What The Pentagon's UFO Report Reveals About Aliens — And Ourselves

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🗓️ 29 June 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Late last year the Senate passed a bill that required U.S. intelligence agencies to share what they know about "unidentified aerial phenomena," the technical term for UFOs. That report was released last week. Spoiler alert — it doesn't confirm the existence of alien spacecraft. But it doesn't rule them out either.

Retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich recounts her first-hand encounter with a UFO off the coast of Southern California. It's one of 144 sightings mentioned in the new unclassified report.

Historian and University of Pennsylvania professor Kate Dorsch explains some of the possible reasons why Americans report more UFO sightings than any other county in the world.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a trope in TV shows and movies about alien encounters.
0:05.0	Welcome to Area 51.
0:07.0	Please follow me.
0:09.0	You typically have some kind of scientist, often a government official, who is very enthusiastic
0:14.5	about their extraterrestrial research, and they're treated like an oddball.
0:20.0	This is Dr. Oken.
0:22.0	He's been heading up the restaurant.
0:24.0	For instance, this scene in the 1996 film Independence Day, where the president is basically
0:28.7	doing an extended eye role as an Area 51 researcher shows him around the place.
0:34.7	Mr. Prest.
0:36.7	Wow.
0:37.7	What a pleasure.
0:39.7	As you can imagine, they don't let us out much.
0:45.7	I can understand that.
0:48.7	Well, these days we have an actual former president talking openly about unidentified flying
0:53.8	objects on National TV.
0:56.2	That is true.
0:58.2	And I'm actually being serious here is that there are footage and records of objects in
1:06.4	the skies that we don't know exactly what they are.
1:10.2	Here's former president Barack Obama on the late late show with James Corden last month.
1:14.7	We can't explain how they moved their trajectory.
1:22.0	They did not have an easily explainable pattern.
	...

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