Hangar 1: The UFO Files (2014) s02e01 Episode Script
UFOs at War
June 15, 1968, the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.
This incident happened at the height of the Vietnam War.
On this night, Lieutenant Pete Snyder and the American crew of the patrol boat PCF 12 are starting their routine patrol near Cua Viet.
At approximately 12:30 AM, Snyder gets a frantic message from the other patrol boat in the vicinity, PCF 19, which is commanded by Lieutenant Davis.
Lieutenant Davis reports that they are under attack by unidentified objects, possibly enemy helicopters.
At the time, the Vietnamese did not have helicopters.
The term "enemy helicopters" is the military's code for UFOs.
Lieutenant Snyder's boat proceeds at max speed towards Lieutenant Davis's location and as they get closer, Snyder and his crew see two UFOs covered in a strange glow hovering above Davis's patrol boat.
All of a sudden, there's a flash of light and an explosion, and the boat is completely destroyed, blown to bits.
In an instant, the UFOs zip out to sea and disappear.
Can you imagine? You're in the middle of a war zone worried about enemy fire, and then something as unbelievable as a UFO comes in and destroys one of your patrol boats.
Is there any proof that UFOs were responsible for this attack on our military? The Pentagon has records of an October 16, 1973 press conference where a high-ranking commander revealed that the military was well aware of the presence of UFOs during the Vietnam War.
In 1973, General Brown is addressing the media, and he said, "I don't know if this story's ever been told before, but during the Vietnam War, we were plagued by UFOs.
We didn't call them UFOs, we call them enemy helicopters.
" Was this an isolated incident or have UFOs been appearing over battlefields throughout history? And if so, why? "Hangar 1" files reveal the sometimes deadly clashes between the U.
S.
military and UFOs at war right now.
The Mutual UFO Network, known as MUFON, is an independent organization not bound to any government.
They investigate reports of UFO sightings from around the world.
Over the past five decades, they have collected more than 70,000 files stored at a secure location known as Hanger 1.
Now MUFON is granting access to their vast archive.
These are the files of "Hangar 1.
" Inside Hangar 1, MUFON has case files of UFO encounters during wartime.
Some even claim that these incidents resulted in the deaths of American soldiers and alleged government cover-ups.
But why are UFOs appearing during our wars? In Vietnam, what Lieutenant Snyder and his crew witnessed in the June 1968 attack might provide some important clues.
Snyder's crew can only find two men who survived the UFO attack.
The survivors tell Snyder that the UFOs had been following them for miles up the river.
Now everyone on Snyder's boat is on high alert, aware the UFOs could return at any minute.
The Navy instructs them to continue their patrol upriver heading deeper into the DMZ.
It is completely dark except for a partial moon.
The patrol boat is observing radio silence.
Suddenly, Jeff Steffes, the second engine man sees two aircraft hovering off both the port and starboard sides aircraft hovering off both the port and starboard sides of their boats.
Lieutenant Snyder realizes these are the same UFOs that he spotted hovering over Davis' boat before the fateful attack.
With the UFOs now closing in, Snyder is determined to protect his patrol boat and crew.
Snyder is determined to protect his patrol boat and crew.
So he orders all hands on deck to engage with the UFOs.
( heavy machine gun firing ) The crew fires at the UFOs, but the objects aren't slowing down, and they keep coming closer.
Snyder's boat is sprayed with ammunition from the UFOs.
Lieutenant Snyder accelerates and whips the boat back and forth in an attempt to dodge the return fire from the spacecrafts.
The crew continues to shoot the UFOs while their patrol boat is now trying to escape at full speed.
Steffes, the second engine man, now gets a good look at the UFOs in the moonlight.
He describes them as having a rounded front like an observation halo with what looks like two crewmen sitting side-by-side, but oddly, he can't see any weapons on the craft.
Lieutenant Snyder, fearing what might happen next, turns his patrol boat back towards the China Sea, where the US naval fleet is stationed.
The UFOs are still in pursuit, and Snyder's boat is now running low on ammo and fuel.
The radio is crackling with a flood of activity reporting engagements with unidentified objects.
Could these strange aircraft be a new secret weapon provided by the Chinese or Soviet Union to aid the North Vietnamese? The military was interested in them because they had capabilities far above anything that we had, and they wanted to find out what the technology was, and frankly, who they belonged to.
Unclear about what they are facing, the U.
S.
military takes action.
At about 3:20 A.
M.
Phantom F4 fighter jets are deployed from Da Nang to provide air support to Snyder's patrol boat.
Soon, the Phantom F4s are in hot pursuit of the UFOs.
The two UFOs attacking Snyder's boat veer away at an amazing speed and head downriver toward the China Sea.
Meanwhile, an Allied ship of the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Hobart, was also in the China Sea, and it too reported seeing 30 strange lights hovering close to their ship.
The Hobart's commander radios in that two UFOs are rapidly approaching their boat.
These may have been the same UFOs that had been attacking Snyder's boat.
The U.
S.
Navy jets from Da Nang are still in hot pursuit of the two UFOs.
The Phantom F4s fire several missiles directly at the UFOs hovering over the Hobart.
As soon as the Jets fire the missiles, the objects just simply vanish into thin air.
Just like that, they're gone.
The threat to Hobart and the U.
S.
fleet seems to be over.
And the U.
S.
fleet seems to be over.
The jets return to Da Nang, and the DMZ is quiet.
With the UFOs gone, the Navy assesses the damage.
This wasn't a normal battle.
In fact, the artillery rounds that the UFO shot at Snyder's boat turned out to be the exact same rounds that Snyder was shooting at the UFOs.
It's mind-boggling.
This patrol boat discovers that it's being hit by the very same artillery that they are firing.
This makes no sense.
Could this simply be a case of friendly fire brought on by faulty radar or battle fatigue? Or is this incident an example of UFOs turning our own weapons against us? I was in the Air Force from 1958 to 1978.
When I was in Vietnam, I used to brief General George S.
Brown every morning.
We would get reports of unidentified aircraft.
I've heard many reports concerning some kind of a force field around the UFOs, that they had the capability of returning fire.
If this is true, how do we defend against these UFOs? The shocking conclusion to this battle in Vietnam shows us the frightening power of these unidentified flying objects.
Just before daybreak, a missile comes in from out of nowhere no warning at all.
The UFO battle in the DMZ continues when we return.
Hangar 1 contains evidence that UFOs have directly battled American and foreign soldiers.
One such incident occurred in Vietnam in 1968 when two U.
S.
patrol boats were attacked while on a mission in the DMZ.
According to the files, the same UFOs returned the following day.
This time, their target was not the American patrol boats, but the Australian warship Hobart.
The China Sea, Vietnam.
Hobart continues its patrol near Tiger Island.
The sky and water are eerily quiet.
There were no signs of any UFOs or any enemy aircraft, for that matter.
Just before daybreak, a missile comes in from out of nowhere, no warning at all, and hits the Hobart's starboard side, killing Australian seamen RJ Buttersworth and wounding two additional seamen.
The Hobart crew runs up to their battle stations, and now they see two UFOs off their starboard side, but before they can respond, two more missiles are fired at their ship, killing their chief electrician.
The missiles penetrate the ship's superstructure, causing extensive damage.
The surviving crew from the Hobart gets a quick glance at the UFOs before they disappear, and they match the same description of the UFOs that attacked Lieutenant Snyder's boat earlier that evening.
This is just insanity.
In the middle of the Vietnam War, two boats got destroyed by UFOs, and another patrol boat barely escapes disaster.
For whatever reason, these UFOs appear to be on an unrelenting mission.
And these UFO incidents continue.
About a week after the Hobart incident, An Australian newspaper reported that radar men that five miles south of the DMZ were continuing to report UFOs.
In fact, this was the sixth one since the Hobart attack that they had reported.
Patrol boats continue to monitor UFOs well into September of that year.
The U.
S.
Navy and the Royal Australian Navy launch a formal investigation.
An investigation on the Hobart incident revealed that a fragment of one of the missiles fired on the patrol boat had a serial number that they were able to trace.
And that number was traced back to missiles fired at the UFOs by the U.
S.
Phantom F4, the same jet that was deployed from Da Nang airbase the night before.
The official report of proceedings filed on the Hobart incident concludes that it is a case of friendly fire.
So you're thinking, "Okay, case closed.
A Phantom F4 accidentally hit the wrong target.
" Except that the facts aren't so cut and dry.
The Phantom F4s had returned to their airbase in Da Nang immediately after their encounter with the UFOs, well before a missile had hit the Hobart.
Years later, a military general comes forward with a surprising statement.
General Brown said UFOs were seen up around the DMZ in 1968, and this resulted in quite a battle.
An Australian boat took a hit, and there was no enemy in sight.
I think consistent with General Brown's statement, this 1968 encounter in the DMZ was probably the most significant UFO encounter of the Vietnam War.
In two separate incidents in this encounter in Vietnam, we see UFOs that seem to have the capability to turn our own weapons against us.
Those patrol boats were hit with our own weapons.
How do you defend against that? It's a chilling thought, that they are studying our warfare much like we might study the Egyptian charioteers.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that they would be interested in such things.
The UFO incident in Vietnam forces the U.
S.
military to reassess their policy of engaging with UFOs.
So here's what's interesting about this encounter.
After it occurred, U.
S.
command ordered their fighter pilots and naval ships not to fire on UFOs.
They did not want a repeat of that deadly incident.
The situation now is that we do not engage UFOs and try to bring them down.
As a matter of fact, I've talked to a number of air traffic controllers who told me that they're told that whenever one of our aircraft sees a UFO to divert it away.
In other words, to avoid any kind of a confrontation, that they feel that it's important to stay away from them as much as possible.
I think this was a time in our history where we learned an important lesson when dealing with UFOs.
The fact that we installed a new protocol to not engage with any unidentified flying objects seems to indicate that our military brass may have realized that we could not defeat them.
When you consider that the most powerful military power in the world has been humbled by these events, it really makes you wonder what's going on behind the scenes and how they're viewing them.
Unfortunately, this lesson to not engage came too late for some Americans who battled with UFOs during the Korean War.
Up next He's firing-armor piercing bullets into the glowing light, and the UFO responds.
American soldiers suffer the consequences of attacking UFOs when we return.
MUFON files reveal a secret history of military engagements with UFOs during times of war.
In Vietnam, military commanders seem to finally acknowledge that we cannot compete with the UFO's superior technology.
However, our military learned this lesson the hard way, through costly incidents that occurred during a previous confrontation.
Spring, 1951, Korea.
An area known as the Iron Triangle is the site of repeated battles between American soldiers and the Chinese People's Army.
In the spring of 1951, the second Battalion Easy Company of the Army's 25th division was deployed to advance into North Korea to conquer and destroy Chinese forces.
Francis Wall was a Private First Class of Easy Company and his unit was stationed on a mountain slope in a very remote area near Cheorwon, Korea.
Below them was a village, and on this night, their mission was to bombard and on this night, their mission was to bombard the village with artillery.
As Easy Company begins firing on the village below, they notice something strange overhead coming straight towards them.
Wall and his unit suddenly see a glowing saucer-shaped light wafting down across the mountain to the right.
The object is so quick that it maneuvers directly into the path of their artillery fire.
It maneuvers directly into the path of their artillery fire.
Yet it remains untouched.
As Private Wall reports, the glowing saucer comes right towards the unit until it is literally on top of them.
It was hard for them to determine the size because what they remembered mostly was that brilliant light.
Private Wall gets the order from his commander to start firing at the UFO.
And the UFO responds.
The UFO begins moving erratically when they hear something that they'd never heard before.
Something that they'd never heard before.
Like the revving of some kind of high-tech engine.
A laser beam of light strikes each man in pulses.
Wall reported that he and the other soldiers immediately felt a burning, tingling sensation all over their bodies.
When Wall saw the light on his body, it was like an x-ray machine.
He could see the bones of his hands and arms.
Here you have some of the bravest man in the Army with some of the most advanced weapons at the time, and they are completely helpless against this unknown force.
The company commander orders everyone to run to the bunkers for protection.
They do, but the UFO follows them and hovers over them, essentially pinning them down between the enemy below and the UFO above.
Once in the bunker, the men of Easy Company begin to suffer from the effects of the UFO's attack.
Not only were the men terrified, they soon became extremely ill.
These men were physically sick.
They were weak and vomiting and completely overcome.
As they lay there, the craft stayed above their bunker almost like it was tormenting them.
Suddenly, it shot up in the air at a 45-degree angle and disappeared.
The men were still too sick to move.
It was like they were paralyzed.
They couldn't eat or drink anything without getting sick, and they were stuck there for days until reinforcements could be sent.
Three days later, the Army rescue team finally arrived to evacuate the entire company, who were all still too weak to even walk.
When they finally did get medical attention, the doctors couldn't explain the extreme high white blood cell count.
Was this a case of the enemy using lethal gas as a weapon, or was it from the contact with the UFO? You have to wonder if they suffered from some kind of radiation sickness or exposure to some other kind of dangerous element.
In fact, years later in 1987, Wall told a journalist that he continues to suffer from headaches, fatigue, and disorientation, and to this day, his body is still not functioning normally.
The fact that Private Wall was physically affected is one thing.
Was physically affected is one thing.
He was psychologically affected because you absolutely do not understand what it is you have just gone through.
These things are absolutely confusing.
They don't fit a normal reality.
If you just think of the imagery of it all, it looks like a horror movie.
Why did a UFO attack and disrupt Easy Company's attack and disrupt Easy Company's mission that day? I find this particular report of the Iron Triangle to be very interesting.
It's an early combat situation this is at a time during the Korean War when General Douglas MacArthur was talking very seriously about wanting to use nuclear weapons in an attempt to win the war.
You could really look at this as a situation in which this other agency, these other beings, whoever they were, are saying to the Americans, "Hey, look, we've got something that's a lot more significant and a lot more powerful than what you have.
So maybe you want to think twice.
" Was the UFO's show of force an attempt to dissuade the U.
S.
from deploying deadly measures? Aliens have always indicated a strong interest in military capabilities.
As the Korean War continues, there are more dangerous encounters and not just with troops on the ground.
U.
S.
policy to shoot down UFOs threatens the lives of many American pilots.
Coming up The pilots couldn't believe their eyes.
These UFOs were huge, 700 feet in diameter, and coming towards them at incredible speed.
Over Korea, Navy jets engage with a UFO.
MUFON files reveal that military engagements with UFOs occurred during that military engagements with UFOs occurred during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Despite the apparent technological superiority of these UFOs, the military still insisted on engaging them head-on.
This turned out to be a costly policy for some American and Allied soldiers.
September, 1950, Port of Incheon, North Korea.
It's early morning shortly after the start of the Korean War.
A North Korean truck convoy is spotted moving through a valley about 100 miles south of the Chinese border.
Three American attack jets are launched from an aircraft carrier to bomb the convoy.
The sun is just coming up when the Navy jets finally make their target.
Each aircraft carries a pilot, a radar operator/gunner and about 4,000 pounds of bombs.
And just as the jets see their target and are about to drop their payload, they find themselves staring at a pair of huge UFOs approaching from the Northwest.
The pilots couldn't believe their eyes.
These UFOs were 700 feet in diameter and coming towards them at incredible speed, they estimated at 1,200 miles an hour.
One of the gunners goes to fire at a UFO when he realizes the weapons are jammed.
They try to radio for help, but the radio is dead, too.
All three jets are experiencing the same problems with their equipment.
Two jets peel off to head back to the carrier, but the UFOs continue to follow the lone jet that remains on its mission.
These UFOs circle the jet as if they're inspecting it before they zip out of sight at high speeds.
The remaining pilot realizes his fuel is low, so instead of engaging his target, he decides he needs to return to the carrier.
Back on the carrier, all three Navy pilots report that they experienced the same systems failures in each of their jets.
Those guys were completely helpless up there, and what probably kept them alive was the fact that they couldn't shoot their weapons.
I've never heard of an incident where they have attacked us first.
It was always in response to something that we might do.
Is it possible the UFO simply wanted to make itself known and, for the pilots' protection, prevented them from firing their weapons? The information that we're getting, basically the reason they're here, is to save our planet.
Incredibly, these midair UFO encounters with Naval and Air Force pilots persisted throughout the Korean War.
In March of 1952, The Washington Post published an article saying that the Pentagon knew of more than two dozen flying saucer incidents over North Korea.
They had documentation and radar reports from personnel involved.
These were such dramatic events that the officials couldn't even cover them up.
Around this time in the early 1950s, retired Marine Corps Major Donald Kehoe was an active UFO investigator.
He stated that at this time, U.
S.
Air Force had had over 300 encounters with mysterious lights and unidentified objects.
I do know that orders were given to try to bring them down.
We learned our lesson that when we tried to shoot them down, our crews didn't come back.
Our government is being overwhelmed with reports of unbeatable alien craft above the battlefields, and yet here they are, still commanding our armed forces to just blindly engage these UFOs.
Truman's decision to battle these UFOs may have cost the military greatly.
I do know that we lost a great number of aircraft during the periods from 1952 to '58 of Navy and Air Force.
Benjamin Chidlaw, who was the head of air defense command said publicly that we take UFOs seriously.
That they are in fact very dangerous.
MUFON files indicate that during the Korean War, the military employed a "shoot them down" policy, but after a deadly UFO incident in the Vietnam War, the government may have decided to shift this protocol.
What impact would this new directive have on future encounters, even over our most secure military bases? During the Cold War, a U.
S.
sergeant comes face-to-face with a UFO and finds himself completely defenseless when we return.
December 26, 1980.
Strange lights are reported by a security patrol near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge.
So in 1980, we're in the middle of a Cold War and in fact, at a heightened moment of tension in the Cold War.
In Britain, you have the twin bases of Woodbridge and Bentwaters with nuclear ordnance that was stored there, and this was NATO's forward nuclear base.
In the event of anything serious that would be happening in terms of escalation of the Cold War, you could see this would be a very important base in the whole grand scheme of things.
The Rendlesham Forest incident really begins on December 26 at 3:00 A.
M.
airmen outside the east gate at Woodbridge see a light.
It looks like an aircraft about to crash.
They send a security detail out there to go investigate.
A security officer named James Penniston is one of the men on this team.
Policy dictated that if personnel left the base to investigate an incident, they would do so unarmed.
My name is James Penniston.
I'm a retired Air Force sergeant that was in charge of security for RAF Woodbridge, England, in 1980.
Early on the morning of December 26, I was notified by central security control that we had an issue out at the east gate of a possible aircraft downing.
And so I said to the senior law enforcement guy, "Hey, did you hear a crash?" He says, "No, Jim.
" He says, "It didn't crash.
" He says, "It landed.
" On the edge of the forest, we can start seeing a brighter white light, and as we entered the forest, we seen what appeared to be a triangular craft.
At that point in time, it was no longer an aircraft downing.
It was a security situation which would jeopardize the war-making capability and operation of the twin bases.
I wish we were armed.
Penniston now approaches this object, and he notices what look like markings, maybe hieroglyphic types of markings.
This was a very, very strange situation.
I can't tell you exactly what the craft was, but I can tell you what it wasn't.
It was apparent that the technology was far beyond whatever we could ever do at that time or even at this present day.
Here's Penniston right next to a UFO that is clearly not from our world.
He's actually touching it, but still, he has no idea what he's supposed to do at this point.
I thought that it might not be a survivable situation, but I was going to go ahead and get as much information as I could.
What do they want him to keep looking for? Think about it.
The government already knew it was a UFO situation.
They wanted to investigate and gather information about this craft, but they're not about to get their hands dirty and engage it despite the security risk.
It's like they already knew they were no match for it.
Penniston returns to the base, where he is subjected to a series of interrogations.
This is an ongoing investigation, and we want you to keep it contained, and this is how we're going to do it.
And any breach of that would be pretty much a career ender.
But it was unsettling, yes.
I didn't like to be put in that position.
Looking back in hindsight, that was the beginning of the cover-up.
Though the government tried their best to keep the incident under wraps, they found this wasn't going to be so easy.
The Rendlesham incident at RAF Woodbridge does not end there.
Two nights later, another UFO is seen over the area.
This time, deputy wing commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt is notified.
He goes out personally to investigate.
They bring radios, Geiger counters, and a tape recorder.
And to his amazement, he and his team find themselves face-to-face with a triangle-shaped UFO.
This, I think, is the most significant thing.
They see an object above them.
This thing, whatever it was, beams a light down to the ground through the layers of dirt and concrete right to where nuclear ordnance was being stored, and as Charles Halt once said to two investigators, "Whatever that thing was, the beam of light directly affected the nuclear weapons that were being stored below the ground.
" Whatever intelligence that was somehow knew there were nukes down under the ground.
Is it possible the UFOs were aware of our advanced weapons and came to investigate, or perhaps even prevent nuclear warfare? They feel that our planet is very important in this part of the universe.
They may even have a desire to come here in the future.
On the question of nuclear weapons a the twin bases, my official response on that is that we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of weapons at that base at that time.
I think if we showed any aggression with a weapon, if we had them with us, I think that it could have been not good for us.
Werner von Braun predicted that we would be interacting with these things at some point.
Well, did we? That's my question.
So by the time Rendlesham happens, perhaps there's a protocol in place not to engage them.
Maybe we were already in contact as so many claim.
Could the government's knowledge of these UFOs have changed the protocol from engage to something else? It seems fair to say that this point in the Cold War, the U.
S.
government had made a decision to change its attitude to observing UFOs, and this event reinforces something else about our relationship to UFOs.
Essentially that we're powerless against them.
We really can't compete with whoever these beings are.
Perhaps our government finally recognized that our most advanced weapons are no match for extraterrestrial technology.
The military continues to be astounded as UFOs are still appearing in our most recent conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Coming up Shortly after the battle began to break out, the Kurds noticed some strange lights in the sky.
MUFON continues to look for the answers when "Hangar 1" returns.
Numerous files discovered within Hangar 1 detailed UFO encounters during times of war.
Throughout history, U.
S.
military protocols have evolved from "shoot them down" orders during the Korean and Vietnam Wars to non-engagement during more recent conflicts.
To this day, UFOs continue to return to our battlefields.
March 19, 2003, Little Zab Valley, Iraq.
In the final hours before operation Iraqi Freedom, Kurdish militia known as Peshmerga in the area called Little Zab Valley, see F-16s, American F-16s flying over the area releasing air-to-ground missiles very close to their position.
Suddenly, Iraqi forces below began firing at the F-16s.
A battle begins to break out between the bunker in Little Zab Valley and the American F-16s.
The report goes on to say that shortly after the battle began to break out, the Kurds noticed some strange lights in the sky.
The seven lights were very bright and formed a line across the sky.
The Kurds said American forces retreated.
These strange lights form in the sky, and instead of engaging them, the F-16s just leave.
Like other military encounters that involve UFOs, the incident is kept tightly under wraps, and no official report is filed.
I find it very interesting that there is no official report or acknowledgement of any UFO activity over the Little Zab Valley at that particular time, and in fact if there were no eyewitness reports, there would be no knowledge of this encounter at all.
The general public is not told everything about what our military is encountering in these war zones.
What's interesting about this is that it gives us some insight into the fact that UFOs are still appearing over our battlefields, and the military is still backing off.
That's the stuff I want to know about.
If they're not a threat, then why are they still a secret? It seems that the government is now well aware that they are no match for this advanced technology which obviously would be something they'd be very uncomfortable admitting.
Do these UFOs continue to appear to remind us of their power, or could their presence indicate something else entirely? Whenever there's fighting going on, the UFOs are seen and reported on a regular basis.
That's happening in the Ukraine now and other areas, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.
They seem to have an affinity for areas where there's loss of life.
It's conceivable that extraterrestrials may be observing these war zones because it is strange to them the way we behave towards each other.
Man killing man.
This might be something very, very fascinating to them.
I believe they're telling us to stop killing each other, and I think that they see a danger perhaps in their own past.
Maybe they're here to tell us that if there's anyone we need to protect ourselves from, it's ourselves.
Throughout history, there have been reports of battles involving UFOs.
There have been reports of battles involving UFOs.
Ancient writings in 4,000 BC refer to God's fighting UFOs in the heavens, and citizens from 13th-Century England and Nuremberg in 1561 tell of strange objects attacking one another in the skies above them.
Perhaps our otherworldly visitors were taught lessons from these ancient encounters, lessons that we are meant to learn as well.
They may have advanced beyond warfare, and I think that they see a danger perhaps in their own past.
They have witnessed these kinds of things.
They might be telling us, "Hey, there's a better way to be.
" Could this be the reason why so many UFOs are witnessed during our most violent wars? Perhaps, if one day we are able to communicate with these visitors, their message will be revealed, hopefully before it's too late for us all.
This incident happened at the height of the Vietnam War.
On this night, Lieutenant Pete Snyder and the American crew of the patrol boat PCF 12 are starting their routine patrol near Cua Viet.
At approximately 12:30 AM, Snyder gets a frantic message from the other patrol boat in the vicinity, PCF 19, which is commanded by Lieutenant Davis.
Lieutenant Davis reports that they are under attack by unidentified objects, possibly enemy helicopters.
At the time, the Vietnamese did not have helicopters.
The term "enemy helicopters" is the military's code for UFOs.
Lieutenant Snyder's boat proceeds at max speed towards Lieutenant Davis's location and as they get closer, Snyder and his crew see two UFOs covered in a strange glow hovering above Davis's patrol boat.
All of a sudden, there's a flash of light and an explosion, and the boat is completely destroyed, blown to bits.
In an instant, the UFOs zip out to sea and disappear.
Can you imagine? You're in the middle of a war zone worried about enemy fire, and then something as unbelievable as a UFO comes in and destroys one of your patrol boats.
Is there any proof that UFOs were responsible for this attack on our military? The Pentagon has records of an October 16, 1973 press conference where a high-ranking commander revealed that the military was well aware of the presence of UFOs during the Vietnam War.
In 1973, General Brown is addressing the media, and he said, "I don't know if this story's ever been told before, but during the Vietnam War, we were plagued by UFOs.
We didn't call them UFOs, we call them enemy helicopters.
" Was this an isolated incident or have UFOs been appearing over battlefields throughout history? And if so, why? "Hangar 1" files reveal the sometimes deadly clashes between the U.
S.
military and UFOs at war right now.
The Mutual UFO Network, known as MUFON, is an independent organization not bound to any government.
They investigate reports of UFO sightings from around the world.
Over the past five decades, they have collected more than 70,000 files stored at a secure location known as Hanger 1.
Now MUFON is granting access to their vast archive.
These are the files of "Hangar 1.
" Inside Hangar 1, MUFON has case files of UFO encounters during wartime.
Some even claim that these incidents resulted in the deaths of American soldiers and alleged government cover-ups.
But why are UFOs appearing during our wars? In Vietnam, what Lieutenant Snyder and his crew witnessed in the June 1968 attack might provide some important clues.
Snyder's crew can only find two men who survived the UFO attack.
The survivors tell Snyder that the UFOs had been following them for miles up the river.
Now everyone on Snyder's boat is on high alert, aware the UFOs could return at any minute.
The Navy instructs them to continue their patrol upriver heading deeper into the DMZ.
It is completely dark except for a partial moon.
The patrol boat is observing radio silence.
Suddenly, Jeff Steffes, the second engine man sees two aircraft hovering off both the port and starboard sides aircraft hovering off both the port and starboard sides of their boats.
Lieutenant Snyder realizes these are the same UFOs that he spotted hovering over Davis' boat before the fateful attack.
With the UFOs now closing in, Snyder is determined to protect his patrol boat and crew.
Snyder is determined to protect his patrol boat and crew.
So he orders all hands on deck to engage with the UFOs.
( heavy machine gun firing ) The crew fires at the UFOs, but the objects aren't slowing down, and they keep coming closer.
Snyder's boat is sprayed with ammunition from the UFOs.
Lieutenant Snyder accelerates and whips the boat back and forth in an attempt to dodge the return fire from the spacecrafts.
The crew continues to shoot the UFOs while their patrol boat is now trying to escape at full speed.
Steffes, the second engine man, now gets a good look at the UFOs in the moonlight.
He describes them as having a rounded front like an observation halo with what looks like two crewmen sitting side-by-side, but oddly, he can't see any weapons on the craft.
Lieutenant Snyder, fearing what might happen next, turns his patrol boat back towards the China Sea, where the US naval fleet is stationed.
The UFOs are still in pursuit, and Snyder's boat is now running low on ammo and fuel.
The radio is crackling with a flood of activity reporting engagements with unidentified objects.
Could these strange aircraft be a new secret weapon provided by the Chinese or Soviet Union to aid the North Vietnamese? The military was interested in them because they had capabilities far above anything that we had, and they wanted to find out what the technology was, and frankly, who they belonged to.
Unclear about what they are facing, the U.
S.
military takes action.
At about 3:20 A.
M.
Phantom F4 fighter jets are deployed from Da Nang to provide air support to Snyder's patrol boat.
Soon, the Phantom F4s are in hot pursuit of the UFOs.
The two UFOs attacking Snyder's boat veer away at an amazing speed and head downriver toward the China Sea.
Meanwhile, an Allied ship of the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Hobart, was also in the China Sea, and it too reported seeing 30 strange lights hovering close to their ship.
The Hobart's commander radios in that two UFOs are rapidly approaching their boat.
These may have been the same UFOs that had been attacking Snyder's boat.
The U.
S.
Navy jets from Da Nang are still in hot pursuit of the two UFOs.
The Phantom F4s fire several missiles directly at the UFOs hovering over the Hobart.
As soon as the Jets fire the missiles, the objects just simply vanish into thin air.
Just like that, they're gone.
The threat to Hobart and the U.
S.
fleet seems to be over.
And the U.
S.
fleet seems to be over.
The jets return to Da Nang, and the DMZ is quiet.
With the UFOs gone, the Navy assesses the damage.
This wasn't a normal battle.
In fact, the artillery rounds that the UFO shot at Snyder's boat turned out to be the exact same rounds that Snyder was shooting at the UFOs.
It's mind-boggling.
This patrol boat discovers that it's being hit by the very same artillery that they are firing.
This makes no sense.
Could this simply be a case of friendly fire brought on by faulty radar or battle fatigue? Or is this incident an example of UFOs turning our own weapons against us? I was in the Air Force from 1958 to 1978.
When I was in Vietnam, I used to brief General George S.
Brown every morning.
We would get reports of unidentified aircraft.
I've heard many reports concerning some kind of a force field around the UFOs, that they had the capability of returning fire.
If this is true, how do we defend against these UFOs? The shocking conclusion to this battle in Vietnam shows us the frightening power of these unidentified flying objects.
Just before daybreak, a missile comes in from out of nowhere no warning at all.
The UFO battle in the DMZ continues when we return.
Hangar 1 contains evidence that UFOs have directly battled American and foreign soldiers.
One such incident occurred in Vietnam in 1968 when two U.
S.
patrol boats were attacked while on a mission in the DMZ.
According to the files, the same UFOs returned the following day.
This time, their target was not the American patrol boats, but the Australian warship Hobart.
The China Sea, Vietnam.
Hobart continues its patrol near Tiger Island.
The sky and water are eerily quiet.
There were no signs of any UFOs or any enemy aircraft, for that matter.
Just before daybreak, a missile comes in from out of nowhere, no warning at all, and hits the Hobart's starboard side, killing Australian seamen RJ Buttersworth and wounding two additional seamen.
The Hobart crew runs up to their battle stations, and now they see two UFOs off their starboard side, but before they can respond, two more missiles are fired at their ship, killing their chief electrician.
The missiles penetrate the ship's superstructure, causing extensive damage.
The surviving crew from the Hobart gets a quick glance at the UFOs before they disappear, and they match the same description of the UFOs that attacked Lieutenant Snyder's boat earlier that evening.
This is just insanity.
In the middle of the Vietnam War, two boats got destroyed by UFOs, and another patrol boat barely escapes disaster.
For whatever reason, these UFOs appear to be on an unrelenting mission.
And these UFO incidents continue.
About a week after the Hobart incident, An Australian newspaper reported that radar men that five miles south of the DMZ were continuing to report UFOs.
In fact, this was the sixth one since the Hobart attack that they had reported.
Patrol boats continue to monitor UFOs well into September of that year.
The U.
S.
Navy and the Royal Australian Navy launch a formal investigation.
An investigation on the Hobart incident revealed that a fragment of one of the missiles fired on the patrol boat had a serial number that they were able to trace.
And that number was traced back to missiles fired at the UFOs by the U.
S.
Phantom F4, the same jet that was deployed from Da Nang airbase the night before.
The official report of proceedings filed on the Hobart incident concludes that it is a case of friendly fire.
So you're thinking, "Okay, case closed.
A Phantom F4 accidentally hit the wrong target.
" Except that the facts aren't so cut and dry.
The Phantom F4s had returned to their airbase in Da Nang immediately after their encounter with the UFOs, well before a missile had hit the Hobart.
Years later, a military general comes forward with a surprising statement.
General Brown said UFOs were seen up around the DMZ in 1968, and this resulted in quite a battle.
An Australian boat took a hit, and there was no enemy in sight.
I think consistent with General Brown's statement, this 1968 encounter in the DMZ was probably the most significant UFO encounter of the Vietnam War.
In two separate incidents in this encounter in Vietnam, we see UFOs that seem to have the capability to turn our own weapons against us.
Those patrol boats were hit with our own weapons.
How do you defend against that? It's a chilling thought, that they are studying our warfare much like we might study the Egyptian charioteers.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that they would be interested in such things.
The UFO incident in Vietnam forces the U.
S.
military to reassess their policy of engaging with UFOs.
So here's what's interesting about this encounter.
After it occurred, U.
S.
command ordered their fighter pilots and naval ships not to fire on UFOs.
They did not want a repeat of that deadly incident.
The situation now is that we do not engage UFOs and try to bring them down.
As a matter of fact, I've talked to a number of air traffic controllers who told me that they're told that whenever one of our aircraft sees a UFO to divert it away.
In other words, to avoid any kind of a confrontation, that they feel that it's important to stay away from them as much as possible.
I think this was a time in our history where we learned an important lesson when dealing with UFOs.
The fact that we installed a new protocol to not engage with any unidentified flying objects seems to indicate that our military brass may have realized that we could not defeat them.
When you consider that the most powerful military power in the world has been humbled by these events, it really makes you wonder what's going on behind the scenes and how they're viewing them.
Unfortunately, this lesson to not engage came too late for some Americans who battled with UFOs during the Korean War.
Up next He's firing-armor piercing bullets into the glowing light, and the UFO responds.
American soldiers suffer the consequences of attacking UFOs when we return.
MUFON files reveal a secret history of military engagements with UFOs during times of war.
In Vietnam, military commanders seem to finally acknowledge that we cannot compete with the UFO's superior technology.
However, our military learned this lesson the hard way, through costly incidents that occurred during a previous confrontation.
Spring, 1951, Korea.
An area known as the Iron Triangle is the site of repeated battles between American soldiers and the Chinese People's Army.
In the spring of 1951, the second Battalion Easy Company of the Army's 25th division was deployed to advance into North Korea to conquer and destroy Chinese forces.
Francis Wall was a Private First Class of Easy Company and his unit was stationed on a mountain slope in a very remote area near Cheorwon, Korea.
Below them was a village, and on this night, their mission was to bombard and on this night, their mission was to bombard the village with artillery.
As Easy Company begins firing on the village below, they notice something strange overhead coming straight towards them.
Wall and his unit suddenly see a glowing saucer-shaped light wafting down across the mountain to the right.
The object is so quick that it maneuvers directly into the path of their artillery fire.
It maneuvers directly into the path of their artillery fire.
Yet it remains untouched.
As Private Wall reports, the glowing saucer comes right towards the unit until it is literally on top of them.
It was hard for them to determine the size because what they remembered mostly was that brilliant light.
Private Wall gets the order from his commander to start firing at the UFO.
And the UFO responds.
The UFO begins moving erratically when they hear something that they'd never heard before.
Something that they'd never heard before.
Like the revving of some kind of high-tech engine.
A laser beam of light strikes each man in pulses.
Wall reported that he and the other soldiers immediately felt a burning, tingling sensation all over their bodies.
When Wall saw the light on his body, it was like an x-ray machine.
He could see the bones of his hands and arms.
Here you have some of the bravest man in the Army with some of the most advanced weapons at the time, and they are completely helpless against this unknown force.
The company commander orders everyone to run to the bunkers for protection.
They do, but the UFO follows them and hovers over them, essentially pinning them down between the enemy below and the UFO above.
Once in the bunker, the men of Easy Company begin to suffer from the effects of the UFO's attack.
Not only were the men terrified, they soon became extremely ill.
These men were physically sick.
They were weak and vomiting and completely overcome.
As they lay there, the craft stayed above their bunker almost like it was tormenting them.
Suddenly, it shot up in the air at a 45-degree angle and disappeared.
The men were still too sick to move.
It was like they were paralyzed.
They couldn't eat or drink anything without getting sick, and they were stuck there for days until reinforcements could be sent.
Three days later, the Army rescue team finally arrived to evacuate the entire company, who were all still too weak to even walk.
When they finally did get medical attention, the doctors couldn't explain the extreme high white blood cell count.
Was this a case of the enemy using lethal gas as a weapon, or was it from the contact with the UFO? You have to wonder if they suffered from some kind of radiation sickness or exposure to some other kind of dangerous element.
In fact, years later in 1987, Wall told a journalist that he continues to suffer from headaches, fatigue, and disorientation, and to this day, his body is still not functioning normally.
The fact that Private Wall was physically affected is one thing.
Was physically affected is one thing.
He was psychologically affected because you absolutely do not understand what it is you have just gone through.
These things are absolutely confusing.
They don't fit a normal reality.
If you just think of the imagery of it all, it looks like a horror movie.
Why did a UFO attack and disrupt Easy Company's attack and disrupt Easy Company's mission that day? I find this particular report of the Iron Triangle to be very interesting.
It's an early combat situation this is at a time during the Korean War when General Douglas MacArthur was talking very seriously about wanting to use nuclear weapons in an attempt to win the war.
You could really look at this as a situation in which this other agency, these other beings, whoever they were, are saying to the Americans, "Hey, look, we've got something that's a lot more significant and a lot more powerful than what you have.
So maybe you want to think twice.
" Was the UFO's show of force an attempt to dissuade the U.
S.
from deploying deadly measures? Aliens have always indicated a strong interest in military capabilities.
As the Korean War continues, there are more dangerous encounters and not just with troops on the ground.
U.
S.
policy to shoot down UFOs threatens the lives of many American pilots.
Coming up The pilots couldn't believe their eyes.
These UFOs were huge, 700 feet in diameter, and coming towards them at incredible speed.
Over Korea, Navy jets engage with a UFO.
MUFON files reveal that military engagements with UFOs occurred during that military engagements with UFOs occurred during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Despite the apparent technological superiority of these UFOs, the military still insisted on engaging them head-on.
This turned out to be a costly policy for some American and Allied soldiers.
September, 1950, Port of Incheon, North Korea.
It's early morning shortly after the start of the Korean War.
A North Korean truck convoy is spotted moving through a valley about 100 miles south of the Chinese border.
Three American attack jets are launched from an aircraft carrier to bomb the convoy.
The sun is just coming up when the Navy jets finally make their target.
Each aircraft carries a pilot, a radar operator/gunner and about 4,000 pounds of bombs.
And just as the jets see their target and are about to drop their payload, they find themselves staring at a pair of huge UFOs approaching from the Northwest.
The pilots couldn't believe their eyes.
These UFOs were 700 feet in diameter and coming towards them at incredible speed, they estimated at 1,200 miles an hour.
One of the gunners goes to fire at a UFO when he realizes the weapons are jammed.
They try to radio for help, but the radio is dead, too.
All three jets are experiencing the same problems with their equipment.
Two jets peel off to head back to the carrier, but the UFOs continue to follow the lone jet that remains on its mission.
These UFOs circle the jet as if they're inspecting it before they zip out of sight at high speeds.
The remaining pilot realizes his fuel is low, so instead of engaging his target, he decides he needs to return to the carrier.
Back on the carrier, all three Navy pilots report that they experienced the same systems failures in each of their jets.
Those guys were completely helpless up there, and what probably kept them alive was the fact that they couldn't shoot their weapons.
I've never heard of an incident where they have attacked us first.
It was always in response to something that we might do.
Is it possible the UFO simply wanted to make itself known and, for the pilots' protection, prevented them from firing their weapons? The information that we're getting, basically the reason they're here, is to save our planet.
Incredibly, these midair UFO encounters with Naval and Air Force pilots persisted throughout the Korean War.
In March of 1952, The Washington Post published an article saying that the Pentagon knew of more than two dozen flying saucer incidents over North Korea.
They had documentation and radar reports from personnel involved.
These were such dramatic events that the officials couldn't even cover them up.
Around this time in the early 1950s, retired Marine Corps Major Donald Kehoe was an active UFO investigator.
He stated that at this time, U.
S.
Air Force had had over 300 encounters with mysterious lights and unidentified objects.
I do know that orders were given to try to bring them down.
We learned our lesson that when we tried to shoot them down, our crews didn't come back.
Our government is being overwhelmed with reports of unbeatable alien craft above the battlefields, and yet here they are, still commanding our armed forces to just blindly engage these UFOs.
Truman's decision to battle these UFOs may have cost the military greatly.
I do know that we lost a great number of aircraft during the periods from 1952 to '58 of Navy and Air Force.
Benjamin Chidlaw, who was the head of air defense command said publicly that we take UFOs seriously.
That they are in fact very dangerous.
MUFON files indicate that during the Korean War, the military employed a "shoot them down" policy, but after a deadly UFO incident in the Vietnam War, the government may have decided to shift this protocol.
What impact would this new directive have on future encounters, even over our most secure military bases? During the Cold War, a U.
S.
sergeant comes face-to-face with a UFO and finds himself completely defenseless when we return.
December 26, 1980.
Strange lights are reported by a security patrol near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge.
So in 1980, we're in the middle of a Cold War and in fact, at a heightened moment of tension in the Cold War.
In Britain, you have the twin bases of Woodbridge and Bentwaters with nuclear ordnance that was stored there, and this was NATO's forward nuclear base.
In the event of anything serious that would be happening in terms of escalation of the Cold War, you could see this would be a very important base in the whole grand scheme of things.
The Rendlesham Forest incident really begins on December 26 at 3:00 A.
M.
airmen outside the east gate at Woodbridge see a light.
It looks like an aircraft about to crash.
They send a security detail out there to go investigate.
A security officer named James Penniston is one of the men on this team.
Policy dictated that if personnel left the base to investigate an incident, they would do so unarmed.
My name is James Penniston.
I'm a retired Air Force sergeant that was in charge of security for RAF Woodbridge, England, in 1980.
Early on the morning of December 26, I was notified by central security control that we had an issue out at the east gate of a possible aircraft downing.
And so I said to the senior law enforcement guy, "Hey, did you hear a crash?" He says, "No, Jim.
" He says, "It didn't crash.
" He says, "It landed.
" On the edge of the forest, we can start seeing a brighter white light, and as we entered the forest, we seen what appeared to be a triangular craft.
At that point in time, it was no longer an aircraft downing.
It was a security situation which would jeopardize the war-making capability and operation of the twin bases.
I wish we were armed.
Penniston now approaches this object, and he notices what look like markings, maybe hieroglyphic types of markings.
This was a very, very strange situation.
I can't tell you exactly what the craft was, but I can tell you what it wasn't.
It was apparent that the technology was far beyond whatever we could ever do at that time or even at this present day.
Here's Penniston right next to a UFO that is clearly not from our world.
He's actually touching it, but still, he has no idea what he's supposed to do at this point.
I thought that it might not be a survivable situation, but I was going to go ahead and get as much information as I could.
What do they want him to keep looking for? Think about it.
The government already knew it was a UFO situation.
They wanted to investigate and gather information about this craft, but they're not about to get their hands dirty and engage it despite the security risk.
It's like they already knew they were no match for it.
Penniston returns to the base, where he is subjected to a series of interrogations.
This is an ongoing investigation, and we want you to keep it contained, and this is how we're going to do it.
And any breach of that would be pretty much a career ender.
But it was unsettling, yes.
I didn't like to be put in that position.
Looking back in hindsight, that was the beginning of the cover-up.
Though the government tried their best to keep the incident under wraps, they found this wasn't going to be so easy.
The Rendlesham incident at RAF Woodbridge does not end there.
Two nights later, another UFO is seen over the area.
This time, deputy wing commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt is notified.
He goes out personally to investigate.
They bring radios, Geiger counters, and a tape recorder.
And to his amazement, he and his team find themselves face-to-face with a triangle-shaped UFO.
This, I think, is the most significant thing.
They see an object above them.
This thing, whatever it was, beams a light down to the ground through the layers of dirt and concrete right to where nuclear ordnance was being stored, and as Charles Halt once said to two investigators, "Whatever that thing was, the beam of light directly affected the nuclear weapons that were being stored below the ground.
" Whatever intelligence that was somehow knew there were nukes down under the ground.
Is it possible the UFOs were aware of our advanced weapons and came to investigate, or perhaps even prevent nuclear warfare? They feel that our planet is very important in this part of the universe.
They may even have a desire to come here in the future.
On the question of nuclear weapons a the twin bases, my official response on that is that we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of weapons at that base at that time.
I think if we showed any aggression with a weapon, if we had them with us, I think that it could have been not good for us.
Werner von Braun predicted that we would be interacting with these things at some point.
Well, did we? That's my question.
So by the time Rendlesham happens, perhaps there's a protocol in place not to engage them.
Maybe we were already in contact as so many claim.
Could the government's knowledge of these UFOs have changed the protocol from engage to something else? It seems fair to say that this point in the Cold War, the U.
S.
government had made a decision to change its attitude to observing UFOs, and this event reinforces something else about our relationship to UFOs.
Essentially that we're powerless against them.
We really can't compete with whoever these beings are.
Perhaps our government finally recognized that our most advanced weapons are no match for extraterrestrial technology.
The military continues to be astounded as UFOs are still appearing in our most recent conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Coming up Shortly after the battle began to break out, the Kurds noticed some strange lights in the sky.
MUFON continues to look for the answers when "Hangar 1" returns.
Numerous files discovered within Hangar 1 detailed UFO encounters during times of war.
Throughout history, U.
S.
military protocols have evolved from "shoot them down" orders during the Korean and Vietnam Wars to non-engagement during more recent conflicts.
To this day, UFOs continue to return to our battlefields.
March 19, 2003, Little Zab Valley, Iraq.
In the final hours before operation Iraqi Freedom, Kurdish militia known as Peshmerga in the area called Little Zab Valley, see F-16s, American F-16s flying over the area releasing air-to-ground missiles very close to their position.
Suddenly, Iraqi forces below began firing at the F-16s.
A battle begins to break out between the bunker in Little Zab Valley and the American F-16s.
The report goes on to say that shortly after the battle began to break out, the Kurds noticed some strange lights in the sky.
The seven lights were very bright and formed a line across the sky.
The Kurds said American forces retreated.
These strange lights form in the sky, and instead of engaging them, the F-16s just leave.
Like other military encounters that involve UFOs, the incident is kept tightly under wraps, and no official report is filed.
I find it very interesting that there is no official report or acknowledgement of any UFO activity over the Little Zab Valley at that particular time, and in fact if there were no eyewitness reports, there would be no knowledge of this encounter at all.
The general public is not told everything about what our military is encountering in these war zones.
What's interesting about this is that it gives us some insight into the fact that UFOs are still appearing over our battlefields, and the military is still backing off.
That's the stuff I want to know about.
If they're not a threat, then why are they still a secret? It seems that the government is now well aware that they are no match for this advanced technology which obviously would be something they'd be very uncomfortable admitting.
Do these UFOs continue to appear to remind us of their power, or could their presence indicate something else entirely? Whenever there's fighting going on, the UFOs are seen and reported on a regular basis.
That's happening in the Ukraine now and other areas, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.
They seem to have an affinity for areas where there's loss of life.
It's conceivable that extraterrestrials may be observing these war zones because it is strange to them the way we behave towards each other.
Man killing man.
This might be something very, very fascinating to them.
I believe they're telling us to stop killing each other, and I think that they see a danger perhaps in their own past.
Maybe they're here to tell us that if there's anyone we need to protect ourselves from, it's ourselves.
Throughout history, there have been reports of battles involving UFOs.
There have been reports of battles involving UFOs.
Ancient writings in 4,000 BC refer to God's fighting UFOs in the heavens, and citizens from 13th-Century England and Nuremberg in 1561 tell of strange objects attacking one another in the skies above them.
Perhaps our otherworldly visitors were taught lessons from these ancient encounters, lessons that we are meant to learn as well.
They may have advanced beyond warfare, and I think that they see a danger perhaps in their own past.
They have witnessed these kinds of things.
They might be telling us, "Hey, there's a better way to be.
" Could this be the reason why so many UFOs are witnessed during our most violent wars? Perhaps, if one day we are able to communicate with these visitors, their message will be revealed, hopefully before it's too late for us all.