UFOs Conspiracy Road Trip

This programme contains some strong language

I'm Andrew Maxwell, a comedian. But in this series,

I'm on a serious mission - to explore the world of the conspiracy theorist.

Tonight, I'm in America, with five Brits who all believe

they've had encounters of the alien kind.

-Hi, there.

-Hello.

-Brigitte, all right?

Hello, Brigitte.

'They claim to have witnessed spacecraft from other galaxies...'

-Andrew.

-Darren.

-Hello, Darren.

'..been attacked by UFOs...'

-Hello, Andrew, I'm Scott.

-'..had close encounters with ETs...'

-How are you, man?

-Yeah, good.

Welcome onboard, man. And what's your name?

-Pleased to... Franky.

-Franky, welcome onboard.

'..and even believe an alien invasion is imminent.'

Most scientists think we are not alone in the universe,

but, like myself, they are sceptical about claims of alien

visitation and government cover-ups.

I'm taking my five companions

on a USA road trip to explore some

iconic UFO hotspots

and meet experts who will help me

refute their extraterrestrial claims.

It's just unidentified, OK? Don't go any further than that.

'There will be upsets...'

Don't. Cos now you will get me crying, now that I'm here.

MUSIC: "Rock-A-Hula Baby" by Elvis

'..but lots of fun...

'..and outlandish behaviour.'

How do I survive, and then how do I defend

if the aliens do, kind of, you know, take the streets?

Fasten your seatbelts and welcome to Conspiracy Road Trip UFO.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Andrew.

I will be your tour guide on this journey.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Conspiracy Road Trip UFOs.

TRIPPERS CHEER

'It's day one, and we are in LA.

'Over the next few weeks, each of my fellow travellers is going to

'offer up a claim, which I'll try and disprove.

'First up is Brigitte.'

Will you please welcome Brigitte? Give her a round of applause.

TRIPPERS APPLAUD

It involved a 45-foot craft over the freeway at 10:06 at night.

Myself and somebody else was there,

and I hope you get the pleasure to experience it yourselves.

'Brigitte had her most memorable alien encounter

'while she was working in LA 19 years ago.'

What you are going to see is a reconstruction.

This is me in the car. My friend superimposed the Holiday Inn

and made the spaceship.

And that's...to your mind's eye, that's...is that a...?

It's exactly what I saw.

On a regular day in LA.

-There's the Holiday Inn.

-OK.

Yes, it's over there. Shit.

OK.

'Incredibly, Brigitte's sighting was at this busy freeway intersection.'

-Where were you?

-In the car.

All of a sudden, I had this silver, hard,

solid object, which was...

45 foot in length, so from here to over to there.

-The size of the road, basically?

-The size of the road.

It's gliding over the back boot of the car in front of me.

It's then going over here, ploughing through the tops of the trees.

I've got my hands prised to the steering wheel,

eyes were just watering, body felt physically sick,

it's like, "What the hell is this thing?"

Has there ever been doubts in your mind?

I saw it, I was underneath this object.

Even some of the other trippers are sceptical of Brigitte's account.

I have my suspicions. I'm not 100% that I believe her.

It's a bit outlandish, especially on such a public place like this.

Why haven't more people kind of seen it?

Whilst I'm not discrediting it, I just would've

assumed that there would've been kind of more witnesses.

You know, to my mind, like, a craft the size of the road...

-..it would be mayhem.

-But, you know what,

what if everyone else was transfixed, the way that I was?

Brigitte, single mother of three, is from Devon.

She had her first extraterrestrial encounter when she was seven.

Can't explain why they came to me.

And they keep coming back to me. But...I like the fact that they do.

Day two.

With dissent and disbelief still in the air, it's time for some

objective science.

We're heading out to Mount Wilson Observatory.

-Good morning, everyone!

-Good morning.

In lieu of Brigitte's testimony earlier, of having seen all sorts

of carry-on, we are going to meet a man by the name of Seth Shostak.

TRIPPERS CHEER

Dr Seth Shostak is a world-renowned astronomer.

He works for the SETI Institute...

..a scientific organisation whose mission is to search

the cosmos for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

What we try and do is try

-and eavesdrop on signals that they might be sending our way.

-OK.

Just trying to...just trying to hear ET's radio broadcast.

I'm sure there are a lot of planets out there that have

plenty of life that's not very clever,

life that doesn't write great literature and doesn't build

-radio transmitters, but we're not going to hear from those guys.

-No.

Our galaxy has 200 billion stars. It probably has a trillion planets,

-that's with a T.

-Right.

-That's a large number.

Now, if this is the only planet where anything interesting

is happening, that makes us a miracle.

-Right.

-And one thing you learn from studying astronomy is that

every time you believe in miracles, you're wrong.

Like many scientists Dr Shostak thinks that alien life exists,

but we just haven't seen it yet. So what does he think

of Brigitte's UFO encounter?

I had a close encounter in central Los Angeles, Brentwood.

-It involved a 45-foot craft.

-But no pictures?

I was in shock.

I think you would be also.

You know, if I had a camera, I would still have someone ridicule me.

Can I ask, what about the craft made you think it was extraterrestrial?

It was nothing that I had seen before. It had no wings.

It had no fuel...

Well, you say that, but you would've seen something like that in a movie.

Yeah. I've seen spaceships on TV. It's all... Children's...

Children's TV channels - there's spaceships everywhere.

I think that if there were compelling evidence, yes, you would

have tens of thousands of academics beavering away, working on that.

If the evidence is poor, they're not going to waste their time,

that's the thing, and the fact that they're not doing that

means that the evidence is poor.

There's not a very good case for alien visitation.

'Dr Shostak's views make complete sense to me...

'..but Darren thinks something's not quite right.'

There are parts of space that the Hubble telescope will not

point at, and that's said to be under direction from NASA

and the military or the government.

For me, I think if there was a large object, I don't think

they would publically announce that straightaway and tell the public...

But who would the 'they' be? You'd be kind of the 'they', would you not?

We'd be among the 'they', but there'd be

about 10,000 astronomers who are part of the 'they'.

The idea that they're all in some conspiracy is kind of goofy.

There's no conspiracy to keep things secret in science.

I picked up on his body language and his body language...his eyes

flicked, and they kept flicking and flicking and flicking.

And if you read body language, that's a sign that he might not be telling us all the true facts.

It's not something I spotted.

I wanted to ask the doctor, why do ordinary people like Brigitte

and Darren believe they've seen such extraordinary things?

There's something about a conspiracy that I think is very empowering.

If you, for example, think that

we're being buzzed by alien spacecraft...

-Uh-huh.

-..and those pointy-headed, nerdy scientists down at the local

university don't agree with you, you know something they don't know.

-Yes.

-And so there's something empowering about that.

-It's a cache.

Yeah. I think that that's understandable.

It's time for dinner, and a chance to find out what the trippers

make of their close encounter with Dr Shostak.

We're not scientists, we're just researchers, you know,

and it would be great for him, like, from my point of view, I think,

if he could just open his mind a little bit more.

To use the term open-minded, you're ultimately

saying people are closed-minded if they don't agree with you.

-Well...

-That sounds like, "Agree with me."

For you to believe that they're not being publically broadcast,

you must buy into a conspiracy that the 'they' -

government, NASA - are holding information back from you.

-Yeah, I do.

-Why would they...?

When someone from a...let's say a more advanced civilisation,

from another planet, comes here and shows their face,

we lose all power - everybody, us, the government, everyone.

They could control everything. If they have the ability,

-let's say, to travel here.

-But if they're already here, visiting here,

then they already control us, ipso facto.

-You know what, I think they are really clever.

-Maybe they do.

These are real, you can see them, you can touch them.

They're coming here, they're visiting us.

Day three. And as we leave California and head towards Arizona,

it's time to turn my attention to the youngest of the group.

Will you please welcome up to the microphone your friend,

-my friend, Ben! TRIPPERS:

-Yay!

'25-year-old Ben lives in Durham and works as a barman.

'Two years ago, Ben and his girlfriend

'saw something strange out of their bedroom window.'

And this kind of orb appeared, and this orb just exploded silently...

..and these kind of five or six white objects just disappeared,

and across the night sky, literally faster than you've ever seen

anything travel in your entire life.

After his UFO experience, Ben found faith in a creation theory

linking humans with extraterrestrials.

Every kind of society around the world, ancient ones especially,

have kind of had a belief in gods.

Who's to say that these guys weren't like living, breathing,

flesh and blood kind of ETs from another planet?

We could have been created in their image.

Who's to say that God wasn't a living,

kind of, breathing extraterrestrial?

We're heading to Flagstaff, Arizona.

I believe yourself, Ben, I'll put forward the idea that us humans

are in some way descendents, or possibly related to aliens.

-Yes.

-So we're on the way to meet

a man by the name of PZ Myers.

'PZ Myers is a leading evolutionary biologist.'

-I am PZ Myers.

-Hi, Darren.

-Darren.

'He doesn't rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial life.'

-What are we talking about here?

-What did it look like?

-Yes.

-OK, well, do you want me to draw one?

-Let's draw it...

'He just thinks your average alien wouldn't look like us.'

Is it so far-fetched that something could be

-varied in that manner?

-Yes.

The remarkable thing about the stereotypical alien is how much they

look like us, how much they look like an infantilised human being.

It's not likely though that an alien would have

exactly this arrangement of features.

Why couldn't the wheel be spun in the evolution of our planet

and other planets and not make this?

Because a lot of these features are contingent,

they're historical accidents.

Many of the features of our face are derived from fish

and what we basically have is modified fish faces.

For evolution to produce this creature from a completely

independent lineage,

on a completely different planet, with a completely different history,

is ridiculously improbable.

-Yeah.

-So you could have intelligent aliens on other worlds,

but why would you expect the eyeballs right here?

Why not put them somewhere else? Down here. Nostrils on the top.

I do see where you're coming from with that point, yeah.

I do see where you're coming from.

Right, Ben seems to have been swayed by PZ's argument.

Time to get back on the bus.

We're heading down Route 375,

known locally as the extraterrestrial highway,

due to the large number

of UFO sightings.

And where there are sightings, there is always souvenirs.

Do you not feel like all this merchandise

and stuff is kind of taking the piss out of your opinions?

It doesn't matter if you believe or not.

These guys have got to make a living and, you know, fair play to them.

Is this the sort of thing?

Erm, yeah, pretty much.

This is a fair enough representation?

Um, kind of.

But, yeah, kind of. Very muscular...

-..big eyes, almond eyes.

-Quite scary though.

He's similar to lots of people's accounts,

eye-witness accounts, yeah.

'Brigitte feels this cardboard cut-out is close to what aliens

'really look like. To me, it's straight out of the movies.

'But what do the others think?'

Scottie, is this the sort of fella, is it?

No, no. That's just the way that Hollywood would portray them.

-No?

-Yeah, no, no.

Well, he just looks pretty buff, and...

He does. He's got a good abdominal area. Does the sit-ups.

I mean, just look at the biceps, though, you know...

He needs to do a few more reps with a lot more weight.

He wouldn't have a chance against you?

No. Even with a force field, I'd break through it, no problem at all.

'Honestly, Scott is not joking!'

It seems they all have their own personal version of the alien.

We're taking a detour to Las Vegas.

So far, I've questioned Brigitte on her UFO vision,

and Ben about his theories of the origin of Man.

Bing-bong! Hidey-hi, campers!

TRIPPERS: Hidey-ho!

Will you please welcome to the front of the bus

our fellow road-tripper, Scott!

Yay!

'I'm now turning my attention to Scott,

'who claims he was attacked by aliens in his own home.'

My experiences were kind of odd to begin with.

It begins with a mind attack.

They're trying to break me down through my brain, to then take me on physically.

Some time when I woke up, I would see figures coming towards me.

So when these aliens were getting closer

and closer, it was just at the last second, I was able to break free

and foil the attempt of these abductions.

I had no weapons. I was only in my pants, so I thought

if I am up against a seven-foot beefcake, I've only got my underwear.

32-year-old telecom technician Scott lives in Swindon

and is married, with two kids.

Since the attack,

he's been preparing for the alien invasion of planet Earth.

I've been preparing for about a year, at least.

I've been researching what I would need.

I got a lot of advice from people in America who'd been hit by

tsunamis and hurricanes, just to see how they were preparing.

Another box.

I have salmon and tuna, ready-made meals as well.

I've got an axe.

Not only for self-defence, but I also use it,

or I would use it, for chopping down trees, firewood.

Scott's main fear is alien mind control.

I'm going to be making another hat that I would wear

just to protect my brain from a number of things.

I'm going to get my wife to help me get it on, so it's just the right size, it fits right.

He's come up with a simple force shield that anyone can make at home.

Hold the front on.

The problem will be how they influence,

obviously, the way you think.

Put you into trances. Make you do things that you don't want to do.

People would just, you know, people would ridicule it.

The mainstream media brainwash people.

You're considered crazy if you believe in a conspiracy.

You're just labelled the tinfoil hat brigade.

When I go out in public, just not to alarm people...

..cover it up.

Scott is dead-set serious about all of this.

He's picking up the last vital supplies for the battle ahead.

Scott wants to take advantage of America's relaxed gun laws

to try out the kind of weaponry he believes could thwart the alien attack.

-I'd like to try and shoot a gun.

-OK.

-If that's OK? And a handgun...

-OK.

-..that's not too heavy.

-I'll give you a 9mm Glock.

-Great, OK.

Sounds like you're at Specsavers. "Not too heavy, please."

Maybe a pump action shotgun.

Nervous? Better not be nervous, when the aliens come here,

like, you've got to go straight for it, man.

Put the red dot where you want the bullets to go, squeeze the trigger.

-How do you feel?

-It's kind of a...

a shock, the force of the weapon,

-the power, the volume...

-One of them in your house?

-Not one of them, no.

Do you feel this gun would protect you from an alien invasion?

I think they might have a force field.

'This whole gun thing ain't for me.'

CHEERING

Aaah! This is my universe!

'And I'm worried arming Scott is only taking this thing in a totally wrong direction.'

That's like the main kind of...

-..entry wound, if you like.

-Right.

And how do you feel, space warrior?

-It was actually really good fun.

-Seriously, I know you had fun,

I know that both of you wanted to do that.

I find guns chilling and unpleasant.

-Well, I'd rather live in a world without guns.

-Right.

But, no, you have people and, you know...

Is there a way that you could live in a world without thinking,

"Shit, it's aliens"?

-Yeah?

-There's so much attention on it, we're saturated by it.

Could you not just concentrate on something else?

Because genuinely, my worry is...

..I like you, but the idea of you arming and training

to defend your family in your house fills me with sadness beyond compare.

'We find ourselves in Sedona, Arizona,

'deep in the American Wild West.'

Will you please help me welcome to the front of the bus

our fellow travelling companion Darren!

TRIPPERS CHEER

'33-year-old Darren is a hard-boiled UFO investigator.

'His detective work has led him into very dangerous territory.'

I've now become a well-known UFO investigative researcher in the UK.

I investigate crop circles, animal mutilations, abductions,

and everything connected to the subject.

Darren lives in Shrewsbury and runs a UFO group.

In the past two years, he has gathered details on dozens

of cases of mutilated farm animals in his local area.

This is six hours since the animal was last

running around the field, jumping up and playing with its friends.

Some animal mutilation cases are believed to be linked

jointly with alien and military involvement,

where the military

work with the aliens, in whatever craft they use,

and then there's some sort of lab or bio...biotech place in the country.

Darren believes his investigations have disturbed

a secret alien world, making him a target.

Last year, on a sky watch, I got targeted -

this is the word I'm going to use - by an unknown laser beam

in clear sky, which shot down to the ground...

right next to me with a crack, and it felt like I'd been electrocuted.

I felt sick, I felt nauseous, and it was witnessed by three other people.

Is it a weapon, Darren? Is it a weapon, do you think?

Could it... If it had hit you, would you have perished?

I didn't get hit by it.

If I got hit by it, maybe I'd have been alight or...

How bad was the damage?

I'd have one eyebrow missing, or an ear missing, but...

If that shot was a warning to say,

"Look, we're here, stop looking at us," why are you still looking?

It's not going to stop me from what I'm doing, it's not going to put me off.

You know, I'm trying to get to the bottom of whatever it is.

'So far, I've had limited success with my trippers.

'So I'm going to try a little bit of reverse psychology.

'We're picking up a seasoned UFO investigator, Chris O'Brian.

'O'Brian's ideas on animal mutilations are so outlandish...'

-How are you doing there, Chris?

-All right.

'..I'm hoping they'll make Darren take another look at his own theories.'

The first thing I do when I go to a case is,

I look for cut hair follicles.

That, to me, is an indication that some sharp implement normally,

and, on rare occasions, a lasing instrument,

has actually made these horrific-looking cuts.

You want to go up to the top of the hill and, uh...make a left.

'Chris has brought us to the kind of farmland

'where these alien attacks apparently happen.'

My theory on this is that there's some health organisation

that's secret that may be attached to the UN, or some, you know,

sort of international body, that is

sampling livestock in specific geographic regions.

The actual organs that are excised

and removed are the places in which humans develop cancer most often.

Check that out.

'A bizarre UN plan to come up with a cure for cancer? Really?!'

Darren, what do you think of this?

What do you think these animals mutilations are?

It's some sort of private or military involvement where

they're testing what's going in the food chain.

Do you think it's alien activity?

Yeah, quite... 99.9%, I'm sure that there's

an extraterrestrial presence.

I personally think we're dealing with an ancient predatory

presence that's as terrestrial as we are, it's just hidden to us.

It's either dimensional, it's either some sort of time-based thing.

It could be high-tech chefs coming back to...to get

a million dollar plate dinner material through time.

Possibly the UN, possibly aliens,

possibly a multi-dimensional ancient predator.

The World Health Organisation.

And possibly a time-travelling chef.

'My plan has backfired.

'Chris O'Brian's got Darren reeling with new and even wilder scenarios.'

If it gets reported through the veterinary channels,

where it goes to the authorities, something called a D notice

-is placed on the press, on the media...

-Yeah.

..and unless you're local, or you know the farmer,

-or you know investigators...

-You'd never know.

-..nobody knows about these cases.

-Right.

-The lid is shut tight.

'So too, it seems, is Darren's mind.

'The idea of time-travelling extraterrestrial

'chefs in search of a good steak dinner is not for me.'

MUSIC: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" by Kylie Minogue

There is now only one member of the group whose conspiracy

I haven't yet tackled.

Franky.

She's not prepared to reveal it in front of the others,

but nine years ago, Franky had a mind-bending experience.

I was in my kitchen, washing up, listening to a bit of Kylie,

when suddenly, it was like the back of my spine lit up like, zhhh!

-OK. Like hairs on your neck?

-No.

-No?

It was like my spine itself lit up with energy

and this back part of my brain that I'd never used before, like, switched on

and I had a full-on vision of the inside of this spaceship city.

That's what I saw.

And it was like the most magnificent,

wonderful thing I'd ever seen.

Sincerely, round and round, you know, I'm not...taking the piss,

-but I feel duty-bound to ask, were you high?

-No.

Franky Marr is a full-time mum and lives in London.

Her vision has left her confused.

Could they be from another dimension, rather than from another planet?

She's also quite embarrassed.

Admitting, you know, these anomalous experiences,

it's essentially like admitting you have herpes.

I'm hoping my next expert, psychologist Dr Michael Shermer,

can convince Franky the alien city is all in her head.

He's the publisher of the Skeptic magazine.

-Oh, for fuck's sake!

-Boo!

'Franky is no mood for this expert.

'Michael is well known in UFO circles,

'and he's not exactly popular.'

We investigate all kinds of pseudoscientific...

baloney would be the nice word.

We have yet to even meet Dr Shermer and Franky is already on edge.

Now we're going to have to listen to one more person's fucking bullshit.

I say, bring him on.

That's not exactly the spirit of scientific inquiry I was

expecting from you, but perhaps that's how you agnostics roll.

He's a two-bit hustler. I'll listen to what

he has to say for about 4.5 minutes, and then we're off.

If you don't have the patience to meet this man,

and you've already decided that he's a two-bit hustler...

You're apparently the open-minded agnostic, but you're telling me

before you've even met the guy that he's a two-bit hustler...

I said I'd give him... Because he is.

And I said I will give him five minutes.

Actually, as an open-minded agnostic, I think I'm the one

-that actually knows more about him than anyone else here...

-Right.

Because I've researched him. That is my opinion of him.

I'm willing to give him five minutes.

-Five minutes?

-Five minutes, yeah.

-That's how long it takes

for your inquiring mind to make a decision, five minutes?

I've given him far more than five minutes. I've researched him for hours.

If you want me to get off the bus, I'll get off the bus.

No. I want you to sit down and be patient and get involved in it.

I just find, like...

-it's bullshit, man.

-Experience...

-Is everybody ready? Yeah.

-OK.

-So ready.

Ladies and gentlemen, can you please welcome on the bus

-Dr Michael Shermer.

-Hello, Michael.

-APPLAUSE

-Hi, guys.

So, some of us in the group have had, like, literally visions,

we've seen things.

I saw a red, glowing orb that was, like, pulsating like that.

And then as the sighting went on,

I saw two objects, like white arrowheads,

-fly over from one side of the horizon to the other...

-OK.

And then the same again with five objects.

What do you think it was?

I think... I believe it was a UFO, Unidentified Flying Object.

Why would you think that? What do you mean by UFO?

-It's an unidentified flying object, yes.

-Yeah.

-OK, but that's all we can say. It's just unidentified.

-Yeah.

OK, don't go any further than that. It's just unidentified.

-Yeah.

-End of story.

Until we can figure out what it is, we don't know.

These are called anomalous psychological experiences.

They come in a variety of flavours.

One can be triggered by sleep deprivation, fatigue.

Sometimes, under certain conditions, you sense

the presence of another person, or being, or creature.

Climbers that do K2 and Everest,

they will often have a shared hallucination of another

climber with them on the rope who isn't actually there,

and later, they'll talk about it. It's like, "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw it." And this is called the sense presence effect.

I do kind of wonder - are you being paid to be here today,

or have you just come along because you're promoting your magazine, etc?

OK, here's our general position on UFOs. Um...

So there's a body of you and you have one general position?

No, no, no, no.

There's no such thing, of course, but I'm just speaking in general,

the sense of people I know that work in this business.

So there's two questions - are there aliens out there?

-Have they come here?

-Yeah.

Most of us scientists tend to think that there is probably

extraterrestrial life teeming throughout the galaxy, right?

Yeah, yeah, I get that.

At least bacterial grade, maybe even intelligent life, right?

Now, the chances of going from, say, something like a Neanderthal,

which is a pretty advanced, big-brained creature making tools,

to actually achieving space flight or radio communication

that we can make contact with, that's a much harder step to make.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I totally disagree

because it's been my personal experience,

and lots of other factors are involved in that.

Unfortunately, our idea that we're rational beings that can

correctly perceive the world around us turns out not to be the case.

We are very irrational, emotional, and we misperceive things all the time.

From a scientist's perspective, it's OK to just say,

-"I don't know."

-Mmm-hmm.

-And let's just let it sit there.

-But that's what I've always said.

-We don't have to... Perfect.

We don't have to construct a whole world view of aliens coming here,

and conspiracies, and Men In Black, and cover-up,

and government this and that, you don't have to do that,

you can just let it sit as like, "Wow, that was really interesting."

-And that's it.

-I was not looking forward to meeting you,

but now that I have, I think you're really quite cool.

-You were only going to give him five minutes.

-I was going to give you

five minutes and then go stomping off to the bar.

-Thank you, Michael.

-That's our job.

-Thank you, dude All right.

-All right.

-Bye!

-TRIPPERS:

-Bye!

-Wave off the sceptic.

-TRIPPERS:

-Goodbye.

I'm more than halfway through my 1,000-mile trip.

I've had only limited success taking on my trippers' personal theories.

So now it's time to tackle the mother of all UFO conspiracies.

It centres around Area 51...

..a top-secret military base located deep in the Nevada desert.

It's a weapons-testing facility.

But my lot also believe aliens are being held there...

..brought from the infamous 1947 flying saucer crash at Roswell.

-Hello, fellow road trippers! TRIPPERS:

-Hello.

-Now, we've all heard of Area 51. TRIPPERS:

-Yes.

It's kind of a key piece in the whole carry-on, correct?

-Yeah.

-Right.

Well, we've lined up a guy who apparently has

the inside scoop on Area 51.

John Lear is a decorated pilot who spent years

flying covert missions for the CIA.

Lear claims his work within the US intelligence community

has given him the inside knowledge on Area 51.

There was rumoured to be kind of alien beings taken to Area 51,

-is that true?

-There were two live ones

and three deceased aliens in the two crashes that happened.

-One is...friendly and the other is not so friendly.

-Yeah?

'Hold tight! I didn't know this was his angle.'

Well, they have this big half-sphere where he lives inside, and...

when the President and Vice President, Head of the CIA,

want to see him, there's a big balcony,

and this is all on the Internet, there's very good drawings

-of all this stuff, and they bring him up in this half sphere.

-Good.

-FRANKY:

-And what kind of alien was it?

They call that the J-Rod.

It definitely wasn't a grey, but the government calls it a J-Rod.

But why don't... Why doesn't the J-Rod's people...

either rescue him, or at least just go,

"Hang on, we'll just go over the head of them and...

"reveal ourselves, like, by literally flying over downtown Manhattan"?

The aliens are not allowed to give us an over...message.

Who doesn't allow them?

The guys that made us.

Those guys have been around here for billions of years.

'This stuff is so off the hook.

'My trippers aren't really believing this, are they?'

The Earth is 11 billion years old. The moon is 20 billion years old

and was fabricated inside the planet Jupiter.

'I'm not buying any of this,

'but John insists he has photographic evidence.'

This is a picture of the moon.

I can tell you that this is 125 miles northwest of Copernicus,

but this is a city, and you can see the houses, the buildings.

Here is an aeroplane. Here's the different houses, trees, bushes,

all down here is just all kinds of factories, factories up here.

-There's 1.5 to two billion people living up there.

-Really?

-Yeah.

'I was expecting this former CIA man to be super straight-laced.

'But his stuff seems to be the most outlandish yet.

'And it seems to have put off Ben a little.'

I kind of believe all of his theories on the bases -

Area 51 and such, it sounds very plausible, but some of the things what he said

were quite out-there, right? Like the moon was made inside Jupiter?

There's no science to back that up at all.

You go down this rabbit hole of...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..crazy UFO theories, it just...it only gets worse, Ben.

-It gets, it gets...

-Yeah.

-You're right, it has shocked me.

-There are 25 billion people on the moon!

-Yeah, yeah, I know.

-This is...

-You're right.

-But, Benny, is this your view, dude?

-Hopefully, you won't... I see what you're saying, but...

-That's Christmas Future, man.

-Yeah.

After our out-of-this-world encounter with John Lear,

I decide the only solution to the problem is to turn

the bus around and head straight for Area 51.

So we're back on the Extraterrestrial Highway,

with only Elvis to guide us.

MUSIC: "Rock-A-Hula Baby" by Elvis

Late that afternoon, we locate an unmarked track leading to

the infamous secret base, but things are about to go very wrong.

MUSIC: "THE TWILIGHT ZONE" THEME

These few secretly taken photographs are our only record of our visit.

We arrived at Area 51 checkpoint.

To me, it seemed like an ordinary military facility.

But my companions were convinced this was the gateway to

the extraterrestrial secrets.

We got a bit overexcited and we strayed into the restricted zone...

to ask where the aliens were being kept!

But after knocking on the guardhouse door, we found ourselves

lying on the ground with gun barrels pointed at our heads.

-SIREN WAILS

-Stay on the ground!

The military police had detained us for trespassing

and confiscated our cameras.

'Four hours later, we were back on the bus, after being released

'without charge, but with just a camera phone to capture our relief.'

You must shuffle towards the enemy.

Ladies and gentlemen, can we please raise a toast to our freedom!

-TRIPPERS:

-Yay!

We are the only group of people who can say, when somebody asks us,

"Have you ever heard of Area 51, man?"

We can say, "Heard of it? We've danced on it!"

-TRIPPERS:

-Yeah!

There's the signs warning us not to cross the barrier...

'After last night's high jinx and shenanigans, it's time for a debrief.'

So does it make you feel, now that you've actually been to Area 51?

Make you feel like there's more, or less, likelihood of any UFO business, alien business?

I still believe that they've got some sort of life form

and extraterrestrial craft.

Why can't you conceive of the idea that just

human scientists could've come up with a stealth bomber?

No, not so quickly, not so quickly.

We've evolved so quickly within technology.

Yeah, but have you ever heard of Moore's Law?

Computing power doubles every two years.

You don't need an alien craft, you just... The more humans talk,

the faster technology develops. So do you all still believe?

I think they have got a non-terrestrial life form and craft in it.

-Ben?

-Same for me, this doesn't change anything.

It was a great experience but, like I said,

I think it would've happened at any military kind of base,

but, yeah, so basically, I still believe, yeah.

Our arrest has achieved nothing but fan more flames of suspicion.

We've been denied access to Area 51, but Darren still thinks

he has a chance to prove to me that aliens are real.

We're heading back to the perimeter of the base.

We are going to go down to a special place in Area 51 history

called the Black Mailbox.

We're looking for the only landmark in this barren

stretch of desert highway - the Black Mailbox.

'It turns out the Black Mailbox is actually white.'

The famous Black Mailbox of Ufology fame.

'Black or white, if I'm ever going to see an alien, this is probably

'where it's going to be.'

This spot, it has the best views over to the mountain range.

Behind that mountain range is Area 51.

It's got the best light, it's open.

People say it's the best place cos you can see things

coming up from the base, if they come up.

-What do you mean? By things, you mean spaceships?

-Maybe UFOs.

Anything could come up from there, it's Area 51, so, yeah.

-Sweet as a nut, let's get...

-But this is it.

-Let's get started then, come on.

-Yay!

All right, let's start looking.

Hey, aliens!

-Send me your most funny alien!

-Right, I'll take... Yeah, he's right.

-You see that flashing?

-Shitting hell!

'Wow, Darren's actually spotted something over Area 51.'

Oh, there you go, it's right there.

-Up there too! There are three, look, there!

-Look at that shit.

-Fuck you!

-Look, they even turn around!

-Fuck you!

-Turn around!

Everybody, everybody that said they didn't exist,

there they fucking are!

-They're military flares. Sorry.

-No, they're not, they're not flares.

'Unfortunately, not all you see is to be believed.'

-They are military flares.

-No, that's aliens.

-They're flares.

Why is the army sending up flares?

Right. What they do with flares, we're over, you know,

this air force bombing range and Area 51

and the flares are used as away points for aircraft.

But there's no aircraft, so why are they firing flares?

Exactly, why are they firing flares? BOOM!

-Fucking hell! What the fuck was that?!

-Excellent.

What the fuck is that?!

There you go, that's a sonic boom, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Ah, missed it.

-Sonic boom.

-Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

-Sonic boom.

'It's easy to see how these flares

'and secret aeroplanes could be misconstrued.'

# I saw a UFO in the sky last night

# Made me wonder if... #

'It's been a long night

'and, despite all the evidence to the contrary, most of my trippers

'still think that Area 51 is a hotbed of alien activity.'

MUSIC: "Viva Las Vegas" by Elvis

-Bing-bong! Welcome to Las Vegas. TRIPPERS:

-Yay!

I'm going to have one last-ditch attempt

at trying to discredit the Area 51 myth.

Today, we are going to meet a lady by the name of Annie Jacobson.

She is a writer, historian, and expert on Area 51.

# Viva Las Vegas

# Viva Las Vegas... #

'I'm hoping Annie can help me persuade

'my fellow travelling companions of the simple truth about Area 51.'

Many people believe it is an underworld of captured aliens

and UFOs, as you say.

In my experience, interviewing 74 men who worked

and lived on the base, I didn't come across a single source

that told me about an extraterrestrial.

You don't believe that any kind of craft or aliens went there at all, in your opinion?

Well, what I do believe is that the CIA uses any

and all means to keep their secret programmes secret.

And often, what that involves is information and disinformation.

So if they're trying to keep a programme secret

and people are busy talking about UFOs, it's a convenient way to not have people ask,

"What's going on with that top-secret spy plane?"

From my point of view as an investigative researcher into this phenomenon, I have to consider

that there is some sort of...

captured non-terrestrial. You have to...

All these crashes, they all happened at the height of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union and America were in an arms race

to build the most sophisticated aircraft. It would've been

so much handier for them to go, "Yeah, yeah, there's an alien."

I've come across a lot of information that the idea of aliens

having come to Earth is a convenient disinformation tool for the CIA.

'So there is a government cover-up surrounding Area 51,

'but it concerns US foreign policy and the design of high-tech weapons.

'It's got nothing to do with flying saucers.

'Annie even introduces us to Richard Mingus, a retired Area 51 employee.

'He worked at the base for 36 years

'and was responsible for guarding the U-2 spy plane project.'

You obviously observed lots of types of military aircraft.

If something had flown in the skies that was slightly

a little bit more different, and you felt that it was different,

wouldn't you sort of be able to differentiate between the two,

whether it be our craft here, government craft, or something else?

You're asking me, did I see really anything different than,

-like, the U-2?

-Yeah.

-No.

-OK.

The most extraordinary thing that people

say about Area 51 is that there is captured aliens there.

I did not see aliens, or did I see any spaceships.

I've seen no conspiracies of any kind taking place out there.

'Well, that's a pretty definitive statement to me.

'What do the gang think?'

I'm 99.9% sure that they've got an ET craft and/or

beings on this planet, possibly at Area 51.

They could be in other places.

And that's my personal opinion, from experience.

-Yeah, totally.

-Everything what you've just said there,

that's my view as well, I couldn't put it better.

Your margin of doubt is only 1,000th?

From my own research, yeah,

-it's the conclusion we've come to, right? Yeah.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

And I'll stand by that.

'Blimey O'Reilly! Right.

'Well, I haven't got a hope in hell of changing their minds,

'and Annie's got an extra twist to her story too.'

Proving whether you believe in aliens or not, Area 51

seems to have the power to inspire tall tales.

According to my ,source there was a saucer-shaped craft that was

sent by Stalin and crashed in the New Mexico desert. The crash

was subsequently moved to Area 51 in 1951, according to my source.

The reason he has this information, and I believe him, is because

in that part of the programme, he was a first-hand witness.

Like, how did it get there? Was it literally rocket-propelled?

What we are led to believe is that the craft was actually anti-gravity.

The craft was actually piggy-backed onto another larger craft,

and that is my understanding of how that saucer got here, yes.

That's cool.

'Just when I think things can't get any weirder, they do.'

This craft was sent over, and out came these non-consenting airmen,

-let's say, that had been surgically altered to look like Martians.

-Wow.

And that is the great horror behind that story.

And that physical evidence, according to my source,

was moved to Area 51 and has been there for decades.

Was there any follow-up to what happened to these deformed Russians?

Well, that's where the story becomes very, very secretive

and that's where the source would not share any more information with us.

I feel like I'm chasing my tail here.

If it's not aliens, it's the Cold War.

And it seems to be even getting too much for Scott.

I came on here for answers, and I'm just really disillusioned

now about... There's just so many different fantastic theories

out there and it's just, where do they all come from? There's just no answers anywhere.

I've just kind of given up with the subject at the moment.

It seems not even Scott's tin-foil hat can protect him

from this mental overload.

'We're coming to the end of our trip and we're all exhausted.

'I don't know how much appetite for UFOs I still have...

'..but there's still one last angle to Brigitte's story I need to explore.

'Moments after witnessing a 45-foot flying saucer over an LA freeway...

'..Brigitte claims she had an even closer encounter.'

All of a sudden, it felt like I was being sucked through

the steering wheel, out through the dashboard, through the car engine.

I then recall being in a field, beings being there.

Now, they weren't a typical grey type of beings,

they were kind of see-through, flesh-coloured, with veins,

quite muscular, with hair, the hair was white...

..and one of them had a child and tried to present me with this child.

If I was heavily religious and I had Jesus in front of me,

I would explain it as that.

So she's not only seen aliens, she's been abducted by them.

As the final proof of all her claims,

she's agreed to take a lie-detector test.

If she's telling porky pies, her heart rate, blood pressure,

and respiration will give the game away.

You can pass a polygraph test if you listen carefully

to every word of the question, please put it visually to me.

Everything's in place and Brigitte is ready to take the lie-detector test.

But I'm having second thoughts now.

What do you think, Brigitte, do you want to do it?

You do? Are you sure?

''I think doing this, and it...'

her failing it could probably hurt her more than all the aliens she's ever met.

'She's just a nice lady who has had a lot of'

really odd things happen to her

that, for me, seem tall in the tale division, but...

..I don't need to...we don't need to do this.

I just.. This is... It's fucking awful.

Hey, listen, I'm sorry to disturb and I don't usually pull rank on this one,

Brigitte, but... Sorry to interrupt, Ron,

but I don't want to do this, and I don't want you to do it.

I don't think it's necessary and I'd rather you didn't, Brigitte.

I kind of don't need to know.

I like you. I'd rather you tell me your stories

and just leave it at that. Yeah?

Yeah?

Come on, you. Come on. Come on.

-I'm going to start crying...

-Come on. There's no need. Come on.

I was willing to do this.

I know you were, darling, but I don't need to know.

-OK.

-All right?

-Yeah.

-OK.

'I can't help feeling Brigitte's whole identity is closely connected

'to her faith in extraterrestrial beings...

'and I'm not here to put her through a test that's going to destroy

'her entire belief system and leave her all Christmas and no Santa.'

Come on. Come on. All right?

We're done. At the end of it all,

I still don't believe in alien conspiracies.

Many people have a need to explain to themselves how the world works,

and for my trippers, extraterrestrial life

provides some reassuring answers.

So what are they taking back from the road trip?

I came here thinking that I might get some sort of fact or answer,

and I haven't got anything,

which just makes me think that there isn't an answer.

I don't want to sit around any more thinking, what's true and what's not, you know?

I'd rather just forget about it... and focus on other things.

Well, that's a turn-up for the books.

I do hope Scott will be able to take his mind off the alien invasion from now on

and get on with his life in Swindon.

But what about Franky?

UFOs exist. That is a fact.

What they are - whether they're extraterrestrial, interdimensional,

government cover-up, or at the other end of the spectrum,

natural phenomenon that people don't recognise - to me, that issue

is separate from the whole alien abduction experience issue as well.

'At one point, I thought Ben was going to have a shift of perspective...

'..but he seems as certain as ever of extraterrestrial life.'

The whole kind of UFO issue,

I think it just stems from my personal belief and, like,

my actual sighting itself. It's, like, forever burned in my mind, you know?

So I've still got my beliefs that there are

UFOs in the sky and that we are being visited by extraterrestrials.

I've got nowhere at all with Darren,

who is still 99.9% convinced aliens and government agencies

are up to all sorts of galactic shenanigans.

It's all about awareness. It's all about telling people

what you find out and what you know, but the UFO subject is a big conspiracy.

The truth is out there, we just need to find it.

'As for Brigitte...'

Have you changed your opinion on anything?

Definitely not. Definitely not.

'Oh, well! I've decided to take her just the way she is.'

You have my undivided attention, Brigitte, I am now going to

put on my specs, kick back... I want your most high-strange story.

-OK.

-Well, I have to give you my recent high strangeness story.

-All right.

-If you start snoring, I'm going to fucking whack you, mate.

I won't. I promise, I promise, I promise. Go for it.

-OK, I'm going to the store...

-OK.

-..to go and get some groceries. I...

Where was this?

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