosphere
were to suddenly collapse,

could we become prey
to this alien subspecies?

February 1996.

Scientists aboard
the space shuttle Columbia

witness something out of this world.

While conducting
a magnetic field test,

a tether miles from the shuttle
is surrounded with objects

whose movements seem
stunningly like that of amoeba

or sea plankton.

[astronaut] We've seen a lot of things
swimming in the foreground.

[narrator] Are atmospheric critters
in our skies harmless?

Or are they truly beasts?

What might happen
if our atmosphere

were to suddenly and drastically change,
allowing them to breach it?

The recent discoveries
of massive deposits

of living microorganisms
in our atmosphere

reveal that they display

a death-defying resistance
to ultraviolet radiation,

something that our ozone layer
protects us against.

We have long struggled
against ozone depletion,

but in 2010, NASA announced
that one of Earth's upper layers

had suddenly
and inexplicably collapsed.

Could an ozone-depleted,
ultraviolet-soaked Earth

create an ideal habitat for
these non-intelligent alien creatures,

and like a giant school
of space jellyfish,

swarm our planet
with terrifying destruction?

This is Unsealed: Alien Files,

exposing the biggest secret
on planet Earth.

Adjusted CORNELDVD