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CNN Larry King Live

UFO Hunters Investigate Sightings

Aired July 11, 2008 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, UFOs over Texas -- where were they heading?
Radar shows something was headed very fast in the direction of Crawford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We looked up and there it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Could it have been an alien aircraft or a super secret military mission?

We've got eyewitness stories and intriguing new evidence. You can look and listen and decide for yourself.

UFOs -- are they an out of this world phenomenon or is there a down to earth explanation?

It's all right now on LARRY KING LIVE.

Good evening.

What the heck has been going on in the skies over Stephenville, Texas?

It's a small town not too far from President Bush's Crawford ranch. And earlier this year, Stephenville became ground zero for the biggest mass UFO sighting since the 1997 lights over Phoenix phenomenon.

Let's meet our panel.

A guest in Stephenville is Constable Lee Roy Gaitan. He's the long time Texas lawman who was one of the witnesses to the mysterious lights in the sky on January 8th. He had other strange occurrences, as well.

Also in Stephenville is Angela Joiner -- Angelia, rather -- Joiner. She's a former staff writer for "The Stephenville Empire- Tribune". She has done extensive coverage of the Stephenville UFO sighting claims.

In Stephenville, as well, is James Fox, documentary filmmaker, UFO researcher, executive researcher of "Out of the Blue," finishing up a new film. The working title is "Beyond the Blue."

And here in Los Angeles, Dr. Seth Shostak. He is senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. That stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He's host of a weekly radio program called "Are We Alone??"

All right, Constable Gaitan, what did you see?

CONSTABLE LEE ROY GAITAN, SAYS HE SAW UFOS IN SKY OVER STEPHENVILLE: Actually, January the 8th, about 7:15, 7:30, about two- and-a-half miles south of Dublin, which is south of Stephenville, I walked outside to my car. It was already dark as I'm walking out to the car, as I'm returning back into the house, off to the southwest sky I see a red orb.

The red orb was round, very large, I'd say probably 500 yards away. I saw it just for a split second. It caught my attention. And right when I focused, as I focused, it disappeared. To my surprise, it reappeared seconds later. Again, I just saw it for just a couple of seconds and it vanished.

I knew it wasn't normal. I ran inside. My wife was inside. And I asked my wife to come outside. I explained to her what I saw. She said oh, you probably saw an airplane or something else and didn't think much of it. I went outside. My little 8-year-old boy, Ryan, went outside with me.

I looked in the direction of the southwest sky. I no longer could see these red orbs. Instead, I saw nine to 10 flashing lights up a little further west, I'd say probably 3,000 feet up in the air. These lights were bouncing around, not staying still. They were very bright.

KING: What did you think you saw, Constable?

GAITAN: Well, you know...

KING: What do you think you saw?

GAITAN: I don't know, sir. I went to the car and got my binoculars. I tried focusing in on the lights. I didn't see any type of outline, any figure. After a short period of time, the lights stopped bouncing around and continued flashing strobes and very bright. And I'd say probably two minutes passed. And in a sequence, these lights shot off to the southeast sky at a blazing speed. They were out of sight within two or three seconds.

I don't know what I saw. I do know that shortly after seeing these lights disappear, I did see two jets fly over, traveling in the path of these lights. I don't know if it was part of an experiment, military or what. But I clearly saw and heard the jets. I didn't hear any sound when I saw the lights.

KING: Angelia...

GAITAN: I don't know what...

KING: Angelia...

GAITAN: I don't know what to...

KING: Hold it, Constable.

Angelia, you've been covering this for a while.

What do you think?

ANGELIA JOINER, FORMER STAFF WRITER, "THE STEPHENVILLE EMPIRE- TRIBUNE": I think this radar information that's coming out is very thought provoking. In the beginning, I really thought we were probably experiencing something that was military experimental. Lately, I've maybe started to go the other direction, that, perhaps, we are being visited from another place.

KING: James Fox, what do you think?

JAMES FOX, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, "OUT OF THE BLUE," UFO DOCUMENTARY: Well, this is my third time back to Stephenville now. And what piques my interest is the some other of the testimonies. Steve Allen (ph) was a pilot, another gentleman you're going to hear come on shortly, who actually stood under this craft as the performance -- the lack of air disturbance, the -- no noise and the ability to accelerate from zero to out of sight in the blink of an eye. That definitely piqued my interest.

And there's a gentleman who's going to come on and tell us all about that in a minute.

KING: I know.

FOX: But that's...

KING: (INAUDIBLE)

FOX: (INAUDIBLE) back now.

KING: All right.

Doctor, what do you make of it?

DR. SETH SHOSTAK, SENIOR ASTRONOMER, SETI INSTITUTE: Yes. Well, look, you have an incident here. We have lots of witnesses. There's no doubt something that happened. That really isn't the issue. It isn't that anybody's lying, making things up, hoax, anything like that.

The question is, of course, what they've seen.

Is this evidence so compelling that it tells us, you know, this wasn't some sort of military operation, this wasn't just aircraft from the Brownwood military operations area in Fort Worth, but that this was, you know, visitors from another world.

And I haven't heard the compelling evidence that this is extraterrestrial. KING: But the constable says he's never seen anything like it.

SHOSTAK: Well...

KING: And he knows what a plane looks like.

SHOSTAK: Right. Well, you know, I'm sure the constable is quite honest in that. But the thing is that you see things all the time, you don't know what they are. I was driving into Los Angeles once. I saw something on the horizon. It turned out to be the Goodyear blimp. But from five miles away, it wasn't clear what it was. It was something I had never seen before. That by itself, of course, doesn't prove this.

KING: So your general theory is what?

SHOSTAK: My theory is well, I look for aliens for a living, of course. I'm with the SETI Institute. And we think they're out there, of course, that that seems like a probable thing. But I don't think they're here. It's not that that's impossible, but I think that if they were here, we'd know it.

KING: Constable, do you think they're here?

GAITAN: I'm -- generally, I believe the way which Miss. Joiner did. I've never been one to believe there is something else out there. But since this has occurred, I've changed my opinion. I've never seen anything travel so fast. And if, indeed, we do have -- if we do have something like this in our military, why aren't we using it?

That's my question. And again, the military denied the fact that we saw something originally that night.

KING: Yes.

GAITAN: Sixteen days later they come back and make a statement hey, we did have aircraft in the area that night. You know, I have all the respect in the world for our military, but why did they wait 16 days to come forward?

KING: OK.

Thank you, Constable.

FOX: Is there any chance I can ask...

KING: Hold it.

Hold on, James.

FOX: OK.

KING: Angelia will remain with us, James, so will Dr. Shostak. And other guests will be introduced.

Is the U.S. military harassing people who claim to have seen UFOs? Our next guest says yes and that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICKY SORRELLS, CLAIMS HARASSMENT SINCE REPORTING UFO SIGHTING: So I had my gun and I'm in my camouflage. And I'm coming down to the woods. And I'm thinking if I make it into the woods, at the very back, I won't have enough sunlight to come back with. And I'm still looking in the trees. And I'm hunting. And this is where it's all going to start.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was Ricky Sorrells on his property near Dublin, Texas.

He took our LARRY KING LIVE crew to the very spot where he says he witnessed something very, very unusual.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SORRELLS: Right up here is some briars. And I got tangled up in these briars. And I made a whole lot of noise. So I really slowed down. And when I got tangled up in the briars, my head was down and I stopped. And when I did, my head went up and I was in the process of taking another step. Then I looked up and there it was.

And the thing was huge. It was so big that I couldn't see the edges through the canopy of the trees. I couldn't see past it. I started looking at it, all the details. There wasn't no bolts, no rivets, no welded seams. It was smooth. It was like a barn gray, (INAUDIBLE) a sandy gray.

It had cones protruding, going up into it, bigger at the bottom going up to smaller at the top. It -- actually, it takes off like this. In my mind, I would have thought it would have raised up to take off for some reason, but it didn't. It remained flat and it took off at a 45-degree angle. And that was it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Angelia, James and Seth Shostak remain with us.

And we're joined now by Ricky Sorrells.

All right, Ricky, what do you make of this?

Why, by the way, did you keep quiet about it at first?

SORRELLS: Well, I had the military coming down on me. And, you know, it was an awful lot to take in at one time -- a whole lot of issues surrounding it. It was a pretty big ordeal for me. KING: What do you think it was, Ricky?

SORRELLS: You know, I don't know. I can say this, if it was our military, we can sleep good at night. But if it's not our military, we're in trouble. It was pretty huge, pretty big.

KING: The military came down on you in what way?

SORRELLS: Well, I believe it was the military. I had helicopters coming over my place here in a grid pattern. You know, I had a guy show up at 1:00 in the morning. I looked at him through the door. And I had a lieutenant colonel -- who I believe it was, this is what he told me on the phone -- call me and, you know, he wanted to come interview me. And we had a heated discussion when I told him no. And I asked him if he would quit flying his helicopters over my air space.

That's when he informed me it wasn't my air space, it was his. But we went ahead and, you know, he -- he told me that if, you know, I would sort of kind of quiet down that he would not fly his helicopters over. And, you know, I've remained pretty quiet up until now. And the helicopters have quit flying over us so.

KING: Where did it go, Ricky?

Where did this thing go?

SORRELLS: In which direction?

KING: No. Did you watch it leave?

SORRELLS: Oh, yes, sir. You know, I was in there and I was watching it. This thing, it was above me about 300 foot. You know, the funny thing about it was it was flat. And I would have expected it to take off at an angle like this, but it didn't. And I was actually watching underneath. And when it took off, it took off so fast, if I would have blinked, I would have thought it would have vanished. But I had my eyes on it and I know it took off flat at a 45-degree angle.

KING: Angelia, assuming that Ricky is not nuts, what do you make of this?

JOINER: Well, I feel that perhaps Ricky might have been singled out simply because he was the one that had a daytime sighting. He had more detail as far as things like color, cone-shaped indentions underneath it. Maybe he had more detail than anyone else. And I wondered if that might be why he was singled out.

KING: Well, what do you think it was, Angelia?

What do you think it was?

JOINER: Well, I'm concerned. I don't know what it was.

If it was military, I don't know why that -- why it would be here when there's other places that are unpopulated that they could be flying over to test it. KING: Yes.

James, what do you think it was?

FOX: It reminds me of what Governor Fife Symington and all of his constituents saw. And the fact -- the size of it, the enormity and the fact that it didn't disturb the air, didn't make any noise and the color -- the flat black color they all described seeing. And then taking off, literally people saying, you know, here's so many different ways of trying to describe the acceleration. And they say, you know, if I would have blinked, I would have missed it. It was just an unbelievable rate of acceleration without making any sonic boom, without any noise. And large enough to land, you know, an airplane on it.

So I don't know. It doesn't sound like anything we have. I don't know.

KING: How do you refute this one, Seth?

SHOSTAK: Well, this is a tough one because the guy is -- you know, he sounds like a credible witness.

KING: Yes, he does.

SHOSTAK: Yes. But, of course, it could be military. And there's this assumption that if the military keeps secrets, that it's -- that there is a conspiracy, that it's, you know, keeping quiet UFOs.

KING: But we don't have anything that can take off like that?

SHOSTAK: Well, you...

KING: A helicopter, yes.

SHOSTAK: Yes, you do have things that can take off like that.

I mean, you know, if it were an alien craft, we have 800 satellites up there that are, you know, mapping the Earth all the time. You can go to Google Earth and find your automobile parked in front of your house, right?

How come it can't find these big spacecraft?

Why is that?

Why is it that we think that the military would keep this quiet?

And if -- even if you think that that's true, if you're sort of like a paranoid mindset to think that's true, do you think that every military is keeping it quiet, you know, the Belgians, the Botswanans and, you know?

KING: Yes.

More ahead. We thank Ricky. We thank James Fox.

Angelia remains. So will Seth. More guests coming.

Radar data shows that something strange was in the skies over Texas in January. Expert analysis and maybe some answers ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an unidentified flying object...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hovering over Stephenville. It was a half mile wide and about a mile long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very intense, bright light.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were dancing around and they were flickering.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was so fast when it took off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not all a bunch of idiots, you know. There are so many people that saw it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We're back.

Angelia Joiner remains with us. She's in Stephenville.

And here in Los Angeles, Dr. Seth Shostak.

Joining us from Denver, Colorado is Glen Schulze, former U.S. Army radar systems specialist. He used The Freedom of Information Act, by the way, to get the radar data relating to the skies over Stephenville and what might have been sighted.

And in Austin is Robert Powell, director of research for the Mutual UFO Network. He also obtained radar data relating to the Stephenville UFOs sightings. MUFON, by the way, his organization, is sponsoring the 39th annual International UFO Symposium later this month in San Jose.

All right, Glen Schulze, what do we know?

GLEN SCHULZE, FORMER ARMY RADAR SYSTEM SPECIALIST, ANALYZED STEPHENVILLE DATA: Larry, what we know is that we've got an excellent set of data from the FAA/Fort Worth air route traffic control centers. And we're very thankful to Mark, Connie and Greg down there for doing a very, very good job -- Gary, I think it is.

KING: And the data tells us?

SCHULZE: Well, the first thing we found -- the question is what did we find when we looked at this data?

The first thing we found was we had 25 million words, two-and-a- half million lines, 10 words per line. We had the King James version of the Stephenville radar book. I want to repeat that. We had the King James version of the Stephenville radar book. And I am not saying that facetiously our in jest.

We had, in my estimation, after I looked at the quality of this data, which I spent the first two weeks doing, we had an unabridged, unedited, un-adulterated set of excellent data not touched by human hands but the result of...

KING: And what -- all right, Glen, what do we know?

SCHULZE: Well, in a brief time we have, Larry, all I can do is refer you to -- what I hope we can do is show you chart one, because that tells you volumes just with one chart, more than I could do in 10,000 words.

Can you put Chart One up there?

KING: All right, do we have the chart?

I see -- do we have it?

OK. OK. There it is.

SCHULZE: OK.

Do you see the complexity of that plot? Do you see the number of specks on that plot?

Each one of those specks is a radar return. You're looking at probably...

KING: And?

SCHULZE: You're looking at probably 100,000 radar returns. And these are skin paint returns. These are not returns from beacons. These are unknown objects in the air that are returning a skin paint target to an antenna in Texas. Furthermore, you're looking at the...

KING: Wow!

SCHULZE: You're looking at two-and-a-half hours worth of time there. So you're seeing a global view of what we found in this data from one antenna. And we had data from five antennas. So we were able to check book, chapter and verse here against each other.

KING: What does it tell you, Robert Powell?

ROBERT POWELL, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, MUTUAL UFO NETWORK:

By that question, Larry, do you mean what -- what does it tell me in terms of just the raw amount of data?

KING: Do you think it reaffirms your feeling about UFOs?

POWELL: Well, the data itself doesn't. But once we interpret the data and analyze it, it reaffirms that a lot of what the witnesses saw is confirmed by this data.

KING: OK.

Could, though, could others look at the data and refute that?

POWELL: Well, I would say that Glen and I have put in several hundred hours. So it would take someone a long time to try to refute that. And I don't believe that they would be able to.

KING: Dr. Shostak, what's your read on the read?

SHOSTAK: Well, listen, there's a lot of data. It's a great -- it's a great job. They finally looked at something very carefully.

But the facts are, there are known to have been aircraft in the area. So, of course, you're going to get radar reflections from aircraft.

You know, the question that you have to ask Glen is what in that radar evidence convinces him that this is non-terrestrial craft?

What's in those radar reflections that tells you this isn't aircraft from Earth?

SCHULZE: Hundreds of primary skin paint returns which don't fit to any known pattern that we can assign it to.

SHOSTAK: So, are you absolutely convinced?

SCHULZE: Well, I'm convinced that there were objects in the air that night that were not traveling with beacons on, that the military is not claiming, the FAA is not explaining what they are and they certainly fit the scenario of what the witnesses saw. I don't see how you can (INAUDIBLE)...

SHOSTAK: (INAUDIBLE) secret but it's not -- but why do you think it's extraterrestrial, is really what I'm asking?

SCHULZE: I didn't say it was extraterrestrial. You're putting words in my mouth. I'm just telling you what the radar found. And the radar found hundreds of thousands of skin paint returns and a cluster of them right near Stephenville are headed off toward Crawford. I don't see how you can deny that.

KING: I've got it.

Do you think it was extraterrestrial?

SCHULZE: Are you asking me, Larry?

KING: Yes.

SCHULZE: I...

KING: What do you think?

SCHULZE: I don't want to speculate yet because we're still in the middle of this. This is the first day that this data has been released. Robert and I have been working on it for four months. And I don't want to speculate yet, but I'll say this. There's something there that needs to be -- questions need to be answered by the Air Force and the FAA as to what was in the sky that night that was traveling without a beacon.

KING: Angelia, what do you think?

JOINER: I was most impressed with the radar actually fitting to eight of the witnesses in separate locations. You know, in Phoenix, you had hundreds of people that saw something, so that made it maybe easier for somebody to come out and say, well, it was flares.

But in this case, you have eight people that are in separate locations at different times that this unknown object matches up to their report.

So I don't think we're going to come up with one blanket reason or thing as to what they saw. That part was most impressive to me.

KING: Robert, does -- do you think this more confirms your feelings?

POWELL: Yes. What Angelia just told you confirms my feelings. At 6:10 p.m. we had an object show up with a witness to the east. Five minutes later, we have a witness to the south. We have a witness 30 miles to the west who sees the same object. And then we have another witness to the southwest.

At the same time, on radar, we pick up two data points of an object 20 seconds apart, which is -- if those two data points are linked, is moving at 1,900 miles per hour. And that object is in the same -- moving in the same direction and in the same location that our witnesses say they saw this object.

KING: We'll take a break and be right back with this group.

Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Glen Schulze, do you think there was a lot of interest in this because Stephenville is not far from Crawford, and Crawford is where the president has a home?

SCHULZE It certainly is suspicious, Larry. I think we have to go a little easy on Seth, maybe easier than I was before, because Seth hasn't seen this radar data before. I don't know how much radar data he's looked at. I've looked at over three million radar returns. Until Seth is given a chance to look at the radar, maybe we should go a little easier on him. KING: OK, Seth?

SHOSTAK: I appreciate that, Glen. Actually, I did read your report. And I'm a radio astronomer, so I don't know much about radar, but I know something about receivers and so forth. This compelling argument that was made just before the break, could that not have been two separate aircraft picked up at different times giving you a false speed reading?

SCHULZE: Certainly possible.

POWELL: May I comment on that, Seth?

KING: Sure, Robert.

POWELL: Those had no beacons, so those were not aircraft. Those were two points in time, and there were no other points linking that. So it definitely was not an aircraft of any type.

SHOSTAK: It was an aircraft maybe without a beacon.

POWELL: Those are the only two points that show up on that aircraft. And it would have been an aircraft without a beacon that was going 1,900 miles an hour, and no one reported any sound barrier breaking.

KING: Was there press interest in this, Angelia, because of the closeness to the president?

JOINER: Yes. Early on, I got some questions about Crawford. People wanted to know, you know, had I contacted anybody to see if the president was in Crawford on the night of January the 8th. And it was my understanding he was not there. So early on, there were a lot of questions about Crawford.

KING: Dr. Shostak, I asked you this off the air, do you think we'll ever know know?

SHOSTAK: I think we will. To me it's remarkable. People have assumed that we're being visited for more than 60 years now, right, since Roswell. If you had asked people in America 60 years after Columbus, do you think you are be visiting by Spaniards, I don't think it would be controversial. They knew. It wouldn't be dependent on equivocal evidence.

KING: What do you think? You think -- what do you think?

SHOSTAK: I think they're out there. I think that's very likely given the enormity of the universe and the fact that there's nothing terribly special, we think, about our solar system. So they're out there. I don't think they're here. We've heard that. I think we may find them in the next few dozen years.

KING: You don't think the government's hiding anything?

SHOSTAK: No, I'm sure the government hides lots of stuff. But you can think whatever you want of our government. But it seems to me that if we were really being visited by beings from other worlds, they wouldn't just last in the American southwest because they like the Tex Mex cuisine. They would be landing everywhere. I don't think you could cover it up if they were landing everywhere.

KING: Robert, how do you respond to that?

POWELL: I guess the way I would respond to that is, this is probably the most compelling evidence that I have ever seen. And SETI is working on trying to find, using radio telescopes, signs of alien life on other planets. This evidence is much more compelling that anything SETI has found. We're spending millions of dollars on radio telescopes trying to determine that, and we're spending basically nothing trying to determine whether or not what we see on our own planet is real or not real.

SHOSTAK: Well, in fact the money being spent on SETI are, in fact, all private money. It's no tax dollars. I suspect that the total expenditure in the two fields is probably fairly comparable. But I think the big difference there, Robert, is that, yes, we haven't found a signal. But we're not claiming that we found the aliens and you are.

POWELL: No, Seth, I didn't say we found the aliens. We don't know there was anything inside. All we know is that there were objects that show up on radar, and that we have multiple witnesses that saw these objects within a very narrow period of time, and all these witnesses indicate that the object was extremely large. When you look at the whole thing together, when you look at all of the radar data, you look at witness after witness, within a very short time frame, from different angles, from different areas of that small geographical area, to me, that's fairly compelling.

It's compelling enough that it says our government should be looking into it. It really shouldn't be having to be done by small private organizations.

KING: Glen, why did you get interested in this.

SCHULZE: I had spent a lot of time analyzing radar data from the disintegrate of TWA 800, which, by the way, I'm still doing 12 years later -- 12 years later? No, 11 years later, I guess. It happened in 1996. And so radar has always been a subject I've been in and out of for 40 years. And it was sort of close to Colorado, right in Texas. And I wanted to see if this was just a cow town down there, where a lot of red necks are driving around in pickup trucks, having maybe too many Coors.

So I went down to Stephenville and I found just the opposite. This is a slice of middle America, Larry, and these people, these witnesses are not to be taken lightly.

KING: Cow capital. Angelia, do you think we'll ever find the whole story?

JOINER: I hope so. I would like to think that eventually we'll know what was here. I'm sure something was here. These witnesses have been so credible. Our little towns and the surrounding community have been through a lot. We're not used to this sort of attention. And I hope that in the future, we'll know exactly what visited here.

KING: Thank you all very much. Angelia Joiner, Glen Schulze, Robert Powell and Dr. Seth Shostak. The UFO Hunters are next when LARRY KING LIVE returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BURNS, "UFO HUNTERS" Somewhere out there, there's a greater truth.

JEFFREY TOMLINSON, "UFO HUNTER": Are we alone? I think everybody asks this question.

BURNS: Did you find it?

TOMLINSON: Yes, it's over here.

BURNS: It was just right there in the sand.

PAT USKERT, "UFO HUNTERS": We have a possible collision of a plane and a UFO.

DR. TED ACWORTH, "UFO HUNTER": I'm not a believer. I think it's extremely unlikely that there are little green men flying around in spaceships.

No object found, no constellation found at that point of reference where we're looking at.

BURNS: So this says it's not a star?

ACWORTH: Not a star.

BURNS: You've got 90 percent of them either delusional, out and out hoaxes or honest mistakes.

TOMLINSON: UFO hunting is one of the best ways for us to determine who we are and where we're going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We now pay attention to the "UFO Hunters." In New York, Bill Burns, co-host "UFO Hunters" on the History Channel, publisher of "UFO Magazine," Ted Acworth, also in New York -- he has a heart science background, has a PHD in mechanical engineer, has worked for NASA. And here in Los Angeles, Paul Uskert, co-host of "UFO Hunters" as well, became intrigued by the UFO phenomenon after seeing a strange metallic object flying in the skies over Venice, California four years ago. And he's a contributing writer for "UFO Magazine."

Bill, what do we mean UFO hunters? BURNS: What UFO Hunters do is we find stories that seem compelling, interesting, that also have a historical background. We are boots on the ground. We get out there. We talk to witnesses. We look at the scientific evidence. We do our measurements. And we try to relate these stories, the witness stories to each other. And we try to eliminate all of the conventional explanations, one by one, until we wind up at something we can't explain away.

KING: Do you go, Ted, with a position of belief?

ACWORTH: No, Larry, I go with a very unbiased, sort of scientifically objective position.

KING: And Pat, what is your involvement in the UFO Hunters?

USKERT: Well, I'm the only guy on the team without a PHD. So I'm the guy that does the dirty work. If there's a -- oh, basically, I'm the field investigator, going out, talking to people, gathering information, library archives. And if there's ever a case where there's -- I have to go into a cave, look for debris or something like that, I'm the guy that goes in.

KING: We have been talking about Stephenville, Texas tonight, and your UFO Hunting team has taken you to Stephenville. Let's look at some of the investigative efforts conducted there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since December 2007, more than 200 UFO sightings are reported in Araf (ph) county, and the cluster is reportedly moving south. The investigation has left the team with more questions than answers. What was this object? Why here? And why now? Not knowing what it is, the team hopes to find out at least where it was.

Media outlets and countless witnesses report seeing UFOs in varying areas and times, but the team is only interested in three of these, the reports from January 8th between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m.

ACWORTH: This is actually a pretty exciting experiment we're doing here. As far as I've ever heard of, it's the first full geographic scale. triangulation experiment of a UFO sighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Bill Burns, based on the first 40 minutes of this show, how does that, if any way, affect your thinking?

BURNS: Well, what we found was that there was an object. We can't say where it came from. We can't say what it was. We did some very intriguing triangulation experiments that Ted can explain, that showed that the witnesses who said they were seeing something actually did see something in the place they said they saw it. So we know that.

KING: Ted, can you explain it without being too technical? ACWORTH: I'll try, Larry. We went down there and, first of all, we found out that there had been basically a rash of sightings starting as early as November, and went well through January, into February. And statistically, first of all, there was about a 10 times increase in the number of reportings -- the number of sightings that were reported, which gave us -- you know, that was a hunch that something was going on down there. So what we did is with our friends at MUFON, who collect all these reports, is we filtered the long list and we found right away that January 8th was sort of the hottest night of the whole three to four-month period.

And we then filtered the list again and tried to identify at least three or four people who had described the same -- described the same object, the same shape and color, around the same time, around the same date, and around geographically the same position.

KING: What did you conclude?

ACWORTH: We found the four and then we went and interviewed them, Pat and I and Bill, and I got quantitative measurements of exactly what they had seen and what direction. I took it all back to the lab. And if you took four random guesses, they would probably all aim in different directions. In this case, lo and behold, all four reports quantitatively aimed at the same position, about 1,500 feet to about two to three miles east of town, 1,500 feet of elevation, which tells me that conclusively, something was there that night.

Now, of course, I'll have to let Ted tell you.

KING: We're going to get -- Pat Uskert was there and we want his thoughts as well. We'll also take your calls. Don't go away.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I picked up a ship-to-shore transmission. The gentleman on the transmission said, quote, that's right, Bob, I don't know what the hell it is. It's about 200 yards off my bow and it's starting to tilt. He started to go on to explain exactly what it was that I was seeing. That's all I needed to freak out, and I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Pat, you went to Phoenix. You went to Stephenville. What did you find out? What did you conclude?

USKERT: Well, I had a chance to talk to multiple eyewitnesses of this event on January 8th. And this is one of the best forms of evidence there is, multiple eyewitnesses who don't even know each other telling the same story. What we were able to conclude is that all these people did indeed see something strange.

KING: So it makes it impossible to discount?

USKERT: Well -- KING: Different people, different locations seeing the same thing, how do you discount?

USKERT: Exactly. Ted actually performed some science. We took the compass directions of all their readings and we put it all together and we triangulated, and they were all looking at the exact same location at the exact same time. Clearly, there was one object that they saw.

KING: We'll take a call.

Phoenix, Arizona, hello.

CALLER: Hi. I was wondering if any of the gentlemen ever found an alien artifact? And if they're familiar with the Web site LockdownMyID.com?

KING: Bill Burns?

BURNS: I know the Web site. And to answer your question, not to be coy, but we did examine some alien artifacts. They are in the lab. They're being tested. We will know the results soon.

KING: You know they're alien though?

BURNS: The people who have them claim they're alien. They could turn out to be conventional objects, but we'll find out.

KING: We have an e-mail question from Jack in Chumsford, Massachusetts: "With all the digital cameras and cam corders out there, why hasn't someone taken a clear picture of one of these UFOs? It seems all the images we see are blurry at best" -- Ted?

ACWORTH: That's a great question. You know, it turns out that if you consider the lighting conditions of a typical night UFO sighting, it's basically a faint point source of light way off in the distance with a very black background. Your typical cell phone camera or consumer grade still or video camera just is not designed to take good quality pictures in those conditions.

Even a professional grade camera would have a hard time. That's the reason we're just not getting a lot of good footage.

KING: OK. We have another e-mail question from Karen in Texas: "Does the government ultimately control what information is released is released to the public through media outlets and shows like UFO Hunters?

KING: Pat?

USKERT: Actually, that sounds like a Bill question.

KING: Bill?

BURNS: Well, the answer is a very qualified and very passive yes. The CIA's been involved in manipulating information in the media ever since the late 1940s when the first strange objects crashed in Roswell. They have done this and they've admitted it. They've been very happy about admitting it. They basically force stories into the tabloid media. They give stories to science fiction writers, and in so doing, they marginalize what are really intriguing and true stories about UFO, so as to make the people who talk about them seem odd, strange eggs, off the planet.

KING: Orlando, Florida, hello?

CALLER: Yes. Fascinating subject. I have a question; is it possible aliens are traveling from the future back into our time zone? And if they're advanced enough for time travel, how could UFO Hunters chase or track them?

KING: Pat?

USKERT: No, that's a very good question. And I'm afraid I don't have the answer.

KING: Does anyone have a thought, Bill, Ted?

ACWORTH: I do. And the thought is this, there is a theory, and a person in the Navy who investigated the Philadelphia experiment actually explained that the military does believe that aliens are actually us from our future. And this is his theory. This is not a fact. It's theory, that it's us from our future and they are manipulating the timeline so that we don't make critical mistakes, catastrophic mistakes. True, not true, I have no evidence.

KING: Based on that statement, look, ma, there I am. Up there, I'm coming. We'll be right back with more after this.

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KING: Another e-mail for our panel from Mickey in Denton, Texas: "Do you think people are truly ready to face the implications of extra-terrestrial intelligence? How do you think the public would react if presented with absolute proof of it" -- Bill?

BURNS: I don't think they are ready. I think there would be shock. I think eventually we would accept it. I think that part -- there is a gradual disclosure going on, I think through science fiction movies, I think through a number of outlets there is disclosure going on and I think that is preparing us for what we will eventually come to see, as we have people out there that are extra terrestrials and they're here.

KING: Ted, how do you think people would react?

ACWORTH: I think I can only base that on the people I've met in the research we've done for the show. It's just amazing how many people we've come across in our interviews and our case studies, who I get to talk to, who feel like they've either seen something themselves or a close family member has. It has astonished me just how prevalent this is not just American society, but over in England as well and worldwide. It seems like people -- a lot of people think about it. A lot of people believe they may have seen something.

I don't think -- I disagree with Bill. I think people would be ready to hear the truth, whatever that truth is.

KING: Pat?

USKERT: It sounds to me like people already. They have these UFO experiences. They're not having any kind of a meltdown. They're able to discuss these experiences with us. It seems like we're an intelligent species enough to fathom that we are not alone. And I think we can handle it.

KING: So no panic?

USKERT: Well, I talked to a lot of people about it, with people who have studied this much longer than I have. There are theories that people would panic, this would adversely affect the economy, that there would be mayhem in the streets. But I don't know. From the people -- we're meeting and talking to people who are OK with it.

KING: Bill, we have a short time left. Do you think most people believe there is life elsewhere?

BURNS: Yes, they do. In fact, I think that in CNN's own poll, 85 percent of those who responded said that they did believe there was life elsewhere. Whether that life is now here is another story, but they did believe that. I think our government believes that. I think Seth Shostak believes that with SETI. So I think that anybody you speak to would be very arrogant to say there is no other life in the universe. The question here is, has that life come here? We believe it has.

KING: Thank you all very much, from the "UFO Hunters" and "UFO Magazine" and the History Channel, Bill Burns, Ted Acworth, Pat Uskert.

A personal mention here. Thanks again for the thrill of a lifetime yesterday. The intersection in front of our bureau here, CNN's Los Angeles bureau, right at Sunset and Coanga (ph), was renamed Larry King Square. Now there's a picture of what the ceremony was like yesterday. All the top brass was here. It was some thrill.

As I said then, when I was five years old, one of my great wishes of my life was to have a street named of me, where hopefully people could be ticketed. Just for the sadistic joy. Anyway, no, this is a great thrill and I thank everybody involved with the city of Los Angeles.

This weekend on LARRY KING LIVE, our interview with freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt and again on Saturday. You can see tonight's UFO show on Sunday's LARRY KING LIVE.

Jesse Ventura is here. Will he run for the Senate or not? He's going to tell us. He'll announce his decision right here on LARRY KING LIVE Monday night.