Return to Transcripts main page

Joy Behar Page

UFOs Sightings are Examined; Mother Nature`s Revenge; Palin Plays it Coy; Lindsay`s Plastic Surgery

Aired August 24, 2011 - 22:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: Coming up on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW, the season`s first major hurricane is set to pummel the East Coast on the heels of yesterday`s earthquake that was felt across the Eastern Seaboard. Are these natural phenomena or is something else going on?

Then, did young star Lindsay Lohan really have plastic surgery on her face before attending Kim Kardashian`s wedding?

Plus, a new History Channel special investigates UFOs. We`ll talk to a former governor who says he saw one and the former head of the British government`s UFO unit. That and more starting right now.

DON LEMON, HLN GUEST HOST: Good evening, everybody. I`m Don Lemon, sitting in for Joy tonight.

People all along the East Coast are bracing tonight for what could be a monster storm. Hurricane Irene is churning through the Caribbean as we speak. It is expected to grow to a Category 4 storm as it begins heading for the U.S. Irene is approaching just a day after the worst earthquake in 70 years hit the East Coast. The quake and the storm have some people wondering, why we seem to be dealing with more natural disasters than usual, or are we?

Here to help us sort out all this and many more questions, Bill Nye "The Science Guy" and Sam Champion, weather anchor for ABC`s "Good Morning America". good evening to you, Sam. You`re a busy man.

So listen, Hurricane Irene barreling. Does it stand a chance to become a major storm? Are we in trouble?

SAM CHAMPION, WEATHER ANCHOR, ABC`S "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Yes. I think this is going to be a major storm. There`s nothing between it and growth. It`s getting all the support it needs by warm water, clear air fields, to get this thing to strengthen. It will at least be a 4. Could even tip into a 5 at some points before weakening and heading toward land.

We believe based on the current projections or track if it follows the track the Hurricane Center has set up for it, it kind of kicks off on the Outer Banks and could find a home on Long Island and then go on into New England later on in the day as a 1 or a worst case scenario 2.

It`s something that everybody else on the East Coast has to watch the storm, they just have to. Every update could change, and we need to be prepared.

LEMON: Bill, you know, hurricanes heading up the East Coast are much rarer than hurricanes in the Gulf, correct?

BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": You talking to me? Yes. Well, sure. So far, yes. But there`s a lot of energy in the atmosphere, and there are hurricanes. They`ve been going on for many, many hundreds of years, thousands of years. And so we all have to be prepared for it.

Just as our infrastructure, our electrical wires and our Internet and our television communications become more important to us, we rely on them more, we have to make sure we secure that stuff. That`s going to cost money. What`s the cost of having it all boiled down? There you are.

LEMON: We`ll talk about the cost of natural disasters in just a little bit. I want to stick now with the hurricane here because Sam, it`s more worrisome because it`s so populated along the East Coast. You`ve got Boston, you`ve got New York, you have Philadelphia -- highly-populated cities. So what should people be doing in places that are not used to hurricanes?

CHAMPION: You know, when you grow up in the south or you`re in an area that you`re used to, everyone knows, ok, we`re going to fill the bath tub with water or we`re going to fill some jugs with water.

LEMON: We`re going to get out.

CHAMPION: We get flashlights or yes, we`re going to leave the areas that are low-lying that could actually take some storm surge. So maybe we start with that. If you know that you`re in a flood plain, a coastal flood plain and you know the storm surge here is expected to be at least four feet in some of those areas and sometimes higher, then you want to get out of those areas where the water is going to be an issue.

If you`re going to be in an area where the power is going to go out, you have to have flashlights, batteries. You have to think about water because those are the two things that go first. Your power`s going to go first when a tree takes out a power line or the wind does, and you`re not going to have anything.

What do you do then? Do you have a battery-operated radio? Who has those sitting around anymore? Everyone`s plugged in on the Internet. Buy one of those.

LEMON: In the south, we have the NOAA weather radios. Everyone -- at least I do.

CHAMPION: So get those, get the batteries for the flashlight. Get the water. Because the second thing to go is going to be your water system. The water from the ocean and the other areas is going to go in there. The rain runoff can pollute your water system. You want to make sure you have water, power, canned food, things like that.

LEMON: But high-rises, though? You`re in these populated cities, I mean you know, you have buildings, 80, 90 stories tall.

CHAMPION: And we gauge those winds at kind of ground level. So the winds are actually stronger the higher you go. So it`s more likely in a tall skyscraper-like building the winds are going to be even bigger, even tougher on the building the higher it is. But we build buildings now to standards that can handle a certain degree of this kind of storm.

LEMON: Let`s talk about the things now that people find highly controversial and we`re talking about climate change.

First to Bill. Have there been stronger hurricanes lately you believe -- is climate change behind this?

NYE: Well, you know, I -- I accept all the evidence for climate change and more violent storms are part of that. I mean hurricanes have this unique thing where it is possible under certain climate models where the hurricane kind of gets, how to say, decapitated. The top gets knocked off and it would actually get somewhat weaker. These are mathematical models.

But notice, everybody, all the floods and other extreme storms that we`ve had this year, and it`s just a very hot summer. These are not in themselves proof of climate change, but they are absolutely consistent with all the predictions of climate change models.

And I remind everybody, United States is unique in this. There`s no other developed world country that isn`t very concerned about climate change. So stronger hurricanes, stronger storms are what you would expect.

LEMON: All right.

NYE: The earthquake is a whole other separate thing.

LEMON: All right. We`ll move on from this. But real quickly, what do you think, Sam?

CHAMPION: I`m on board for climate change. I think again, just as Bill pointed out, I can`t think of another country as advanced as we are that hasn`t made a policy about it and hasn`t signed on to it.

LEMON: Let`s talk about something that really caught the world off- guard yesterday -- an earthquake hitting the northeast, really? You were in New York yesterday Sam. I was here. I personally did not feel it. But were you surprised by this -- and how unusual is it?

CHAMPION: I`m in a cab and all of a sudden everything I own is buzzing and going off. And it`s talking about earthquakes in Washington, felt in New York, felt in Martha`s Vineyard, in Ohio. Yes, I was completely surprised by this.

This is a zone that has had earthquakes before in that Virginia area but we usually associate them with faults. This is not a fault zone. And it hasn`t had an earthquake this big since the 1800s. So it was a very big surprise to everybody.

LEMON: Cause of concern that we had an earthquake here yesterday, Bill?

NYE: The concern would be that we`re not set up for it in our infrastructure, our buildings, sewer systems, and electricity. That`s -- Internet, this kind of thing. That`s a big concern.

I`ll tell you, you know people, I`m out west right now. I`m in Los Angeles. People here like to be dismissive of this minor earthquake back East. But I`m telling you, if you had a piece of that National Cathedral fall on you, that would be the last thing that happened. So having these very large brick buildings like in Mineral, Virginia, that`s the town of Mineral, having that stuff fall on people is quite serious.

And as we say, earthquakes don`t hurt people, buildings hurt people. And so we have to make our buildings robust enough to withstand earthquakes. So it happens every century, that`s often enough for me to have everybody be prepared.

And I remind a lot of people, it`s very likely you`ll be in your car when there`s an earthquake. So have stuff in your car that will allow you to get home. Water and walking shoes.

LEMON: Yes, as Sam was in a taxi yesterday. You probably -- maybe you were going and coming from the gym. We can be a little bit light- hearted about this because no one got hurt, and considering --

CHAMPION: I know, it`s remarkable.

LEMON: -- yes, that`s remarkable considering what happened. So I have to ask you, more and more of these natural disasters lately. Is there a cause for concern?

We`re talking about this earthquake that happened, we`re talking about Irene coming up the East Coast, Joplin, Alabama, all the tornadoes. And everything that`s happened. What`s going on?

CHAMPION: And Don, I`ll go a little bit better even than that. We`ve got the 100-year heat wave in Texas with the drought there. Also people say give these terms 100-year --

LEMON: Japan.

CHAMPION: Yes, you`ve got Japan; you`ve got the flooding that happened in the Dakotas, in the northern part of the country.

And so all of a sudden we`re learning that disasters that we didn`t think we needed to prepare for, the tornadoes in areas that had never happened before, and earthquake in places that had never happened and flooding and blah, blah, blah, that we should all be prepared for them. This is happening.

Are there more than ever, I don`t know, but I`m busier than I have been lately. And I`m covering more of these disasters than I have been in a long time.

LEMON: I`m wondering Bill, is it -- do we -- are we having more natural disasters here, or is it just a, you know, they`re happening closer to media centers, and there`s 24-hour cable news now and reporting them more?

NYE: Well, that`s absolutely a factor. However, there`s just more people. There are just more people. More people are affected every time you have one of these things. And the more people -- people live around water. They live on sea coasts, they live around big rivers.

And these are the places where flooding disasters or flooding events become exacerbated by human activity. That is to say we build roads, hard surfaces, sealed surfaces, buildings, and these cause the runoff to be focused in areas where the flooding becomes worse.

But I`m telling you, this idea of the 100-year flood, the 100-year hurricane, I`ve spoken with many people who said, you know, I`ve lived through four 100-year floods.

So I think -- as they say in the climate community, they cannot prove that this summer is the hottest ever, but they will be able to. In other words, it takes several months to get all your data together from around the world, from around North America, and compile this stuff.

Everybody -- we have huge opportunities, along with climate change there are difficulties, floods and loss of transportation. But there can be opportunities to be much more efficient and make the world better for everyone.

LEMON: That`s sort of my question here. You said we have more people living near water, Sam. You heard what Bill said. Is there anything that we can do to reverse this as human beings, to reverse what seems to be --

CHAMPION: You`ve just got to have really tough codes. I mean, I remember the first times when people started building, they were allowed to build along the coast. And they were kind of taking off the dunes to build high-rises and communities on the coast.

And that`s not ok. Those dunes are there to protect everything behind them from storms like hurricanes. So we`ve got to understand the natural protection that exists in these areas, not trample over it whether we`re building a river, or a floodgate system, or something along the coast. We`ve got to have very heavy codes.

LEMON: So the sky isn`t falling? Because I was a little worried yesterday.

NYE: But it`s a wake-up call.

LEMON: Yes.

NYE: It is a wake-up call you guys and it`s an opportunity. You know, people say we don`t want regulation, but it`s actually cheaper to plan for these things and not have to deal with them after the fact.

LEMON: All right, Bill. That`s the last word. Bill and Sam, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks guys.

CHAMPION: Thank you.

NYE: Pleasure.

LEMON: We`ll be right back in a minute.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still ahead, was Lindsay Lohan`s new look at the Kardashian wedding aided by plastic surgery?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: That`s good music.

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake that shook up the East Coast yesterday dominated not only the news but social media, too. It seems everyone from Alec Baldwin to Snooki immediately took to Facebook or Twitter to post their reactions. I never thought I`d use those name in the same sentence.

Here to discuss this and other pop culture stories in the news right now are Rob Shuter, "Naughty but Nice" columnist for the Huffington Post; Sara Benicasa, comedienne and Rob Dyrdek, MTV personality and founder of "Street League Skateboarding".

Thanks to all of you.

I want to start first with a couple of celebrity tweets that I found interesting. Here`s what Snooki wrote. She said, "OMG, earthquake-eee," they rhyme. "And 2012 is near. I knew it. I hope everyone`s ok. Wahhh."

Dennis Leary, "Felt a rumble, wasn`t sure if it was an earthquake or just Val Kilmer sitting down." Ouch. Yes.

Alec Baldwin. "They tell me there`s an earthquake here," and then he posted this photo of a serene beach on his page.

And then Sara, thank goodness we have celebrities who can tell us how to react when we have natural disasters.

SARA BENICASA, COMEDIAN: I wouldn`t know. If I didn`t know how that 12-year-old train wreck Snooki was feeling the other day -- is she not like our own Nostradamus really? I think she used to hang out on the "Jersey Shore", too. She used to -- I take my kids from all my eschatological end- times views from Snooki.

So, now I know that the world is ending next year, you guys.

LEMON: What`s the clothing company would actually want Nostradamus to wear to though?

ROB SHUTER, "NAUGHTY BUT NICE" COLUMNIST: Abercrombie and Fitch. That will be wild, yes.

LEMON: Can you please wear our clothes? Hilarious. I thought it was very funny.

This is my -- someone tweeted this to me, and I had to re-tweet it because I thought it was really funny. They said, "This quake was centered on a little-known fault line outside of D.C. the Dems are calling Bush`s fault." That`s an opportunity to throw in some political humor.

SHUTER: There`s never, never an opportunity to be missed like that. What I love is, is that it proves celebrities love a Kardashian wedding and a natural disaster. So they were hitting Twitter yesterday like crazy. They`ve calmed down a little bit now, but yesterday was certainly their moment.

LEMON: Rob, was this an over-reaction? I have to say this -- I normally work for CNN. My buddy, Joy Behar, allowed me to fill in for her. It was kind of nice not being in the middle of the sky is falling. I kept watching saying, is someone hurt, is the sky falling? Was this overkill, you think?

ROB DYRDEK, MTV PERSONALITY: I think so. I think especially in this city where it was the first time people felt rumbling. They thought all the buildings were going to come down. For me in L.A. where I`ve felt so many of them, you know, I didn`t even feel it. I was just there texting. Everyone`s like, ahh -- and people have a right to panic because what happens if you do have one, the whole city crumbles. It`s a lot different.

LEMON: I saw a newscaster who really put it -- he said, listen, really? That`s basically what he said. It was interesting being here yesterday. We get these emails and -- call the conference bridge to talk about the earthquake. Then the producer of the show came in and said, put the phone down. Unless it has something to do with Casey Anthony or Kim Kardashian --

SHUTER: There`s a sense that like in the moment I think people get very excited. It gives them something to jump on and talk about, especially celebrities who very rarely miss an opportunity to tell you what they`re thinking. This was like a moment yesterday that we could all connect. And the nice thing about this is that really thank goodness nothing terrible happened so today we can laugh about it.

DYRDEK: And isn`t Snooki really a part of Armageddon, as well?

BENICASA: The coming of the Snooki is foretold, like the seven-headed beast.

LEMON: All right. Let`s move on now.

We`re talking about the President. He`s taken heat for going on vacation with his family. Martha`s Vineyard at that. That`s where he is. The right-wing blogs even mocked him for missing a golf putt because of the earthquake.

I mean, being a leader of the free world is stressful. Shouldn`t he be able to take a vacation once in a while.

BENICASA: You know, Don, I don`t know if you know this. but right wing conservative, white Republicans will only accept one black man on the golf course in the world ever. And they made that decision in the `90s with a kid from Stanford who`s really great, I think. He`s great with the ladies.

So it`s weird to them and they do not like him taking over their native sport. The do not -- they object to that. So they think that was God telling him to get off the course.

LEMON: Rob Shuter, listen I want to say that Sarah Palin called out Obama trip, saying it was tone deaf. But George Bush spent a lot of time on vacation.

SHUTER: Yes.

LEMON: I want you to listen to this, and then we`ll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you.

Now watch this drive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Go on.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: He was told that because we`re in the middle of an economic crisis. We were in the middle of a war there and obviously we had terrorism.

I just want to say Obama has taken 61 days in 31 months in office. At that point in his presidency George Bush had taken 180 days. Ronald Reagan, 112. Bill Clinton, 28 -- the least.

SHUTER: Every president that takes a vacation gets some sort of criticism. This is totally unfair on either side. But it did go on during Bush`s term, it`s going to go on during Obama`s term and it`s going to carry on past that. Every president is different.

LEMON: All right. We`re just getting started. More with my pop panel in just a minute. Stay tight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: I`m back now with my panel.

Sarah Palin continues to play coy about whether she`ll run for president in 2012. Some speculating that she`s going to announce her campaign at a Tea Party rally in Iowa on September 3. But her campaign is denying it. Sara -- you may need the help -- are you going run?

BENICASA: Oh, hello, Don Lemon. I just -- why are we talking about that when we could be talking about you and me? Who wouldn`t push you -- my husband.

LEMON: Are you -- you think Sarah Palin`s going to run?

BENICASA: I think that she -- oh, I love your glasses, by the way.

LEMON: Thank you. And they`re real.

BENICASA: They`re fabulous.

I think she is going to run, but it`s all going to be part of the circus side show that is Palin, Incorporated. It`s all going to be in the service of getting her yet another fabulously successful reality show.

SHUTER: I don`t think she`s going to run.

LEMON: Is she just enjoying the attention, do you think?

DYRDEK: She`s going to run. Because why wouldn`t you? She has all that hype around her. And the reality of it is she doesn`t have a shot to ever become the president. But you`re right. It`s going to be great for her --

SHUTER: This is why I think she`s not going to run. If she runs and loses, it`s done for her. If she doesn`t run, she can sit on the sidelines for the next 20 years and position herself as the sort of ambassador who can bully the party into --

LEMON: You say that she wants to be the kingmakers sometimes.

SHUTER: I don`t think she`s going to run. Although her daughter says -- I spoke to Bristol Palin a month ago, maybe even a little longer, Bristol said her mom had made her mind up and had not yet told her. So, we`re still waiting.

LEMON: I`m going to steal your cell phone.

SHUTER: It`s not that hard.

LEMON: Let`s talk about Lindsay Lohan. She was at the Kardashian wedding. I don`t know if you guys saw the picture, but there was something a little bit different and interesting. I was like, is this a housewife of Beverly Hills? What happened to her Rob?

SHUTER: I speak to Dina yesterday morning and asked her why Lindsay was at the wedding. Dina`s Lindsay`s mother. Actually Lindsay wasn`t invited, Dina was invited because she`s friends with Kim Kardashian`s mother, Kris. It was mother reaching out to mother. They both -- one daughter was getting married. Lindsay went -- in her defense, the invitation did ask everyone to wear black or white. Hence the white dress.

LEMON: So, she wore white.

But her face is different. Did she have any work done?

(CROSSTALK)

DYRDEK: She`s just trying to look better. If that takes a couple of injections, it`s a couple of injections.

BENICASA: I would need an injection to attend Kim Kardashian`s wedding probably.

DYRDEK: She`s trying to fit in.

SHUTER: I remember that picture they released. That isn`t a paparazzi picture. They invited somebody into their hotel room when they were getting dressed who took these few snapshots that they put out. So Lindsay loves that look.

LEMON: Which one do you think -- which one looks better, you think?

SHUTER: I think they both look like a charming, smart, young girl.

LEMON: But in one she kind of look like the housewives. People joke about them being -- pulled so tight that they have no -- like this.

BENICASA: A lot of this and a lot of this.

LEMON: Yes. At 25 -- you know what; at 25 years old, you can still bounce back, right? When you get a little older, all you need is -- you need a good night`s sleep when you`re 25, lay off whatever it is, drink some water, and chill out. Then it comes back.

DYRDEK: She`s not doing any of that. We know that. We know she`s out until 5:00 a.m.

SHUTER: But she was apparently very well-behaved at the wedding. There were some rumors out there that she was doing shots and being a bad girl. Dina says absolutely not true, it was a beautiful day for everybody.

BENICASA: That`s also a side effect of rampant unchecked bisexuality. FYI, everyone. Cheers.

LEMON: Mugs -- don`t you love it? The Joy Behar mug.

SHUTER: So what? Who cares?

LEMON: So what? Who cares? Thanks, guys. Make sure you check out Rob`s Street League D.C. Pro-tour Championship live on ESPN 2 Sunday at 5:00 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Aviation officials in China are still trying to explain an unidentified flying object seen in the skies above Shanghai last Saturday. The object was reported by several airline pilots in the area, and most of the time sightings like this can be explained. But there are some instances where there is no explanation.

Here to talk about UFOs are Nick Pope, former head of the British defense ministry`s UFO investigative unit, Fife Symington, the former Arizona governor who claims he saw a UFO, James Fox, filmmaker and UFO investigator, and then Leslie Kean, author of "UFOs, generals, pilots, and public officials go on the record." She`s also featured in a documentary special, "Secret Access -- UFOs On the Record," which premiering Thursday at 8:00 p.m. on the History Channel.

OK, so here`s a question to you four. Do we need to take sightings of UFOs seriously?

FIFE SYMINGTON III, FORMER ARIZONA GOVERNOR, CLAIMS HE SAW UFO: Sure you do. Yes. If you read Leslie`s book, and if you`ve seen James` film, but there`s some tremendous data and sightings and information about inexplicable events. And yes, I think we should take it very seriously. And of course Nick Pope is very experienced in that avenue. He`s done a lot of investigations on the part of the British defense ministry. So yes, for sure we need to take it seriously.

LEMON: But what I`m asking, do you think that there`s life out there? There`s life elsewhere?

SYMINGTON: Well, I think it would be pretty egotistical of us to think we`re the only game in the universe. So I`m very -- I`m very accepting of the fact that there`s life in the universe. And I think that probably, you know, most people that are in the profession of astrophysics and dealing with matters of outer space believe that the universe is a big place and that there`s likely there`s life out there.

LEMON: OK. So Nick, the British government recently made public UFO documents. Essentially it`s what -- their x files. What did they reveal if anything?

NICK POPE, FORMER HEAD OF THE BRITISH DEFENSE MINISTRY`S UFO INVESTIGATIVE UNIT: Well, this was 9,000 pages of documentation released just a couple of week ago. And that`s interesting in itself because, of course, the British government`s position on this had always been the policy was to downplay the level of our interest and say that it was of no defense significance. And yet of course behind the scenes, we were much more concerned than I think we were letting on, particularly where we have sightings where with pilots, police officers, where they`re tracked, for example on, military radar. Those sorts of cases we took seriously because if there`s something in our airspace, it` a defense and national security issue. It`s got to be.

LEMON: Wow, this is a very serious panel about UFOs. Leslie, you spent ten years, ten years researching and studying UFO phenomenon, talking to high-level sources. What did they tell you?

KEAN: When you put it together, I talked to many high-level sources, the bottom line is that there is a real phenomenon there. I mean, there is a physical phenomenon that`s well documented by government officials and aviation experts. It behaves in ways we cannot explain because we don`t have the technology that can do what these objects do. And there are enough cases that demonstrate the reality, the physicality of this absolutely phenomenal technology that you cannot deny its existence. We`re just stuck because we can`t explain it away.

LEMON: Many people want to deny it. James, do people want to believe, you think?

JAMES FOX, FILMMAKER AND UFO INVESTIGATOR: I think the vast majority of witnesses that I certainly have talked to, especially the military witnesses, is more burdened with the information than anything else. So I wouldn`t necessarily agree with that.

And this is an amazing panel, pie the way. I`m glad to be part of it. I wanted to ask Nick Pope as an official who investigated UFOs for the British government that I think we can all agree that the vast majority of UFOs have and can be explained away in down-to-earth, pro pro-prosaic terms, however there are five percent, 10 percent of unambiguous cases coming --

LEMON: Don`t that five percent give you pause that there may be some sort of truth to it?

FOX: That`s what I`m saying. That`s --

LEMON: Yes.

FOX: That`s exactly what I`m saying. So there`s a five percent or 10 percent core, residual that defy explanation. Nick, I`d like to ask you directly while we`re on camera now, what is the most plausible hypothesis from the five percent or 10 percent from your investigations for the British government?

POPE: Well, I honestly don`t really know. "Unknown" means unknown. You`re quite right, the small proportion of the cases we couldn`t identify. We in the ministry of defense, we weren`t clear whether we were dealing with foreign military aircraft or drones, perhaps some breakthrough technology, whether we were dealing with exotic atmospheric phenomena, or whether we were dealing with something completely unknown.

But I mean, the point remains if these sorts of things are in our airspace performing speeds and maneuvers but seem to go significantly ahead of anything that we`ve got, then we desperately need to know what they are.

And of course, there are technology implications, as well. That`s one of the reasons why the ministry of defense was interested in this. What about -- could this tell us something about propulsion system, aerodynamic, weaponry, we don`t know.

LEMON: Let`s not get too in the weeds for people at home. They`re like me who sit there every time I see something on UFOs, a documentary or what have you, I always pay attention because it`s intriguing. You have come around on this. You claimed to have seen a UFO when you were the governor of Arizona, the Phoenix Lights episode in 1997. What did you see?

SYMINGTON: Well, I saw a large craft come over the -- what they call Squall Peak Reserve, a mountain reserve, going from the northwestern part of the valley across the southeast. Of course it was a sighting that was seen by many hundreds if not thousands of people. And it was an extraordinary moment. I mean really, very profound. And I`d gone out there to -- to see if I could see what was being reported on the radio, which were the lights to the west.

There had been a lot of reports that a craft had been spotted. And I was on the west side of the 51 which is the north-south highway, in a park with a group of people, and this great big thing just kind of cruised over and, you know, it was really a stunner. And so I remember when I went home, my wife said, "You look like you saw a ghost." I said --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: You saw a UFO, not necessarily a ghost.

SYMINGTON: Yes, I said this is really -- this was something.

LEMON: Why did you ridicule that first? You had the chief of staff dress up as an alien. Why were you a skeptic?

SYMINGTON: Yes. He almost quit over that, by the way. That was a spoof. There was a sort of building hysteria about the subject at the time. And we thought that it would be fun to have a little levity. It wasn`t meant to ridicule, you know, UFOs or anything. It was meant to be a spoof to some add levity to the situation because weeper getting, I thought, overly tense. So we had a lot of fun with the spoof. There are aspects of that that I regret now. But it was fun at the time.

LEMON: Leslie, you told me that you`re very buttoned up in this upcoming documentary. Tell us about 2007 -- there was an incident at O`Hare airport and it`s featured in your upcoming film.

KEAN: Actually 2006. It was reported in 2007 by "The Chicago tribune." It took about two months before it hit the news. But what happened was there was a disc hovering over gate C17 over the united airlines terminal at Chicago, O`Hare around rush hour at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was seen by lots of people on the ground. Pilots were radioing about it. A manager actually called the tower, we have the voice tapes which the manager called and reported it to the FAA tower. It was not seen on radar. But it sat over this terminal for at least five minutes, probably a little bit longer. Then it suddenly shot up -- there`s a cloud bank above it. It shot directly up through the cloud bank and cut a crisp hole in the clouds.

LEMON: Leslie, part of the controller tapes, I`m sure that you`re featuring in this upcoming UFO special on the history channel, but I recall listening to the tapes. You hear one of the controllers I believe saying, "I`m not high, and I`m not drunk. There is a saucer, a disc-shaped object" reported in broad daylight, I believe, hovering over C17.

KEAN: Exactly. It was a safety hazard.

LEMON: What was there to explain I`ll let you -- how do you explain what happened?

KEAN: We don`t have an explanation for it. The problem is that we don`t have any official agency to step in like they did in the U.K. and investigate and let people know what happened. I mean, the witnesses certainly wanted to learn some more about it. But they were suddenly given messages not to talk about it. Not one of them would go On the Record with their names, which is -- real indication of the way, you know, the stigma attached to this. It was never investigated. And the FAA sort of gave an implausible investigation. They told people it was weather, which it certainly was not. That was the end of it.

So we don`t know what it was. It was definitely some metallic-looking disc that behaved in ways that we don`t have technology to explain that.

LEMON: We had an agency that dealt with it, and then it was gotten rid of. We`re going to talk about why. Much more on this in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We`re back talking about, what else, UFOs. Here`s my panel, Nick Pope, the former head of the British defense ministry`s UFO investigative unit, Fife Symington III, former Arizona senator who claims he saw a UFO, James Fox, filmmaker and UFO investigator -- didn`t know there was such a thing -- and Leslie Kean, author of "UFOs - Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials go On the Record."

So I was asking you before, Leslie, the U.S. Air Force once had an official investigative unit called the Project Blue Book. Tell us about that.

KEAN: That`s correct. That was set up in the early `50s and lasted until early -- 1970, they shut it down. And hundreds and hundreds of report were called in and they became overwhelmed with all the work that they had to do, got tired of the business.

They issued a lot of phony explanations for cases, and it just was very hard to manage it. Eventually people just didn`t take it seriously actually. But it was good that there was this official agency. There was a place for people to go and for pilots to go when they had these events happen.

LEMON: It does make a difference. Was it there to prove or disprove?

KEAN: It was there to try determine what they were, to learn more and decide if there was any national security implications.

LEMON: Do you think we need it again?

KEAN: I absolutely do. I don`t think we need at all the kind of agency we had then. There were a lot of mistakes. Nobody wants to see those repeated. We need an official office, even one staff person who can be a focal point for investigations in the United States. So when something happens like it did at O`Hare airport, we have somebody that can go out and do a proper investigation very quickly, and have access to all the data. Civilian groups can`t get access to data. That`s the problem.

LEMON: Nick, you claimed that the U.S. and U.K. thwarted an effort for the U.N. to investigate UFOs. Why you do claim that?

POPE: Well, in some of the documents recently released by the ministry of defense, which is in the middle of a four-year program to declassify and release all its UFO files, it was shown that there was a United Nations initiative to look into the whole UFO issue.

But both the British government and the American government took the through is we didn`t want this to go ahead. That Americans in particular had taken the view. Look, given that we terminated project blue book, it would make our decision to withdraw from UFO investigations look wrong if the understanding suddenly started taking an Interest. So behind the scenes, there were efforts to really bring the whole thing into disrepute and make sure it never happened.

And it`s kind of easy to do. You can use phrases like "little green men" and flying saucers to sort of faintly ridicule the subject. Like I said, behind the --

LEMON: To get people not to take it seriously, they do thing like that, aliens and people with big eyes and big heads.

Fife, I think it`s fascinating that you`re a former governor -- do you believe as a former government official, that the government and military are trying to cover up UFOs? There`s an active -- they`re actively trying to cover it up?

SYMINGTON: Well, I mean, I really -- I don`t have factual knowledge to say yes. But my personal experience was that they threw out all kinds of explanations for the lights over Phoenix event. But primarily the one about the wart hogs, the killing aircraft they were practicing in the Goldwater range, and they used that as an explanation. When we checked those out, those aircraft were coming to home base between 10:00 and 10:30. And the event we all experienced happened between 8:00 and 8:30. So I know for sure that wasn`t true.

LEMON: Here`s the thing -- how does it behoove the government? Why would the government want to cover up a UFO sighting or incident?

SYMINGTON: Well, sometimes people just don`t have answers and are embarrassed by the fact that they don`t have an answer. Actually if you think about it technologically, this type of sighting and event means that our technology is really inferior. We`ve got something cruising through this nobody understands and really has a hard time comprehending. So they feel pretty insecure about it I`ll bet.

LEMON: Leslie`s shaking her head.

KEAN: I would agree with Fife. I think no government -- the U.S. government, I have to say, because other governments have acknowledged UFOs. Our government does not seem to want to acknowledge there`s something in the sky they have no control over. It`s huge. We don`t know when it`s going come and go. We don`t know why it`s here. I think that`s something that a government doesn`t want to acknowledge to people.

LEMON: Nick is, there national security we`re talking here?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I think the better --

POPE: Yes. I mean, absolutely. There`s something in your airspace, you need what it is. No government can really go public and say there are things in our skies, we don`t know what they are. Pilot chase them sometimes but can`t catch them. There are near misses between these things in commercial aircraft which has happened on numerous occasions. You know, an admission that -- well, it would be an admission that we`d lost control of our own airspace. And that`s untenable for any government.

LEMON: James, go ahead.

FOX: I was going to say, the question is what`s in it for government to disclose that type -- that nature of information? I remember when Leslie and I were in France interviewing general Dennis Letty of the French air force, he said there`s just no way that any governing body would admit there are things in our airspace that we don`t have control over that can fly rings around our fastest jets. There`s no way they`re going to admit that.

LEMON: Leslie --

FOX: How would they benefit from admitting that?

LEMON: That was my question, how would they benefit from admitting or not admitting it? I mean, how would it behoove them to cover it up?

KEAN: I think the only benefit -- there is a benefit in that so many people have seen them. When you have hundreds and hundreds of citizens of the United States witnessing something --

LEMON: And someone who works for an airport, saying I`m not drunk, I`m not high.

KEAN: Exactly. These are -- these are patriotic people. They`ve experienced something that is a safety hazard. To just be told that it`s weather -- after a while, the accumulation of insult that it provides -- people really want to know some being what these things are. And I personally think -- and it has happened in other government. I know Nick said it`s difficult for governments. Certainly some of the South American governments, the Belgian government have actually made statements on their sightings. It doesn`t cause any kind of major disaster in society.

LEMON: And there`s a reason you have "The X Files" and all these other shows that are about UFOs that are so popular.

KEAN: Exactly. When the government won`t talk about it, people create a lot of conspiracy and fantasies around it, too.

LEMON: OK, more when we come right back. Don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We`re back now talking about, what else, UFOs. James, you can go on Google Earth find your house, find just about anything you want. Why can`t we find these UFOs?

FOX: Well, we actually have found -- we have captured very, very high res photographic and radar evidence from around the world, landing case traces. And I ask people to suspend judgment and review the evidence and make their own determination as to what`s going on.

LEMON: What about alien abductions and crop circles. You`ve looked into that. What did you find? To Nick.

POPE: Well, yes, you can`t run a UFO project without getting all sorts of other weird and wonderful things reported. We didn`t really look into huge detail at alien abductions and crop circles but we got some fascinating material. I think most crop circles are made by people, but they`re certainly fun to look at.

LEMON: Do you agree with that, Leslie?

KEAN: I`m not an expert of crop circles, but, yes, there`s certainly a lot of them made by people.

LEMON: If you look up "aliens" or "UFOs," just go to Google, there`s an explosion of people who are interested in them.

KEAN: Absolutely. And the problem is most of the material you`re going to find from a Google search is not going to be useful. There are so many hundreds of fake UFO photos and videos on YouTube. I warn people of that. So many websites rely on kind of sensationalistic information that`s not factually really accurate. And I`m only interested in the absolute solid facts that can be corroborated that come from official sources. And I think those are the ones we have to focus on when we`re concerned about UFOs.

LEMON: So, Nick, they found what they believe to be water on Mars which is an indication of life. Do you think this proves anything?

POPE: I think we are edging that way. Last year the Royal Society had two discussion meetings to talk about the implications for science and society of discovering extraterrestrial life. I think it`s only a matter of time before there is some breakthrough discovery. And that`s why people are so interested in this subject, because it`s one of the most profound questions you can ask, are we alone or not?

LEMON: Fife, I`m going to ask you the same question, the mars question.

SYMINGTON: No, I agree with Nick`s point of view. I think that as time goes on and we reach further out into space and our technologies develop and become more advanced, inevitably we will find life out there in the universe. And it`s going to be -- we may even have come across it already and not recognized it. That was Arthur Clarke`s theme in many of his books. But yes, I believe that`s the first step, finding water on Mars.

LEMON: So the consensus here is that we are not alone.

KEAN: Well, it looks like we may not be. Let`s hope we`re not.

LEMON: Thanks to all of my guests. I really appreciate it. Thanks everyone. "Secret Access - UFOs On the Record" premiers Thursday at 8:00 p.m. on History. Thanks for watching, everyone. Goodnight.

END