On this episode of Expedition X...
My team embarks on a dangerous mission.
Oh!
To investigate reports of UFOs.
Around the Washington state mountain
where the term "Flying Saucer" was coined.
Are you getting this? It's right through here.
What the hell is that thing?
Now, new sightings nearly every night
have brought this UFO hot spot back into the spotlight.
There's something extraordinary going on around here.
You can see a light right now.
Oh, my God!
My name is Josh Gates.
In my travels, I've experienced strange things
that defy logic and made me question everything.
Oh, my God!
Now, I've put together a team
to investigate the stranger side of the unknown.
Let's go.
Phil Torres is a scientist who hunts for rational explanations.
Jessica Chobot's paranormal research has made her a true believer.
There is a monster living in this forest.
Phil, Phil, Phil. I just saw something run across.
Together we're searching for answers...
What is that?
...to the world's most extraordinary mysteries.
This is Expedition X.
Jess, Phil, we're talking about aliens today.
Okay.
Now, I don't know where you come down on this topic.
But look it wasn't that long ago
that when somebody was talking to you about aliens,
they were probably wearing a tinfoil hat
or they were screaming about conspiracy theories.
But times have changed
and we're now having very serious conversations
about the possibility of extra terrestrial life.
Yeah, I mean I love it.
The fact that NASA's chief scientist has come out
and said our future space probes
will probably discover extra terrestrial intelligence,
I mean... I dig it, that's awesome.
And a lot of these predictions that scientists are making
are based upon our observations of the universe.
-Right. -We have better telescopes,
we have better satellites looking outwards
and they're finding habitable planets
not too far off from our own star.
Yeah, all of this raises the question,
is whatever's out there already here?
In other words, UFOs.
Now, news broke a few years ago
that our own government had a top secret program going
called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
And this is not some Roswell era conspiracy.
This is a real thing that was being run out of the Pentagon.
A $22 million dollar program
analysing UFO sightings here in the States
to determine if they represent a possible threat.
Yeah, and that's what I'm talking about.
I mean this stuff is real, that's like, that's a big deal.
You're fully convinced already. Aliens are out there.
Well, you may become a believer here in a minute too
because footage from one of the incidents they investigated
was recently released
and it shows an unidentified object
that was encountered by six Navy Super Hornets
on a training mission off the coast of California
and has quickly become one
of the most talked about UFO videos ever.
Check it out.
The pilots reported seeing a white tic tac shape
flying at about 28,000 feet.
In less than a second,
it dropped down to just above the ocean
and created a kind of circular disturbance
on the surface of the water.
Then it disappeared.
All right Phil, what do you make of that?
Well, I have to admit,
not only have I already seen this video,
I've probably watched it about a 1,000 times.
You have?
When it first came out, I was, like, obsessed with it.
I had to watch to see what was going on
-because it is so unexplainable. -Right.
But what's recently been reported is even more weird,
that they have more classified documents about this sighting
that haven't been released.
So, if the Navy was comfortable releasing this,
which is incredibly shocking,
imagine what they're uncomfortable releasing to the public.
Exactly.
And, and remember, this is just one of countless sightings
that have been reported up and down the west coast.
But the place in the country with the most UFO sightings
is actually Washington State.
And more specifically,
on and around a place known as Mount Adams.
And in fact Mount Adams really is the spot
that started the modern UFO phenomenon as we know it.
Check it out.
June 24th, 1947.
That's when seasoned private pilot Kenneth Arnold
witnessed something inexplicable while flying home
from a business trip,
nine shining unidentified flying objects
darting between Mount Adams and Mount Rainier
for nearly two minutes.
Fourteen days later,
the famed Roswell incident came to light
and made the idea of extra terrestrial visitation
front page news.
These days, people in the Mount Adams area
report aerial anomalies almost every night.
Strange lights in the sky that float and flicker above the mountain.
But also lights that seem to disappear into the mount.
More recently, radio host and researcher Jimmy Church
has made a provocative claim, capturing images of what he believes
could be a mechanical opening built into the side of Mount Adams.
There is a rectangular hangar door that is open,
guessing from here it's gotta be a couple of 100 feet wide
by maybe a 100 feet tall.
Okay, so that is a lot to unpack.
Phil, I'm guessing you are not on board with this?
I gotta say, there's part of this that I'm pretty sceptical of
and the reason why is because when I was a kid I saw a UFO.
-What! -What!
How can you just toss that out there?
Yeah.
No, you're supposed to be the hardened sceptic,
-the Mr. science! -I know, shall we...
I think we gotta swap chairs now, is that, is that the rule?
No, I'm pretty... I'm pretty locked in here, but...
I don't understand. What did you see? How old were you?
So, I was 11 years old, I went outside at night.
I looked up, there was a dark, dark diamond in the sky.
-Like a craft? -Like a craft.
Suddenly it disappeared,
a shooting star went right across where it was.
I went home immediately and I journaled and drew exactly
what I saw, the exact time, the exact date,
so I would never forget that I saw a UFO.
That's insane.
I love that at 11 years old, he was, he was journaling already.
I find that completely unsurprising.
I was, I was born a nerd, what can I say.
So, now does that mean you're the sceptic?
Absolutely not. No, I'm still a 100 percent in.
I actually had a UFO sighting.
In college, I was driving to school and out in the distance
there were these three really bright lights in a triangle formation.
The top light flew up
and then the two side lights flew in opposite directions, so quickly,
that all I could see was kind of the light trails.
Wow.
Okay, so obviously you two are well suited for this case,
and so the mission is this.
Get up to Mount Adams, America's UFO hot spot,
and see if you can document evidence of extra terrestrial activity.
People up there say that this happens every night.
I say prove it, let's see the evidence.
-Consider me in. -We've got a mountain to climb.
The truth is out there.
Jessica and Phil fly nearly 3,000 miles
across the country to Seattle,
where they then drive more than a 100 miles
into the heart of the cascade range.
Fifth gear. Woo, woo!
Now, heard all the gears.
Eventually they arrive in the foothills
of a soaring and stunning peak.
Oh, look, Mount Adams.
Although it hasn't erupted in a 1,000 years,
the 12,281 foot high Mount Adams
is still considered a potentially active volcano.
But according to locals,
one thing that is undisputedly active
are the mysterious lights that have attracted the attention
of UFO watchers from around the world.
So, Mount Adams, UFOs every single night.
How is that not world news if they're here all the time?
I hear you on that.
But I got some ideas on what other things it might be.
-Yeah. -So... I wanna do some tests here.
I've arranged a meeting
with a nearby expert who believes he can use cutting edge technology
to study the Mount Adams mystery.
His name is Dan Nims.
Over the course of his 25 year career,
he was an Air Force test pilot for the F22 program,
the famed Stealth tactical fighter aircraft.
In other words, Dan is someone I would expect
to be sceptical about UFOs.
So, we wanted to reach out to you
because we're doing some investigations
on the UFO sightings and the lights around Mount Adams
and I thought somebody with your background
would be a perfect person to talk to.
I work for the state of Washington, Washington MUFON.
And my role for the state is I am the Chief Investigator.
We get somewhere between 150 and 200 cases a year.
How many cases come in that you can kind of immediately debunk
and how many remain that are worth investigating?
Somewhere in the order of 50 to 60 cases annually
are closed as unknowns.
When you say closed as unknowns
meaning you just have no idea what it was?
Yeah, in other words we know it wasn't a hoax.
Okay.
We know it wasn't a natural cause phenomenon like Venus rising
or the Moon blinking through the clouds or something like that.
We don't say it was an alien flying saucer
from Beta Reticuli,
we say it's unknown...
-Yeah. -cause it's unknown.
So, Dan, I'm a bit of a sceptic here.
How do you get proof to convince somebody like me
that there are UFOs out there.
Like, how do you get irrefutable evidence?
Listening to pilots, like Commander Dave Favour
and his intercept of the famous tic tac UFO
and he's a good old fighter pilot,
basically got into a dogfight with a UFO a 100 feet away
that was almost as big as his F18.
-That's pretty impressive. -Yeah.
And he's a credible kind of guy
that I would believe when he says that.
Is that the story that kind of turns you into a believer?
-What shifted you into like I'm... -Oh, no.
-I'm gonna investigate this? -I-- My believer primarily came
from just hearing story after story after story,
from perfectly credible people.
What can you tell us about Mount Adams
and the sightings that are happening?
There is a thing that we refer to in the UFO community as orbs.
Okay.
Which are round, circular balls of light.
But it's there seems to be quite a propensity of seeing these things
here in the Mount Adams area.
To our amazement, Dan is a believer.
After hearing so many accounts from other seasoned pilots,
he began studying the history of sightings at Mount Adams.
He now works with MUFON, the world's largest organisation
dedicated to investigating reports of UFOs.
Why do you think Mount Adams is so active with these orbs?
There seems to be a propensity
for UFOs to be evident around volcanic features
and some of the original work
studying that was down near Mexico City.
There's a theory that strange lights
appear with more frequency near seismically active locations.
They're referred to as EQLs or Earthquake lights.
Some scientists have proposed
that they may be a natural phenomenon,
the result of sudden disruptions to the Earth's magnetic field,
or a by-product of tectonic activity.
But others are convinced that these lights
are extra terrestrial in origin.
When somebody starts telling you their experience
or telling you their story,
what is kind of the checklist you go through in your mind as to,
"Okay, well that's definitely something not UFO"?
Or oh, "That is worth investigating a little further"?
The main things you're looking for is does it fly like a airplane?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
I mean if it flies up and stops and hovers for a while
and then shoots straight up,
that's not an airplane. Is it lit like an airplane?
Probably one of the biggest things is did it make any sound?
Because almost everything
that's man-made that flies through the sky...
-Are fairly noisy. -Yeah.
We're trying to move to the level where we are first hand observers.
I've got something over here I could show you
-that might kind of explain that. -Oh, that'd be great.
-Oh, look at this cool thing. -That thing's amazing.
This is what we call our UFO DAP, Data Acquisition Program.
And we're gonna try and get some first hand evidence
for you sceptics of real UFOs in the sky.
The DAP UFO camera is designed to track
and record moving objects in the sky with incredible accuracy.
It's recently been tested in Colorado and New Mexico,
but this will be the first time using it in the UFO hot spot
of Mount Adams.
You guys wanna go for a ride?
-Yeah. -Let's do it.
Great.
We drive into the forest
towards the area with the highest concentration
of recent UFO sightings around Mount Adams.
As we climb higher into the remote and lonely wilderness,
the temperature starts to drop.
We waste no time getting to work setting up the equipment.
We got up here, set up the camera.
We had this perfect view of the top of Mount Adams
and then it started snowing.
-I kind of like it though. -It's snowing.
We got a storm coming in, but we still wanna test this thing
-to see how well it works. -This is our field test.
Not only is it gonna attract multiple things in the sky,
-but also track in the elements. -That's the plan.
This unique device combines a high resolution
30 time zoom camera capable of scanning the entire sky.
With a pay load of sensitive instruments
to measure everything
from the temperature and atmospheric pressure,
to seismic activity and fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field.
But what makes this gizmo truly state of the art
is artificial intelligence.
Designed to track objects moving across the sky
and then identify whether they're just shooting stars
or passing planes or truly UFOs.
This is where we bring in the experts, Mike.
-Our drone people. -How're you doing?
Do you think we can fly it in this weather?
-Yeah, let's do it. Why not? -Yeah.
With the weather getting worst by the minute,
we launch the drone and send it soaring.
Our tech supervisor, Mike,
is going to attempt to trigger the DAP camera from above
to see just how smart Dan's camera really is.
Okay, it's live. Top of the tree and run across.
If the camera detects an objects,
it will lock on, record its movements
and attempt to figure out what it is.
All right. Let's see what this camera can do.
Oh, did we get it? Drone is recording.
Yes, we got it! We got it!
It's tracking.
We got a lock on.
Not only that,
but the DAP's artificial intelligence
can tell that this is not extra terrestrial.
Oh, my God, it knows it's man made.
Our first IFO. (LAUGHTER)
An identified flying object.
(DRONE BUZZING)
Let's leave the DAP here for a couple of nights
and see what we get.
We'll meet back up with Dan in a few days
to analyse the results.
In the meantime, Phil and I drive on into the forest,
descending out of the snow on our way to an important meeting
with the most recent eye witness here at Mount Adams.
He claims to have had a remarkable encounter
with some kind of extra terrestrial presence
less than a week ago.
He's nervous to go on camera and, at his request,
we've obscured his identity.
So, I think we should just jump into it.
What exactly happened when you were out in the woods?
Phil and Jess are investigating Mount Adams
in Washington State,
a massive volcano that has long been one of the nation's UFO hot spots.
Having deployed a cutting-edge optical scanner
high on the slopes to search the skies,
they're now meeting with the area's most recent UFO eye witness,
a man who is so shaken by his experience
that he has asked us to protect his identity.
What exactly happened when you were out in the woods?
So, what makes you think that it was an abduction?
The man's story is dramatic, but he's not alone.
Many reports of abductions
happen in remote and mountainous environments.
In 1961, married couple Betty and Barney Hill
famously claimed they were abducted while driving a winding road
in New Hampshire's White Mountains.
Travis Walton, author of 'Fire In the Sky',
claimed to have been taken in the wilderness of Arizona.
The victims often report bright lights, loss of consciousness
and awakening with unexplained injuries
and hazy memories...
Which is exactly what happened to our subject here at Mount Adams.
Have you thought about other things it could have been?
You know, it could be something medical or an animal attack,
could have been a seizure.
So, you that it's something dangerous?
Can you take us to the sight where this all happened?
-Wow. -Right?
I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around this story.
It's not just a light in the sky, it's something in the mountain.
I don't know, but it's definitely worth checking out.
Yeah.
You know, like all things, I'm like willing to give it a shot.
We definitely should go there and check it out
and take a look for ourselves,
I'm not just gonna believe what, you know, people tell me.
I wanna see it.
The man's encounter took place nearly a day's hike away,
so I've arranged for a local river guide
to get us within a mile of the location
in less than half the time.
But even with the shortcut,
Phil and I have no idea what to expect
or what dangers might lie ahead.
-Ready to hit the river? -Let's do it.
We get on the water and at first, it seems like a pleasure cruise.
That's so pretty up there.
But this water is frigid
and soon our river route transforms into a dangerous passage.
Big rapids up ahead!
-Let's go. -Go, go!
Oh! Big rapids up here, let's go!
Yeah.
-Whoa! Oh! -Oh, ho!
*Bleep*!
Okay.
We wanna squeeze this back end through.
No.
Almost there.
-Got it! -Go!
There's a big old rock right there.
Back out a little bit, guys. And all forward.
Oh...
All right.
So, GPS says... Should be getting pretty close to it.
So, I think if we pull over right up here...
-Yeah. -We should be good to go.
-All right. -To the shore.
We part ways with our guide who will raft on to a pull out,
while we plan to hike back to the road tomorrow
after investigating tonight.
For now, we're on our own.
We hike further into the forest following our GPS to the location
where our recent eye witness claims to have had a close encounter.
You know what, Jess?
I think this is it.
-Oh, yeah? -Yeah.
This is the coordinates he gave us.
Okay, well then I'd like to set up camp around here then.
Yeah, looks like a good spot right here.
As the temperature drops,
we set up base came and prepare for our investigation of the area.
(SIGHS)
-You ready? -Yeah.
Right, well we have eye witness accounts
and experts all saying that they see balls of light
coming in and out and around the mountain.
We have no idea what these things could be.
I'm still convinced there's an answer out there
-that isn't aliens. -Well, let's find out.
Our first job
is to see if there's any physical evidence
to back up the eye witness's story.
He claimed to have been abducted from this area
to the mouth of a cave nearby.
So, we search for any drag marks or signs of struggle.
In the event this was an animal attack,
we're also on the lookout for tracks, scat
or other physical clues.
It is really quiet around here.
Oh, look at this.
Wow!
-Oh, whoa! Oh, what is this? -Oh, wow!
-Oh, look at, wow. -Look at that, it's a cave!
The team is investigating reports of night time aerial anomalies
at one of the most active UFO hot spots in the world,
Washington State's Mount Adams.
They've trekked to the remote location
where several sightings have been reported,
including one by a hunter
who believes he may have been abducted.
Wow, it's really quiet around here.
Wow.
Check that out, it's the cave.
All right, well if this is where the hunter woke up,
we've gotta check out what's inside.
I mean people say that the lights come from inside the mountain.
Do you really think this is the place
where all these aerial anomalies around Mount Adams
are disappearing into?
Or if it's something more logical like, say, a bear attack.
Good place for it to hide.
Well, either way, I definitely wanna explore the cave.
Yeah, let's do it.
-All right, ready? -Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
There could be all sorts of things in here.
-Check this out. -Wow.
-Oh, look at the top. -Look at this place!
This is a lava tube,
the way that they form is, as this volcano's erupting,
all the lava went through
and then it leaves this behind and it is spectacular.
While we tend to picture volcanoes
as having one opening or vent at the top of the cone
where lava violently erupts,
many volcanoes have multiple vents
at different levels
where lava flows out at a lower pressure.
Well, why don't we go back
and take some of those gas meter reading?
Because I absolutely smelt some sort of Methane or gas
-coming from this place. -Yeah, I'm with you.
-Let's do it. -All right, come on.
-Do you need help? Can you get down? -I think I got it.
Right, you smelling that?
I'm smelling it. It's really bizarre.
Bust out your gas meter and do the test.
Let me get this thing on.
(GAS METER TICKING)
(GAS METER BUZZING)
Whoa.
So, there's gas in here.
And when we saw those lights from the forest,
some of them did look kind of like flickering flames,
really big flames.
So, makes me wonder what's going on.
There's something here, definite. (GAS METER BUZZING)
Yeah.
(GAS METER BUZZING)
I don't wanna be anywhere
where there's the potential for gas and flame.
Wow.
What is that? What's in here?
(ROARING AND ECHOING)
Can I, I'm gonna go check it out, see what I can see.
If something rips your face off, Phil, I'm running outside. Okay?
I'm convinced there's gonna be some animal
with glowing eyes, staring back at me.
I'm gonna peek over here.
-Are you seeing anything in there? -It's insane.
I mean it just keeps going all the way down into the volcano.
This would be a perfect place for an animal to hibernate.
Like if, if you're a bear, this is your spot.
We continue pushing deeper into the cave,
exploring several passages.
If there's something in here, it's definitely gone quiet.
So, let's go and set up a 360 light grid
and get a camera out watching the mouth of the cave.
That way if anything moves in here, we're gonna capture it.
-Yeah. -Let's see what we can find.
Yeah.
Real tight.
I set up a laser grid at the entrance,
which acts as a kind of trip wire.
If anything crosses these beams, animal, human or other,
it will activate an infrared camera
that is covering the mouth of the cave.
How's that looking, Phil?
That looks great. I mean we can see the whole tube.
Perfect.
All right, so here's what I'm thinking.
We've planted the cameras, I think it's time to scan the sky.
I feel like we're gonna have a better chance
-to see something if we split up. -Okay.
So, do you have the night vision goggles?
Yeah.
All right, I'm gonna use the infrared binocular.
Yeah.
If anything happens, call me on the walkie.
-Yeah, you gotta be careful though. -You too.
Along with our purported abductee,
there have been many recent sightings of lights in this area.
Phil and I are staking out different views of the sky
to attempt to see what so many others have reported
above Mount Adams.
So, I've actually found a spot where I can see through the tree canopy,
and up into the stars.
Time to put these to work.
If there's any lights floating around here,
we'll get it on tape.
Okay, so I'm gonna use this binocular...
Super high res, you can actually see all the way up to the stars.
Oh, my gosh, you can see so many different stars up there.
Nothing up top yet.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Move your light, move your light away.
Whoa, like, like glowing how?
It's right through here, look at that.
Are you getting this?
It's right through here. What is that?
Phil?
-What are we looking at over there? - What are you seeing, Phil?
Phil, talk to me, what are you seeing?
Hang on, I'm gonna try and image it from my position.
All right, where in the sky? Where is it?
And now it's gone.
No it's not, I just saw something.
It's coming up from the tree line.
I got it. It looks brighter. No idea what I'm looking at here.
Look at it move! Look, look, look!
We're recording it, whatever it is we got it.
This is nuts!
What the hell is that thing?
The team is investigating the forests
around Mount Adams, Washington, a famed UFO hot spot.
Jessica and Phil have split up in order to cover more ground,
but now they have both spotted strange lights
moving erratically across the sky.
Well, what the hell is that thing?
-What's that? -Are you seeing that?
Oh, my God.
What the *bleep* is that thing?
It's changing direction.
It, it totally just came out and went back behind the tree line.
There it is, there it is.
-It's coming up from the tree line. -This is crazy.
What is that? Oh, that's curving.
It's coming back towards me. And...
Oh, oh, no.
I don't see it anymore.
Of everything we've seen tonight, that stood out the most.
Whatever it is, I have it on video.
Let's get back together and compare what we've got.
All right, sounds good.
-Saw something up there. -Yeah.
What the hell was that? I got it on video.
I've got it moving all over the place,
it wasn't a satellite. Definitely not a shooting star.
I don't think it's a plane, there was no blinking lights on it
and it didn't travel in the same trajectory.
I mean I saw something.
-I'm feeling really good about it. -Yeah, you're fired up right now.
I'm, I'm totally fired up.
Well let's just keep looking at the sky.
We head back out
and post up to continue scanning overhead.
But after hours of staring into space...
Jess, you getting anything?
We don't see anything else unusual.
At dawn the next morning,
we make the long hike out of the forest.
Our plan is to take our recordings to be analysed
by former Air Force test pilot and UFO researcher, Dan Nims,
to see if what we saw was also detected by his DAP camera,
which we deployed on the slopes of the mountain.
First though,
there's one more theory we want to investigate.
Some researchers claim that Mount Adams' strange lights
come from somewhere in the mountain's peak.
Recently, an even more sensational claim has come to light,
video of a so-called UFO hangar door,
which has been posted on-line
and viewed more than 3.5 million times.
The next morning, we meet up with Jimmy Church,
the radio and television host who shot the footage.
If you look right there at the second peak,
there is a rectangular hangar door that is open.
That footage you captured over on Mount Adams is incredible.
What we shot is right through those trees.
And I shot it from right over here.
And if you'd like to check it out, we can jump in the car.
-That'd be great. -Let's go.
Mount Adams, what is it
that makes you convinced this place is so special?
The sightings that happen here on the mountain
and around the mountain would indicate to me
that the mountain is the attraction.
But it also goes back to 1947.
Kenneth Arnold has his first UFO sighting
flying towards Mount Adams.
That's when pilot, Kenneth Arnold,
was flying home from a business trip in a small, single engine aircraft.
What he saw was a series of nine objects
passing Mount Rainier
at an estimated 1,200 miles per hour.
He tracks them visually
until they disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Adams.
The sighting prompted an Air Force investigation
and national media attention.
It is often credited
as the first UFO sighting in modern times.
Arnold's description of the flying objects
as "disc-like" or "half-moon shaped",
led the media to coin the term "flying saucers",
a phrase that would quickly become synonymous with UFOs.
We pull into a field
about 16 miles away from the base of the mountain.
Jimmy says this is the best vantage point
for a view of the so-called hatch.
When we arrive, however, the peak is shrouded by clouds.
-This is so beautiful. -That is gorgeous.
Oh, my God!
There's something really extraordinary
happening around Mount Adams, but possibly inside of it.
And you can see the details of what appears to be an entrance
or a door at the top of the mountain.
So, then how come somebody
hasn't just gone up there to check it out?
There's a lot of mountain climbing
that happens on the east side of the mountain,
that's an easy ridge to get up.
But as far as the second peak over there,
no, that is a sheer ice wall.
The team takes out their most powerful telephoto lens
to try to get a view of the supposed hangar door.
This is what a lot of people have claimed is like a portal
or a UFO door a hangar.
I see what you mean,
there's this deeply shadowed part of the mountain
which does look squared off. That's weird looking.
That is crazy looking.
I totally see why people think there's something up there.
The theory about the UFO hangar door
seems out there, even to me.
But with millions of people talking about Jimmy's video,
we wanna be sure.
Now, the only way to know for certain
is to examine the rock face up close
and get high resolution photograph evidence.
To do that,
Phil and I arrange for some quick transport to the summit.
Our pilot, Ron Kline,
has spent years in the skies above Mount Adams.
He's heard the theories,
but he's also experienced strange things here first hand.
Oh, yeah.
UFO enthusiasts claim that something other worldly inside the mountain
is causing the vibrations,
but for my money, it seems much more likely
to be low frequency seismic activity
emanating from deep inside the volcano.
Oh, my God!
My team is in the air over Mount Adams,
approaching a sheer rock wall near the peak,
where people claim there is an other worldly UFO hatch
that opens into the mountain.
There is a rectangular hangar door that is open.
But the location is at a very high altitude
and the closer they get,
the harder it becomes for the pilot to maintain control of the chopper.
The helicopter begins to lose altitude rapidly,
it's blades struggling in the thin mountain air.
As we drop though,
Ron is able to regain control and stabilise the chopper.
Now, at a safer altitude,
Ron flies the team as close to the so-called hangar door
as they can get.
OK.
Yeah.
All right, so let's compare what we've got with what Jimmy shot.
Okay.
From his video, that does look like there's a cave or a door.
What he sees is darkness.
When you have that really bright snow around it,
any shadow's gonna look super dark.
We were able to see it with the right light
at the right time of day
where we can clearly see what's going on here.
We now know what this is,
so we don't have to focus our energy on this part of the mountain.
Feeling satisfied that the Mount Adams UFO hangar
is really just a case of convincing shadow play,
we drive back to town to meet up with expert, Dan Nims,
to review our findings from the rest of our expedition.
-I had a night vision binocular. -Yes.
And I caught something and was able to record it.
-You wanna see it? -Okay..
All right.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So, you've got something turning, moving through the sky,
much brighter than any of the surrounding stars.
Now, your night vision system is gonna amplify any lights it sees.
Now, this path it's on right here, yes, it could be a satellite.
The satellite would look just like that, moving through the sky.
Now, this business of then it turns around
and is coming back out the other way.
Satellites don't turn around and go backwards.
-That, that's pretty unusual. -And that was not a satellite
because satellites just run on their own.
Satellites move in orbits, they don't turn.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
That's pretty impressive video.
I think that we captured one of the lights,
but I don't know what the lights are.
You've heard a lot of stories from around here,
you've probably seen a lot of videos, a lot of evidence,
what do you think we saw?
What you display there is what we might refer to as an orb.
We don't find a reason to say it, it was made by a natural cause,
a hoax or made by anything man-made that we're aware of.
So, which category would you put this in?
I would say that's probably would be an unknown.
Dan's assessment is compelling.
But it turns out there's even more evidence here to back him up.
Dan has recovered the DAP camera from the slopes of the mountain
which was running on the same night as our investigation.
It turns out that what we saw was also detected
by the automated camera.
First we review it without the tracking software.
So, you've got something moving through the sky.
This thing is obviously much brighter
than any of the surrounding stars.
-And actually turning right there. -Wow.
Then we let the DAP camera's artificial intelligence
analyse the object.
The tracking software detects and tracks the object
-through the night sky. -So, what is this?
And the results are in...
A true unidentified flying object.
When we were on the mountain in the woods,
there was no noise, like not even animals,
-like it was dead quiet. -So, silent.
Is that normal when people have encounters or see something
or anything like that that the sound goes out?
That, that very much is an aspect of a close encounter
that people sometimes report.
That they were there in a place where they commonly hear night noise
and when they saw this thing,
moments before they saw it, they are almost thinking...
"Why is things so quiet right now?"
-Something's going on here. -Oh, yeah.
No, Mount Adams for sure is a hot bed of activity.
I, I'm not gonna say this seems like it's extra terrestrial,
but I will agree
that it is technically an unidentified flying object.
I would feel comfortable also saying
that that is a unidentified flying object.
That sounds like a reasonable and logical assumption.
I see something. Look at it move!
As for our laser-triggered cave camera,
nothing left or entered the tunnels.
And while the eye witness's story was dramatic
and he seemed authentically shaken by what he saw.
Without corroborating evidence, it's far from conclusive.
Phil and Jessica were able to get close enough
to the so-called UFO hangar door,
to determine that it is a compelling illusion,
made from straight lines in the rock and tricks of shadow.
But Mount Adams' true claim to fame is its mysterious lights.
Whatever it was that Jess and Phil saw,
whatever the advanced DAP camera detected,
it doesn't bear an easy explanation.
As Dan Nims prepares to activate an army of automated cameras,
it may just be a matter of time
before Mount Adams reveals her secrets.
Until then,
residents and visitors will keep looking up,
hopeful to catch a glimpse of a genuine UFO.
Subtitle Caption by ZestCorp