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Inside Man
Inside Man: Unidentified Flying Objects
Aired May 18, 2014 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MORGAN SPURLOCK, CNN HOST (voice-over): For thousands of years, humans have starred up at the night sky and wondered, are we alone in the universe?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God! Did you see that flash to the left?
SPURLOCK: These humans don't seem to think so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had one sighting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is thing is like wobbling in the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just couldn't imagine what could be moving like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It started quicker and quicker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as I pulled my phone, they disappeared.
SPURLOCK: But now even scientists say there's pretty good chance we've got some galactic neighbors. So, are we alone in the Universe? If there's any proof out there, I'm going to make it my job to find it.
I'm on a dirt road out in Arizona. I've been on this road for well over an hour. To most people this may look like the middle of nowhere, but this is actually the epicenter of alien and UFO investigation in the United States. I'm on my way to a MUFON compound. The MUFON is the mutual UFO network. And what they do is they train people in how to investigate, not only sightings but crash sites for UFO's. That's what I'm going to be doing today.
MUFON's Arizona headquarters can be found at an undisclosed location deep in the Arizona des desert. Also known as the home of Chuck Modlin, MUFON's chief technical advisor for investigators.
How you doing?
CHUCK MODLIN, MUFON'S CHIEF TECHNICAL ADVISOR FOR INVESTIGATORS: Good. Yourself?
SPURLOCK: I'm great, man. I'm Morgan.
MODLIN: Chuck. SPURLOCK: Pleasure to meet you.
MODLIN: Welcome to my home.
SPURLOCK: Yes, thank you. Thanks for having me. Let's get cracking.
MODLIN: OK.
SPURLOCK: Yes. Chuck, a former naval officer and his friend Fletcher, are with an arm of MUFON known as the star team.
MODLIN: Morgan, this is Fletcher.
SPURLOCK: Hey. How are you? Nice to meet you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Same here.
SPURLOCK: Pleasure.
MODLIN: Everybody sit down and I guess we'll get started.
SPURLOCK: With 15 years as a crime scene investigator and 27 years in law enforcement, Fletcher knows a thing or two about running legitimate investigation.
FLETCHER GRAY, STAR TEAM MANAGER: Good morning, everyone. My name is Fletcher Gray and I'm the star team manager for MUFON.
Our big mission statement in (INAUDIBLE) to MUFON is the scientific study of UFO's for the benefit of the study of humanity. We're trying to put together the unknown and make it the known.
SPURLOCK: This might look like a small operation, but, in fact, MUFON is one of the oldest and largest UFO investigative organizations in the world, with nearly 2,800 members in 29 countries. MUFON members have investigated tens of thousands of cases spanning a period of more than 44 years. When it comes to UFO's if you see something and you want to say something, you call MUFON.
Today I'm with a small group being trained in what MUFON says is the right way to conduct a UFO investigation.
GRAY: So I think if we can get started --
SPURLOCK: One of the most important pieces of evidence in any investigation is an eyewitness account. So I'm getting trained in how to take a statement.
GRAY: What we're going to be doing here is scenario number one. You're going to be the primary involved in this. And you're going to be interviewing a witness. And what you're going to be doing is drawing information out from him. You're going to look for discrepancies and you're going to look for other information that he might have left out in your report.
SPURLOCK: OK. GRAY: All right.
SPURLOCK: All right, sir. Tell me the story again of what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. I was hanging out at Joseph's house. It was about 11:00 p.m. and just over the mountains saw a bluish green orb. He was going really fast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I jumped. I'm like hey, dude, look at that freaking light over there, dude. This thing is wobbling in the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, it's super fast and he starts descending.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I told Gabriel, let's head over there. I mean, I got the shakes right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jump in the truck and head out there and then there's nothing.
SPURLOCK: And that's when you called us?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPURLOCK: OK. So you said it was around 11:00?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, 11:00 p.m.
SPURLOCK: OK. And where were you guys sitting?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were right in the porch area, back area.
SPURLOCK: No drugs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, of course not.
SPURLOCK: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had a drink.
SPURLOCK: And which direction was it traveling in? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was actually headed east.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is east.
SPURLOCK: How large was the object?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Football field. It was huge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was huge. I mean, it was a bright light.
SPURLOCK: And the colors that you saw?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Green. Almost like a comet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was blue. SPURLOCK: Explain the shape of it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very Circular.
SPURLOCK: Perfectly circular.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looked like a giant football.
SPURLOCK: Great. Thanks for your time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.
SPURLOCK: Did I miss anything in the questions I asked him?
GRAY: Did perfect. I need to recruit you.
SPURLOCK: Yes. Star team investigator right here.
So, is there any concern? Like so, in between the two guys story. One guy said it was a perfect circle, one guy said it was shaped like a football. One guy said it was green and second guys said it was blue.
GRAY: You need to make those note whence you file your report because you've got conflict of information there. But what you do is you rely on your evidence to back up their story.
SPURLOCK: Right. So now, after I do this preliminary interview, the next thing I would do is go to the location.
GRAY: Yes, yes.
SPURLOCK: OK.
Next up, learning how to work a UFO investigation at the scene of the incident. Just like in any real police work, any site can have clues so MUFON urges an investigator to treat a site with caution and respect.
GRAY: All right, guys. Anytime you go out on the scene, first thing you want to do is check for hazards. You want to do a radiation sweep. That way you can make sure the area is not contaminated with radiation.
And after your radiation sweep. You can to do your magnetic fields.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
SPURLOCK: We're checking for unusually high regulation levels. High residual radiation levels might indicate evidence of a fusion powered spacecraft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you hit a hot spot, it might start clicking.
SPURLOCK: 28, 29. Is that normal for a burn like this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. If it were actually contaminated, you would already have senses on that. So I would say at this point, it's radioactive clear.
SPURLOCK: Clear.
Then we check to see how strong the magnetic field is, because magnetism is widely regarded at UFO community as another possible indicator of evidence of spacecraft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 25.1, 11.1, 20.3, 63.1, 171 overflow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPURLOCK: The magnometer led me to my first piece of evidence. Granted we put it there, but at least I know my tools work.
As you are researching UFO activity, why is electromagnetic fields, why is that so important?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In this case we were trying to do it because we are trying t collect data. It is the more data we have, the more enlightened we will be.
SPURLOCK: Because everything that's been reported as having some sort of connection has some sort of electromagnetic activity?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.
SPURLOCK: Right.
Next, we group at the site, photograph our evidence and record our findings. Making a complete record of the investigation scene.
Tremendous amount of work going into something like this.
GRAY: OK. You got the basic and you got to the point where you've got more information than you did before. Do you feel like you've done that?
SPURLOCK: Absolutely.
So I guess the biggest thing now is applying that on the field.
GRAY: Yes. You got have the heart too.
SPURLOCK: Yes. You want to do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I want to do it.
SPURLOCK: What makes you guys want to do with this job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I want to find out is who's visiting and how long they're visiting.
SPURLOCK: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know why would be out here long anyway.
SPURLOCK: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody thinks otherwise is arrogant.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPURLOCK(voice-over): Learning to collect evidence is one thing. But if you are really looking for proof of UFO's, nothing beats firsthand experience.
So I'm here in Sedona, Arizona because this is the hot bed, the crossroads of extraterrestrial activity in America. This place is said to be the corner stone of travel of communication for extraterrestrials. There are these things called vortexes that enable communication to happen easier. There are portals that have said to be windows or doorways to other worlds. And most importantly, there are actual people here who have dedicated their whole lives to communicating with them, to seeing them and to finding them. And hopefully they'll help you and I do the same.
Kim Carlsberg is my guide for the night. She has written three books on extraterrestrial life and claims to have seen thousands of UFO's. If anyone can help me have a sighting it's got to be her.
What's the secret to having a sighting?
KIN CARLSBERG, AUTHOR: The secrets to having a sighting.
SPURLOCK: Is there anything I should know before we get there?
CARLSBERG: You know, you're out here in Sedona and it's called a dark sky city.
SPURLOCK: OK.
CARLSBERG: If you'll notice, we don't have any street lights in Sedona in the neighborhoods.
SPURLOCK: Yes.
CARLSBERG: So they keep the skies really, really dark. So you've got the physical aspects of it, which are black sky, dark sky. And then you combine that with, you know, military issue night vision, which allows you to see 70,000 times more light than a human eye --
SPURLOCK: So we're going to watch with night vision?
CARLSBERG: We are going to watch with night vision.
SPURLOCK: Awesome.
CARLSBERG: And I have about five different types of night vision. So you'll get to see the differ different grades.
SPURLOCK: Cool. And what are the chances of us actually seeing something.
CARLSBERG: I guarantee it. You'll not only see some things, you'll see things that will probably change your perspective forever.
This is a typical Sedona UFO sky tour.
SPURLOCK: Awesome. I'm Morgan. Hi, Morgan. Where should I sit? Here? Cool.
CARLSBERG: That looks like a good spot.
SPURLOCK: OK.
CARLSBERG: So this is one spot where we actually have almost a 360- degree view. So we don't want to judge anything we're seeing. We want to describe and share our observations with each other, and that's it.
SPURLOCK: So it's sunset in Sedona. We are waiting for the sky to be completely dark so that we can start trying to spot anything, everything. Any movable object that we see that could potentially be an unidentified flying object. And I believe we're going to see something tonight. We believes, too.
CARLSBERG: Totally. Absolutely.
SPURLOCK: See? Three for three.
CARLSBERG: Yes.
SPURLOCK: So at this point in the evening, we've switched over to infrared. That way we'll be able to capture as much of our reaction as well as the action in the skies as we possibly can. No action yet. Still looking. Any second now.
CARLSBERG: OK, it's going to be soon. Put that around your neck, grab it in the middle and let go.
SPURLOCK: These night vision goggles are the real deal. Military grade binoculars that, according to Kim, detect 70,000 times more light than the naked eye.
I see more stars than I've ever seen in my life. It is phenomenal.
CARLSBERG: In half an hour, you're going to see ten times more than you're seeing right now.
SPURLOCK: And then half an hour after that, I'm going to see ET. After 20 minutes of star gazing, the only thing I've got to show for it is a sore neck. No UFOs, no close encounters, no little green spacemen, nothing. But maybe that's just me.
CARLSBERG: I' got one already. OK, guys. Right here number one. Number one. Kind of a small craft, not moving very fast at all. Right here. Can you see this beam? OK, there he goes.
SPURLOCK: Yes, I'm seeing it move.
CARLSBERG: OK, good. So what do we see there? Let's observe. It's not flashing, right? Not flashing. OK, it is not flashing so it's not a helicopter, it's not an airplane. It's not going east to west so it's not a satellite.
SPURLOCK: Yes, it's right there.
OK, I'm definitely seeing something. But is it something special?
CARLSBERG: We got another one right above it. Little tiny guy. A lot faster.
SPURLOCK: Kim seems to think it is, but I'm not sure.
CARLSBERG: Five in five minutes, how you doing?
SPURLOCK: Wow.
Once I started seeing stuff up there, it suddenly seemed like there might actually be UFOs everywhere.
CARLSBERG: So seven, eight, nine, that would be nine. Morgan, you got it?
SPURLOCK: Yes, there s a third one coming underneath those two. There's two, just crossed each other right in the middle.
CARLSBERG: OK, 11, 12. I've got one over here. It is 13.
SPURLOCK: Yes. There is still right here. Right there.
And after just one hour in the dark, I must have seen at least 40 objects flying across the sky.
CARLSBERG: OK. So how many is that? I lost count.
SPURLOCK: That is pretty awesome.
A I saw a sky full of unidentified objects. Did they have, you know, little green men in them? I don't know. But it's enough to continue to make you think and make you want to see more. That's all I want to do now. Now I want to see more. I want to find more proof. So that's the next step. And I've got to get a neck massage.
After my night in the desert, I have to say I wanted to know more about what might be out there. So I went to talk to Kim and hear what she thought about it all. How are you?
CARLSBERG: Good to see you again. SPURLOCK: Good to see you. How's everything?
CARLSBERG: Great.
SPURLOCK: Very fitting place to have lunch.
CARLSBERG: Isn't it wonderful? I'll take the usual.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For you, sir?
SPURLOCK: I'm going to have some space junk.
CARLSBERG: Oh, wow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you want to keep the menu?
SPURLOCK: No, no.
So, why did you want to get into the UFO business? What was the draw for you?
CARLSBERG: I didn't want to get into the UFO business. The UFO business wanted to get into me.
SPURLOCK: Really?
CARLSBERG: My boyfriend and I were living on the corner of pacific highway and sunset boulevard. So one night I came home and I pulled a chair up to the window when I noticed this light on the horizon that was too low to be a star and too high to be a boat. So, 'm sitting there and I see all of a sudden this light goes like this. And I would have thought that it was a shooting star had it not turned around and took a diagonal and ended up hovering over the beach in my house, probably 20 feet in front of me. I had somehow been taken out of my bed and I was in what I thought was an elevator. I was naked, I was paralyzed, and I was pushed through a door into a room that was so vast that I couldn't see the edges of the room.
SPURLOCK: OK.
CARLSBERG: Yes. And there were four beings to my right.
SPURLOCK: What did they look like?
CARLSBERG: What we now know as the typical gray alien, bald head, big eyes, very few features.
SPURLOCK: Wow.
CARLSBERG: I know this is a lot to take in.
SPURLOCK: And when did you get back home in your bed?
CARLSBERG: I was typically taken about 3:30 in the morning. That's when I knew they would come. And I've been taken hundreds of times.
SPURLOCK: Hundreds?
CARLSBERG: Hundreds. I have been taken off planet several times. I've been taken to a planet they claim (INAUDIBLE). For eight years, I was taken sometimes two to three times a week. The they have been using my DNA to create a hybrid species. I have seven hybrid (INAUDIBLE) that I know of.
SPURLOCK: Seven?
CARLSBERG: Seven, yes.
SPURLOCK: How many people believe what happened to you?
CARLSBERG: How many people believe what happened to me?
SPURLOCK: Yes. Like when you tell the story to people, how many people go this is absolutely insane? This did not happen.
CARLSBERG: When you research the subject for 25 years, you find lots of credible people who believe you. You know, there's a huge UFO community around the world. I've had 5,000 friends on facebook that are all probably contactees (ph), you know.
SPURLOCK: Yes. How do you know there's seven children?
CARLSBERG: I have relationships with those children.
SPURLOCK: You do?
CARLSBERG: Oh, yes.
SPURLOCK: I know what you're thinking. And it's hard not to think the same thing.
When you hear stories like Kim's story, it makes you start to just, you know, question all of it.
Thanks.
CARLSBERG: You're welcome.
SPURLOCK: It does starts to sound so outlandish that it's almost impossible.
But as tempting as it is, to wire Kim off this crazy, it is a little harder when you consider that she's far from alone. Some studies estimate that as many as one in 50 adult Americans believe they' been abducted and an even larger number claims to have had some encounter with the alien spacecraft.
And it is not just your average jokes. Former presidents Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are all rumored to have seen alien spacecraft. Could all of them really be wrong?
I had to leave Kim in a hurry because I finally got a call from the MUFON investigators. They're hot on the trail of three new cases in Georgia, so I've come to Atlanta to help out. I'm ready to get to work, but I want to be prepared so I'm taking a closer look at my MUFON field manual before I go.
Now we're get into the good stuff. So these are what people have reported. This guy with the thorn face. And this guy who's straight out of close encounters. This person, who looks like me in a tie back suit. And here is this guy, look how handsome this dude is. This is like some guy you would see on the cover of some romance novel as he comes back from space to take you on some love adventure.
How to identify crop circles, physical remains of alien entities., ethical guidelines for investigation and treatment, hypnotic word play. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo.
I'll admit it's hard not to feel skeptical about the UFO investigation process, but I'm still going into it with a wide open mind.
Time to go to work.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPURLOCK(voice-over): I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, where I have my first shot at a real UFO investigation. So, I'm meeting up with my friends for MUFON, a group dedicated firsthand investigations of alien encounters.
RALPH HOWARD, STATE DIRECTOR FOR GEORGIA: Hello. I'm Ralph Howard, state director for Georgia.
SPURLOCK: Hey, Morgan.
HOWARD: Nice to meet you, Morgan. Welcome to Atlanta.
SPURLOCK: Thank you. Time to get started with case number one.
HOWARD: Good morning, John. How are you?
SPURLOCK: I'm Morgan. Nice to meet you pop I'm Morgan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Morgan. Pleasure to meet you.
SPURLOCK: Pleasure.
In this first case, John and his partner Karen both claim to have seen a mysterious object hover over their home in broad daylight.
HOWARD: So John, the first step is usually to ask you retell the entire event kind of from the beginning. So if you will.
JOHN, WITNESS: OK. September 28 at 4:22 p.m., I was coming back with my dog into the courtyard and I looked up and there was a two massive structures. One was in the shape of a plus. One was in the shape of a crescent. I could see the sun reflecting off the burnished metal. And it was a few thousand feet in the air and it was gigantic. It must have been hundreds of feet.
SPURLOCK: No one else saw them?
JOHN: Karen sue that.
KAREN, WITNESS: Yes. It was unlike anything I have ever seen. I have no frame of reference for it. I feel oddly uncomfortable even discussing it because I can't explain it.
SPURLOCK: Wow.
JOHN: I took one shot of it with my new smart phone. I'll show you what I got.
SPURLOCK: What can we do with a photo like that?
JOHN: That photograph can be examined carefully and it can be enhanced and studied. And the image may yet be in there.
SPURLOCK: OK. Though John and Karen are the only witnesses, they're presenting what could be a solid piece of evidence -- a photograph. It's a grainy cell phone shot but at least it's something.
Before this, before you had this experience, what are your thoughts on UFOs?
JOHN: I'm a classically trained guitarist and each day when the weather is nice, I go on the deck and I perform, really high quality music, I feel. And I project into the universe positive thoughts, and I'm open to these kinds of experiences. And I think that the universe recognized that.
KAREN: As open as John is to something like this, I am not. Was not, I guess I should say. I am a person of science and my eyes were certainly opened.
SPURLOCK: I think we need to hear some of this music.
JOHN: OK.
I believe we're going to find something of merit on this quest. Those two people I didn't think were crazy. That is a step in the right direction for me.
Now on to (INAUDIBLE), Georgia for case number two.
HOWARD: Hello, Elizabeth.
SPURLOCK: Hi. How are you?
ELIZABETH SCOTT, WITNESS: Nice to meet you.
SPURLOCK: In this case, Elizabeth Scott witnessed a strange craft floating over a neighbor's yard. SPURLOCK: Which direction was it?
E. SCOTT: It was coming right between these two houses above the tree line.
SPURLOCK: OK.
E. SCOTT: And it looked the size of, like, a midsized car I would say.
SPURLOCK: That's big, yes.
E. SCOTT: Yes. I came out over on that side of the porch and was trying to film it.
SPURLOCK: Let's take a look at the video.
So now you see it's moved maybe a little with regard to that. But not much.
SPURLOCK: Yes. I think it's pretty high, too. Seems like it.
E. SCOTT: It was a lot bigger than it looks.
SPURLOCK: If it's the size of a car, I mean, it would look so small in that picture.
HOWARD: Now watch these flashes.
SPURLOCK: Elizabeth's video is pretty intriguing and it definitely shows something reflective moving through the sky. But I can't wait to take it in for a more scientific analysis.
Our next case takes us to Athens, Georgia. I'm stepping into my first real lead investigator role with Ralph there to make sure I'm doing it right.
SPURLOCK: Hey, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.
SPURLOCK: I'm Morgan. Nice to meet you. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good.
SPURLOCK: In our final case, Bridget and Scott witnessed an unusual moving object and followed it until it disappeared out of sight. So today we're going to retrace the steps of their journey.
BRIDGET, WITNESS: It was a little after midnight. It is about 12:05. We saw the two very bright lights.
SCOTT:, WITNESS We're seeing it here. Oh, it's over the parking lot.
BRIDGET: Yes.
SCOTT: And it took us on a straight line. And we were right here, right?
SPURLOCK: And so, at this point, it is directly above you about 150 feet?
BRIDGET: Yes.
SPURLOCK: Should we do some tests here with the car?
SCOTT: I think so.
BRIDGET: Right
SPURLOCK: So we have a tri-field meter set to magnetic. And so, what we are going to first test for magnetic field then for that test for an electric field and then we're going to go out and get three points of control that are about 50 feet out that will kind of tell us what that control point is and if we've got any type of reaction here, then we know this area was affected.
Finally a chance to break out my equipment. I had Bridget and Scott stand exactly where they were when they saw the spacecraft hover so I could take the most accurate reading possible.
Getting nothing, no change.
HOWARD: OK. Now we should go directly to control points.
SPURLOCK: OK. No changes. We're going out to control. So I think that right now, we're at about a zero.
HOWARD: We don't really have a significant change to point to.
SPURLOCK: No.
After a thorough investigation of the scene, we have no new data, no solid evidence, no nothing.
Again, back to where we started, being our zero point.
HOWARD: Yes.
SPURLOCK: So I just completed my third investigation. We're going to take all of this information that we have, the photos, the video, you know, everything to now our analyst, our photo analyst who will hopefully tell us we have or don't have something. I'm still on the mission to find facts, and hopefully we'll be able to take some of this information that we've gathered, some of these photos, some of these videos and turn them into something worthwhile.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPURLOCK: So, I'm hot off the investigation trail with my evidence. I'm here in Connecticut to meet with an expert who what he does is debunks or supports physical evidence people bring in for UFO investigation. So, I'm going to show him some video. I'm going to show him some photographs and hopefully he'll tell me whether or not we've actually seen a UFO.
Hey, how you doing? I'm Morgan.
MARC D'ANTONIO, MUFON CHIEF PHOTO ANALYST: Hi, Morgan. Nice to meet you. I'm Marc D'Antonio.
SPURLOCK: Nice to meet you, man.
Marc D'Antonio a chief photo analyst for MUFON. He had been a member for more than 40 years. Marc wants to believe, but he wants real evidence, too.
OK, so this first photograph of is from a gentleman who he and his girlfriend saw a large reflective almost like x shape in the sky that was gigantic, they said. It had the other piece to the side of it that was like banana shaped. So, it was like there was an X and then a banana shake. He took this photograph with his cell phone.
D'ANTONIO: Well, let's see.
All I'm going right now is I'll just decrease it again just a little bit and increase my contrast just a little bit and see if there are other kinds of artifacts going on inside the picture that might give a clue.
SPURLOCK: Yes.
D'ANTONIO: (INAUDIBLE)
SPURLOCK: Not showing us much, is it?
D'ANTONIO: It really doesn't have a whole lot of data in it. It's a very, very low resolution shot and I'm just see these white dots. So, there's not a whole lot of information. If I was given this as the only evidence of the case. I would mark that as not unknown, I will mark it as insufficient data.
SPURLOCK: I understand.
The next investigation I did was a reporting of a flying object, a woman and her friend and their kids were outside playing and they started shooting it with their cell phones and they recorded it on and off for about half an hour.
D'ANTONIO: As I watch the videos with you, I realize, you can actually see it do something right there that gives it away. It tips up and down, watch. See that? It's tipping. And that tells me it got buffeted by the wind. So we automatically known it's a wind-born object that's lightweight.
Now, a lightweight wind-born object, balloon, kite, OK? If you notice, you see there was a couple of points in this video where you actually see some very bright highlights. Like that one, just went past. All right? I have a picture of something that might be worth comparing this to. And that is this. A mylar kite.
So now, if you look at this object over here on the right now, we start moving with the object. You see how you have a projection there and you have a projection there, OK? We have a top thing sticking out. It's basically two ellipses set across each other.
SPURLOCK: Right.
D'ANTONIO: Right?
SPURLOCK: And that's what that seems like?
D'ANTONIO: Yes. And that's what I call this as, too.
SPURLOCK: OK. Let' look at the last thing. We were out spotting UFOs with an individual who does a lot of UFO tours. And over the course of I would say 45 minutes, she said we spotted 45 UFOs.
D'ANTONIO: OK.
SPURLOCK: So this is the video footage of that.
D'ANTONIO: As an astronomer, I would like to determine what satellite that was.
SPURLOCK: The individual we were with said that they can't be satellites because satellites only fly east to west.
D'ANTONIO: Yes. I can pull up a database that, you know, on line even that can show all the expected passes for right here, tonight.
SPURLOCK: Can we look at Sedona for that night?
D'ANTONIO: Yes. Why don't we do that.
OK, well here we go. On November 7th, 2013 from Sedona.
SPURLOCK: So 6:15 to 7:30, there were 35 in less than 45 minutes.
D'ANTONIO: Yes. And then we get another 12 or more, 12 or so additional. So you missed some.
SPURLOCK: We missed some.
So when you look at my evidence, did we see UFOs?
D'ANTONIO: They were UFOs, but of the terrestrial kind.
SPURLOCK: Yes.
I have to say it's disappointing to invest all this energy into investigations and come up completely short. But maybe I've just been looking in the wrong place. Maybe the place to begin to search for alien life is right here on earth. So I'm meeting from a scientist from NASA whose hopefully can show me in a very different way that life out there is truly possible.
I'm Morgan.
CHRIS MCKAY, NASA SCIENTIST: Chris McKay.
SPURLOCK: Chris, pleasure to meet you.
With the Ph.D. in astro-geophysics, Chris McKay is about as scientific as you can get. He's not chasing down spacecraft. And he doesn't claim to have met any Martians. But his work with NASA here in Fremont, California, is proving that all kinds of life can be found in the places you least expect.
MCKAY: So we just pick a spot here and I will show you the community living underneath the salt.
SPURLOCK: And this is all just -- it is like a salt lake.
MCKAY: Yes. This is a salt pond. It's part of the wildlife refuge here. And it creates a natural greenhouse environment for organisms. So you can see in this hole I'm digging, these green and pink layers.
SPURLOCK: What are the pink layers?
MCKAY: The pink is a type of organism that lives in very, very salty conditions. Below them where there's a little less salt, you find the green guys called the synthetic. They're the ones that are using sunlight that's coming through the salt. And then deeper down, it gets black and stinky as we get into the anaerobic zone. It is like entire microbial community living underneath the salt.
It's interesting for two reasons. One is, it shows how life can survive when you think there wouldn't be any. And second, imagine a couple years from now, the water is gone, it's tried up, the salt is acting like a preservative. The evidence of that life will still be there. It will be dead but it will be encased in salt. And a mission from earth can come down and drill down into it and pull out that sample and we've discovered evidence of past life. So this kind of environment teaches us a lot of how to search for life on other worlds, to Mars, (INAUDIBLE).
SPURLOCK: And so, when you hear people talk, when they talk about the existence of life in the universe and we're looking for, like, little green men to come visit us, should we be looking for little green single-celled men?
MCKAY: That's right. In a fundamental way, the question we're asking is, did what happened here on earth happen elsewhere? When we think about other planets, exoplanets, this is the kind of life is what that got started. If there's life on those exoplanets, if there is big complex site, it started this way and evolved just like it did here on earth.
SPURLOCK: Scientists are now discovering lots of world that may support life. Planets located outside of our solar system known as exoplanets. More than a thousand have already been discovered and some astronomers there may be as many as 40 billion exoplanets, all with an habitable climate bed. And that means there could be life on any single one of them.
And how long will it be, do you think, until we find some sort of evidence like this on another planet?
MCKAY: Well, it depends on how fast we do mars missions, but we could imagine finding something like this on Mars for the next decade or so. We could imagine sending a mission to the plum of (INAUDIBLE) and finding evidence under ice there in the next decade or so.
And we also imagine finding oxygen on an earth-like planet in the next decade or so. And of course, listen, they might be talking to us. All of those. So there's a real possibility in the next decade, we'll have clear evidence of some sort of life on another world either Mars, Saladus or an exosolar planet. That will be really cool. I will be happy to see that day.
SPURLOCK: Yes. But maybe before then somebody might knock on your door and like want to take you with them.
MCKAY: Well, yes. I'm ready to go. My bags are packed.
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SPURLOCK(voice-over): So far, my search for proof for alien life has been pretty short on hard evidence. But now that I turn to scientists I feel like I'm at least on the right track. So I'm headed to Seti, or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. After all, this whole time I have been looking for proof of alien life, maybe it's time to start listening to the universe.
Kind of exciting. I'm pull into the hub of extraterrestrial audio research. And here we are. Look at this. That's crazy. Hey, how are you?
JILL TARTER, SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE: Hi, Morgan. Welcome to Hack creed (ph).
SPURLOCK: Great to be here, thank you.
TARTER: You are very welcome.
SPURLOCK: This is amazing.
TARTER: This is the Allen telescope array. This has been an active side for radio astronomy for a long time.
SPURLOCK: And how long have you been at SETI.
TARTER: Since it was incorporated. SPURLOCK: Jill Tarter was the very first employee of SETI. She has dedicated the past 30 years and most of her life to the search for alien life beyond earth. She even inspired Jodi Foster's character in the blockbuster moo uh vie "Contact."
What is the goal of the Allen telescope array?
TARTER: Right now, we're using an Allen telescope array to try to detect evidence of someone else's technologies out there. So looking for ET.
SPURLOCK: The Allen telescope array is comprised of 42 separate dishes that are designed to receive radio signals from space. When they work together, all pointing in the same direction, they can take a radio snapshot of a large part of the sky. That helps scientists searching the skies for life in the most efficient way possible.
What's so special about today.
TARTER: OK. So in a few minutes we're going to put you to work. Because what we're going to do today is install the first, a new class of receivers that takes our frequency up so we'll be able to listen to frequencies we haven't been sensitive to before. So we can hear farther away.
SPURLOCK: Incredible. And wee if we'll start listening today.
TARTER: Yes. Let's take a look at the new feed in the lab and then we'll put it on the telescope.
SPURLOCK: Cool.
TARTER: So, this is a pin (ph) and this is a receiver box. Signals are collected and actually flow down to this end and then the signals go out of here and underground and into the signal processing back over there. So, this is what we are putting on the telescope today to make tests actually to see how it performs in the sky.
SPURLOCK: Seems simple enough, but just one of these costs about $300,000. Suddenly I'm a little more nervous about dropping it.
Pretty exciting? See that brand-new telescope? It listen further than anything has ever heard in the history of hearing. Anything in space.
Maybe I should put that another way. If the strongest transmitter on earth were positioned smack in the middle of our galaxy, this powerful telescope could still hear it, even though it would be 23,000 light years away.
So we're in the process of putting in the new receiver that's incredibly delicate. It's brand-new. And it requires a lot of very dandy hands because it's very, very expensive and very delicate. Last thing they want is clumsy me screwing everything up. So be careful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming. SPURLOCK: Now we've got it up, it's running. Now we have just got to wait for ET to phone home or us.
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SPURLOCK(voice-over): My search for UFOs has finally led me to SETI, a scientific institute dedicated to listening to the skies. And even though they've been listening for over 30 year, they still haven't received one signal from an alien life form and they could be waiting for awhile. Because the fact is, if the universe were comprise of all the oceans in the world, SETI has only searched the equivalent of an eight ounce glass of water.
But Jill is determined to keep searching.
Do you think they've been on earth? Do you think there's been visitors?
TARTER: Yes, people say that. But there's no data. As this anybody shown you any evidence? Have you seen an ashtray from a spacecraft that eve abducted them? Nor have I and I've looked. So far nothing has been verifiable as having anything to do with extraterrestrial spacecraft and intelligence. And I'm a person would like to know.
SPURLOCK: If you found something, if you heard something, how would that change? like what would be the implication of suddenly --?
TARTER: I think it would change everything and change it pretty much all at once. Technology is a long-term business. We don't get out of bed every morning and say I'm going to discover something today because we would probably go to bed disappointed. So, we need to be prepared to look systematically for a while.
SPURLOCK: And what attracts to you to it?
TARTER: It's one of the oldest questions humans have had. Are we alone? And in the past we asked the priests or the philosophers, anyone we thought was wise. Suddenly in the middle of 20th centuries, engineers can try to answer the question by doing an experiment. Why wouldn't you try to spend a career on the old question that you might just be able to answer?
SPURLOCK: Have you answered it yet?
TARTER: Not yet, we're still here. But that champagne is on ice. I'm waiting for success.
SPURLOCK: What makes you believe there's life out there?
TARTER: Wrong verb. I don't know whether there's life out there. So I don't believe one way or the other. We're actually just trying to ask a question of the universe and see if we can use our scientific tools to get an answer.
SPURLOCK: Best answer yet.
It's been a pretty amazing journey. And one thing that we know is that we don't know. That's the greatest thing of all. Until we really have proof, we don't have anything, except desire, hope, faith, belief, that something is out there. But when I look around at this magnificent, fantastic, huge incredible universe. If we're the only things that are in it, we've got to admit that's a colossal waste of space.
Where do I attach when I get up here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To your right or left. There's two rods.
So if it's wet at the bottom then it's fine?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPURLOCK: OK. See? Secret finding aliens. You got to make sure you got lots of good loop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPURLOCK: Anything else I need to check alone here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not really. That pretty much takes years.
SPURLOCK: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only, 41 more.
SPURLOCK: Only 41 more?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only 41 more.
SPURLOCK: Perfect. It is like a half day. Come on.
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