UFOs in Europe: National Geographic

Our skies are full of mysteries. An identified flying objects secretly investigated by government agencies all over Europe for decades. There has been and indeed still is, I think, great secrecy about UFOs and also a reluctance to talk about this subject. But at the first time, we've collated sightings and reports from across an entire continent. We have to get to the truth, because the public have a rate to know about these things. Some experts insist many sightings have rational explanations. Often you can take even the most spectacular UFO sighting find that behind it is a very earthly explanation. But some continue to define understanding. That's an object that flies, I don't know what it is. Are these visitors from other worlds or natural phenomena, and do our European governments no more than they ever reveal to us? The answers may lie in the untold stories of the UFO files of Europe. The first time we've seen the UFOs, we've seen the first time we've seen the first UFOs. The first time we've seen the first UFOs, we've seen the first UFOs. For decades, governments across Europe have been keeping files on UFO sightings. To this day, many of these cases remain unexplained. A UFO incident investigated by police as a criminal assault. A pilot's close encounter at 2000 feet, an Norwegian valley where mysterious aerial phenomena have been appearing for almost a century. A pilot's close encounter at 2000 feet. 9th November 1979, Livingston Scotland. 10 30a.m. In a lonely Scottish woodland, 61 year old forestry worker Bob Taylor has an astonishing encounter. He's looking at the sky and there and front of him was this massive, big domed shaped object. Smaller balls roll towards him. These objects were shaped like sea mines with about six legs attached. This is the only British UFO incident ever investigated by the police as a criminal assault. I really do think this case, even though it's got a single witness, is one of the really inexplicable incidents. It's just so unlike my dad to talk about spaceship, so I didn't like that. He was completely honest and without any motive to make up such a story. Malcolm Robinson is a UFO investigator who has long been intrigued by the Livingston case. As a researcher, we have to get to the truth because the public have a right to know about these things. The encounter happened just one mile from Bob Taylor's home. He has since died, but UFO investigator Robinson has worked with his family to piece together what happened that day. He is retracing the steps that Taylor took in his local woods. This is the area where Robert Taylor was walking down that morning. It wasn't until he approached this clearing that he was stood transfixed when he saw something which totally would be muslim. He's looking at the sky and there and front of him was this massive, big domed shaped object. And the standing there is absolutely the muse that he's looking at and incidentally what resembled two second world war sea mines. He's very very forceable from the underside of this hovering object and hit the ground. He's started rolling across the grass and they started to project his rod light projections from the spherical balls towards his person and grabbed them. He's very forceably at his hips and pulled them right down. And it was at this point that he's had this terrible smell, preventing the whole area, a burning, burning smell all over this location here and then just then you lost consciousness. Regaining consciousness on 20 minutes later, Taylor found the object had disappeared. He staggered back to his home. His wife could see immediately that something had happened to him. She eventually pressed out of him that he'd been assaulted by aliens. She decided that he should go to hospital. Taylor's daughter is working in the pharmacy department at Bangor Hospital, that her father is brought in. I had a phone call down from Ian, he's the tellman, my dad had been taken in, and I was fascinated with my mom. He was seen all the way to your dad's hospital, I'm not obeying him. He's talking about spaceship. Taylor has cut to his legs and seems confused. It looked as if someone had used a rotating disc, a grinder or something, to grind through his trousers where his hips were. Not something that you can easily imagine could happen in any normal way, and also a mark under his chin about an inch square appear to be greased. Because of the foresters injuries, the police launched a criminal investigation. The British National Archive U.F. researcher Dave Clark has seen the statement Bob Taylor made to the police at the time. I've got some extracts from the police, CID report on the Livingston incident here, and in the report is a police statement that was taken from Bob Taylor himself, immediately after the incident, and it's always good to look at the contemporaneous statements that people make to the police in these instances. And he says that the object he saw was about 30 feet in height, it was graying colour, although I got the impression that the top of the dome shaped object changed from gray to translucent continually. Following his statement, Taylor's torn trousers are sent away for forensic analysis. Detectives were there taking samples and photographs, and this was a fall investigation by the criminal investigation department. The next piece of evidence is found by police in the woods at the scene of the sighting. The police went to the site and they found a series of mysterious marks on the ground, almost like some kind of vehicle with a caterpillar track and been driving backwards and forwards over the grass in this clearing. The police made an official sketch as evidence of the marks they had seen. They indicated that an object of several tons had stood there, but there was nothing to show, it had been driven or toured away. There was no rational explanation for these marks. They couldn't find any obvious explanation as to what had caused them. Some of the grass within the confines of these marks was sheer doff. The toxic grass stocks, if you like, had been sheer doff and lying within the very framework of the holes in the grass. And it was perplexed because it's very, very rare to become across physical evidence. But in 2012, 33 years after the event comes a startling revelation from Bob Taylor's son-in-law. David Hammond now believes that a sketch he created may have misled people about whether the UFO had legs. Following the incident I'd spoken to Bob and had done some freehand sketches of what he'd described. Went through it with him quite a few times and tried to press him for detail. This is a photograph of Bob shortly after the event and he's holding the original sketch that I did, which was later developed into more finished drawing, which is this one here. This pretty accurately represents what he described to me. I had suggested to Bob that this object, which he'd said was in the air and the marks on the ground must have been connected in some way. He agreed with me. But afterwards I'd realized that I had led him to that. It wasn't something that he'd offered. That's what I felt slightly guilty of back-to-back. If the legs in the UFO picture are products of the Arthusim imagination, could there be a far more rational explanation for the marks in the forest? He's quite possible that those marks were there on the ground before this incident actually happened. So maybe there had been some four-wheel drive vehicle there of some description that had left those marks. Bob Taylor had come along and had this experience, whatever the source of it was, and there's no obvious connection between the two things. So they don't really prove that there was an alien spacecraft or something extraordinary there, they just add to their overall mystery. So, had Bob Taylor really seen something? Or might he have suffered a fit or hallucination? A year before this encounter, Bob Taylor had suffered a series of inexplicable headaches for which he'd gone to his doctor and received treatment and they'd never got to the bottom of his card in it. It is impossible now to establish the cause of Taylor's headaches, but police at the time did consider one possible theory. There's a theory that suggested that Robert Taylor ingested some wild berries in the forest. And these berries have the name of a trooper, Belladona, a very, very dangerous because a few ingest these berries you can die. If you rub the berry through on your hand or your wrist, you can suffer hallucinations. But Taylor's daughter has good reason to believe that toxic berries are not responsible for her father's extraordinary sighting. It was a gardener and a forest or all these layers, so we knew nothing poisoned, so we'd never have eaten anything like that. Police did have more than just Taylor's word for what happened that day. They also had a vital piece of tangible evidence under analysis, the torn trousers. These are actually the trousers that Robert Taylor wore on that event full day. Now as you can see, this is a very heavy ripped tear on the left hand side of these trousers. Now these are heavy duty material. This is actually police issue trousers. And as we can see on the left hand side of the trousers, we have another tear. The forensic report clearly states this was not made by any forest debris, sharp stones, sticks, blood-wild fencing. Nobody, including the CID, could explain how those ribs occurred. It is my contention that these reps and these trousers were made by some device that attacked itself to Robert Taylor's trousers, pulling very, very forcefully. Taylor was left with no answer as to what had happened to him that day. And the mystery was one that locals also found difficult to accept. Dad had a quite hard time for the wee while at Leveston because there was some people calling them various names and laughing at him. And he was beginning to wish he hadn't said anything to anybody at all about it. But despite the name calling, Bob Taylor's character was never in doubt. And he was considered by investigators as a reliable witness. He just came over as a completely straight down to Earth, man. There had no reason to invent a story of this magnitude. What was the to be gained from it? He's still in never ever to. He always stated that everything was exactly like the D. He never once suggested that he may have imagined it. He firmly believed it. He saw what he said. All this makes it one perplexing case. A case that's still at this point in time is totally unexplained. Bob Taylor's case strikes me as a really good example of a genuine eyewitness account of an inexplicable phenomenon. We're going to start with the first time that we've been in the world. We're going to start with the first time that we've been in the world. Within Europe's UFO files, there are cases that defy explanation. Something ominous witnessed so often, they provoked debates among the science community and lead to decades of field research. The Hess Dalin Valley Norway. In the early 1980s, hundreds of UFOs are spotted flying over the landscape. Over a two-year period, the objects dart across the skies more than 20 times a week. They're feeling very hot in the tape. News paper reports say the locals are crazy, but witnesses are certain of what they've seen. As he bright light, it starts to move. And then faster and gone. What it is, I don't know, ID. And for one scientist, it is the beginning of a lifelong mission to unlock the mystery behind the Hess Dalin UFOs. My reaction when I saw it was more... Wow! I think what would that be? The first time I saw it, I saw it. Harling Strand is an Norwegian technology expert. In 1982, he has reports of strange events in Hess Dalin, a remote eight mile long valley, with just 200 residents. I read about it in the newspapers, and some friends on mine also thought we should maybe go up there and try to see it for ourselves. Locals are reporting strange glowing objects flying at high speed through the valley. UN Arbid Aspos, now age 76, was in bed when he first saw UFO in 1982. I hope I could have been you, I was all in the forest, some tulis and objects. In the forest, I saw the sun, and I saw the sun. I saw the tulis and all the tulis. UFOs have been cited in the valley since the 1900s, but in the early 1980s they appear with alarming regularity. What is interesting and important about this is the fact that these UFO sightings seem to happen on a regular basis. There are so many of them over so long a period of time. There are dozens if not hundreds of sightings. Despite this frenzy of activity, the Norwegian press refused to believe the local stories. The local people up there had all different reactions, some was a little bit afraid. The most frustrating thing for the local inhabitants was all the bad talking. Journalists writing from the things about the people up there. One national paper even played a practical joke on the town by sending them an unusual gift. The professor's strand is keen to investigate. In September 1982, he gathered a group of young scientists and camped out in the cold valley. First time I remember it very well. We didn't expect to see something. You had read about it in the newspaper. Suddenly the team confronted with a spectacular sight. There it showed up. A huge bright light in the landscape. Turn to 50 meters above the ground. We estimated that the size to be 3 meters. Strounds colleague photographs the UFO to secure evidence of the sighting. It moved around some distance, not so very far. And went on for that for nearly two hours. My reaction when I saw it was more wow. And I think what could that be? The group watched as the object hovers across the valley until finally it disappears. This is the first picture which was taken by this light. Howling just about the hillside. The sighting recorded in this photograph triggers a lifetime of devotion to these mysterious aerial phenomena. The project has done was in the summer of 83. We prepared a field investigation. We collected instruments. We got help from universities and military to give us some instruments. And we had a lot of instruments coming up there. For his investigation to be taken seriously by fellow scientists, Professor Strando decides not to use the word UFO. Whenever you use the word UFO, everyone is skeptical, especially the sightest. So we decided to change the word. Use another word. So we came up with a restaurant phenomena that helped a lot in the scientific community. The script was written in the script. A quick with a small radar antenna, the team was scattered by the results. There was a huge amount of sightings here in Hestal. You can be up to 20 of the observation during a week. We had radar measuring this light travelling at 30 000 kilometers. There's an hour we could follow something which was not seen as a light. Wasn't seen at all. So there's something up there which are present in the valley. Even when we don't see anything. Even when the phenomena are invisible to the human eye, they are detected by radar, moving at incredible speeds. But what are they? What are the many theories put forward is ball lightning? Ball lightning is something that's not entirely understood in science. It is something that's been observed by a very wide number of very credible witnesses. It does move around very fast. It can move at speeds of a few meters per second to a few hundreds of meters per second. Atlas fears physicist Blant Allen has studied the Hestal and photographs. In the photographs we've seen over Hestal and it's quite clear background night sky. So this doesn't look like ball lightning. Ball lightning from my witness reports, a ten to last from a few seconds to a few tens of seconds. They're quite short-lived phenomena that can tend to dissipate quite quickly. What confuses Transteen is that the moving lights appear to take many different forms. What we have found out is that there are different types of phenomena. The project identifies three different kinds of sighting, white or blue flashes, shapeless yellow lights and a series of smaller apparitions that appear to fly information. And more we studied and more mysterious it is. But as the project gather momentum disaster strikes. In 85 we got only one observation and of course we were very disappointed. And also the local people up there didn't report anymore. So we thought that this high activity period was ended. One year into the investigation the lights mysteriously vanish. The chance to uncover a new phenomenon disappears as the project is shelved. Fountain's strange events in the valley. H years later bring the Hestal and UFOs right back into Arlington's life. People come to me and said it's still going on. 1993 Norway. A project to unlock the mystery behind hundreds of UFO sightings in the remote community of Hestal and has lain dormant for eight years. Tired of ridicule at the hands of journalists, locals no longer reported the flying objects. But all that is about to change. People come to me and said it's still going on. But we don't tell about it anymore. Because of all the bright things about bright things in the newspaper. And then I was thinking maybe it should start project this time again. The young moon has lived in the valley for 56 years. As a local he is familiar with the mysterious phenomena. Someone has seen the light on the ground. Someone has seen the moving side's the car. And someone has seen it on the heaven. Moving slowly and very fast. People don't know what it is. The initial project left strand with more questions than answers. But nearly a decade later, he uses new contacts across the European science community to assemble a crack team of experts. When we started project again, more foreign scientists become interested. And we have a good cooperation with both Italian and French scientists now. And we have a new team. Electrical engineer Dion Gittler Hogger. My expertise in electromagnetic radiation and radar and optical spectrum analysis. They really didn't have too much data at that point. Having secured funding, the team established a permanent base in the valley. A hundred square foot steel container is erected to monitor the lights in the valley 24. The base would become known as the blue box. The blue box was equipped with camera system, a special program to react on different light phenomena. In 1999, surveillance cameras in the blue box hit the jackpot, capturing this stunning footage. But the team wanted to do more than capture a UFO on camera. They want to find out what it is. They begin to look for clues in the atmosphere. We have an interesting to find out if there is a new kind of interference source in that atmosphere. That we didn't know about. Assisted by the Institute of Radio Astronomy in Italy, the team installed a new high frequency radar at the blue box. The Italian equipment was made to detect any kind of ionised matter. Research now focuses on one particular theory. The aerial phenomena might be pocket-so-plasma in the atmosphere. Well, everybody is seen plasma. You've seen them in neon lights. Also, you get plasma balls where you have that mysterious glowing light in a glass ball. It's essentially an excited gas. What that means is that the gas has an electrical charge and then it glows. The gas is ironised gas, meaning it has highly charged particles. This makes it conductive and allows it to respond strongly to electromagnetic fields. The most iconic example in nature, the spectacular Northern Lights. But the team have no evidence that ionised gas is present in the valley. Then, in 2007, a field trip yields the most exciting breakthrough yet. It was good weather condition. Approximately half past nine, suddenly it's a... This video was filmed as a stunned scientist to observe the phenomena. Big, big light erupted in. As I was recording, and it moved back and forth. And everybody was gaming. And then we got this picture. Then it shot off again, and everything was quiet. But the radar went on. The radar were giving a call. It was something out there. Immediately, the team generated an optical spectrum of the photograph. The optical image spits white light into the different colours of the spectrum. The amount of each colour present gives the team new information about the light source. The funnicking was that it had all colours, like the sun. And the continuous spectrum, which we obtained, points towards that we have something like a star. The data suggests the phenomena may not have any mass at all. Just star-like lights flying through the valley. This is the photo is shows. The sharp angle during the moment. If this had had any mass, you shouldn't expect it would be possible to make such a sharp angle with this high speed. But strans team, she'll have no evidence of what the phenomena is. Or where it might be coming from. Some say that there is something new mechanism in physics. Some claim that a new part of our world, which we haven't discovered yet. If you were to ask me if there was any credible explanation for the reported sightings over Hustle, there's nothing that I know of in atmospheric science that can generate lights in the sky, at least in Suffolers we can tell from the photographs. The Hustle in Phenomenal continue to be seen to this day. And as long as they appear in the valley, our link strand is determined to unlock the mystery once and for all. I hope we will manage to find out what it is, because no one has ever managed to find a solution on what it is. So maybe it's if it's something from our nature, if it's something from our universe. Something new will discover. But the investigation has achieved one important goal. In the beginning of eight, people said that we were crazy on the media, in the newspaper. The scientist starting with instrument appearing in Hustle, and said that there was something. They lived with it so many years now, so it's not there no reason to be so much afraid of it anymore. 17th of June 1977, Tancos Air Base Portugal. A routine flight for Jose Francisca Rodríguez, a pilot in the Portuguese Air Force. 11th of January, the wheels of his journey are 27, lift off the runway. What Rodríguez doesn't know is that within the next hour, he would have a central role in one of Europe's most extraordinary UFO encounters. And that he'd be lucky to escape with his life. Rodríguez is now retired from the military, and no longer talks about this shocking event. He was the subject of a full investigation by the Portuguese Air Force. He UFO investigator Francisco Correa has obtained access to the military files on the instant. This is a Dornier 27, a plane exactly like the one flown by Francisco Rodrigues. On the day of the encounter, he would have been flying solo. The Dornier 27 is a German single-engine like utility aircraft, popular among pilots for its aerial maneuverability. Although just 23 years old, Rodríguez is an experienced pilot, a sergeant with over 800 flying hours behind him. Rodríguez is flying over Castella de Bode, a hydroelectric dam 85 miles from Lisbon. There's an hour after takeoff. He notices a dark object through the clouds. He radios back to base to find out of any other aircraft of flying in the area. He contacted the tower, the tower had nothing on radar, so he initiated a left turn. Rodríguez maneuvers his aircraft to get up that view of the object. And when almost completing that turn, he screamed. The console tower heard the scream. At 2000 feet, Rodríguez is face-to-face with something completely inexplicable. At 11 o'clock, there was a big round shaped dark object about 12 to 15 meters wide. It stood there for 5-6 seconds and it then went away. As the UFO disappears, his journey begins to vibrate violently. Suddenly, the magnetic compass spins wildly out of control. And from an altitude of 2000 feet, the plane slips into a dramatic nose dive. The plane's ending was still working, but it's just we can get hold of the plane. It was desperate in panic trying to get hold of the plane. As the ground approaches, Rodríguez struggles to regain control of the aircraft. He opens the throttle, a life-ord-death attempt to level the plane. Just above the dam, he manages to stabilize the dawnier. Francesco Correa has come to the Guestella de Beau d'Am, where two witnesses observed the dramatic nose dive. There were two shepherds here who saw the airplane and saw it, knows that. And the sites go below this hill over here. And then they saw it, when the pilots turn off his engine and started to pull the top on again, it made the plane go above the ice and easy. On landing, the pilot undergoes a full medical examination. Although shaken, he's in good physical shape, and immediately reports the UFO sighting to senior officers. Pilots are often reluctant to come forward and speak about UFO sightings. They fear that they'll be ridiculed, they fear that there might be adverse consequences in terms of their career. But the Portuguese Air Force take the report seriously, and launch a thorough investigation into the incident. 35 years on from the UFO sighting. Historian, your him for nandes has gained access to the military files. Well, this is Francisco Rire report from the boat, castle boat case. And let the former force, as you can see here, the summary of the is on the case, which is a rich case, and a report from pilot. Report from a sighting over and at 5 flying objects. Rodriguez describes the object as being up to 15 meters wide, 3 meters wider than his dawn year. And also the sketch from the object that emerged from the clouds and encounter next to the sea. The six seven meters from the plane was one of the scary experience. The first mystery. Why did this large object flying at high altitude fail to appear on radar? Chris Moore's head was a radar engineer with the Royal Navy for 30 years and has full faith in the technology. When it comes to reporting objects, a radar is probably far more accurate than the pilot. At high level, it would be extremely unusual for something that physically appeared in front of a pilot, not to actually be picked up on a radar. Got an altitude of 2000 feet. The UFO should have been detected. So the possibility remains that what the pilot saw was not a solid object at all. Quite often you do get atmospheric situations where tricks can be played on the eye, and it very much depends on the pilot, the lighting conditions, the weather conditions around him as to what he actually sees, and it can be quite easy to make mistakes. Since the 1950s, many UFO sightings by pilots have often been explained by a curious atmospheric phenomenon. You can actually get mirage effects due to temperature and versions stuff like that, which can actually sort of fool the eye into thinking that there's something there which actually isn't there. Mirage is essentially created by different layers in the atmosphere that have a different temperature. IE the air has different densities, and it's a bit like putting, say, a spoon into a glass of water. You see that the metal in the spoon is bent. The same happens with light passing through the atmosphere with layers of different density. So objects in the distance on the horizon can sometimes appear distorted. They can appear closer to you or further away. But a mirage does not explain the most puzzling question of all. Why did the dawn year, an aircraft renowned for its handling, knows dived so unexpectedly, whilst the engine remained operational? Professor Rao Beringo explains the dynamics of flight. You have a low pressure above the wing and underneath the wing, a high pressure. The wing is designed so the air moves faster over the top surface than it does over the bottom. The slow moving air beneath the wing has a higher pressure which gives the aircraft lift. If this phenomena goes into very high speed, a sign from the plane, what happens? It just lost or lifted. Then the plane blames down. A jet passing at high speed could have sent the dawn year into a nose drive. But it doesn't explain why the magnetic compass spun wildly out of control. Well another to spin a compass, at that distance, will be needed to force a magnetic field generated by this object that goes around the plane. And the normal plane or a jet do not have such an amount of magnetic fields. Whatever the object was remains a mystery. That's an object that flies and I don't know what it is. So it's a UFO. But something else from that day adds an intriguing twist to the story. As Rodrigo slips into his nose drive, workers at the Castella de Beau d'Am, are dealing with an emergency of their own. At the same time, Palatrudegas was experiencing his falling to the ground with his airplane. This hydroelectric dam was experiencing a huge unexplainable drop of energy. Power at the down is restored. But the question remains whether these two strange incidents are connected. Adding another layer of mystery to a puzzle that may never be completely solved. The situation regarding UFOs is quite interesting. As an engineer myself, I'm a great skeptic. I always believe that there must be some rational explanation. And there are those situations when you just can't explain the problem, the phenomena that you see. Whether or not that's spaceships coming from another world who knows. Personally, I find it hard to believe that it is. I think it's probably just a natural phenomena we haven't identified.