Hangar 1: The UFO Files

23.976

If you're a civilian and you spot a UFO

in your area, you don't call the military, you call

the police department or you call your local sheriff.

As a police officer, when you're involved

in a UFO case, things can get tricky.

They can get very political, and that's just the nature

of the beast in this country. 10X31, clear.

120 West 81st Street.

Ravenna, Ohio, April 17, 1966.

It's just before dawn on a midnight shift

that Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur and Deputy Wilbur Neff

will never forget. All morning

their police radio had been filled with all sorts

of chatter from witnesses near Akron, Ohio claiming

to have seen a large, bright disc flying

through the sky.

With just a few hours left of their day,

they noticed something unusual, an abandoned car on Route 224.

Just as Neff is about to reach the car,

Spaur senses something.

In Spaur's written report, he states he feels the need

to look behind him.

Spaur tells Neff

to look over his shoulder.

They're suddenly engulfed in light, and the only thing

they can hear is a hum, like a transformer

being overloaded. Both police officers are frozen

underneath this light. Spaur remembers

moving his right foot slightly to make sure he could

still move, and when they realize they aren't

actually paralyzed, they run as fast as they can

for the patrol car.

Can you imagine, two veteran officers

used to dealing with local domestic issues

now find themselves facing a UFO ?

Immediately, Spaur gets on the radio and reports

what they just saw. Dispatch tells them

not to move and to wait in the car, they're sending

immediate backup. Spaur and Neff nervously wait

as the light engulfs their car. The officers are starting

to panic, and they're thinking, should we shoot at it

or should we get out of here ? They're absolutely terrified,

but they have their orders to wait for backup,

if they survive that long. And this is just

the beginning of one of "Hangar 1's"

extraordinary stories of close encounters

with the police and UFOs, some of the best

documented cases in MUFON's archives.

The Mutual UFO Network, known as MUFON,

is an independent organization not bound to any government.

They investigate reports of UFO sightings

from around the world. Over the past five decades,

they have collected more than 70,000 files,

stored at a secure location known as Hangar 1.

Now, MUFON is granting access to their vast archive.

These are the files of Hangar 1.

Officer Spaur and Neff are engulfed in the light

of this UFO, paralyzed with fear wondering, is this it ?

Is this how we're going to die ? But then, inexplicably ...

the UFO just takes off.

They're stunned and relieved and once they regain

their composure, they do the unthinkable.

They actually chase this thing.

These two officers are actually pursuing this UFO,

going about 100 miles an hour

Though it's the Pennsylvania border along U.S. Route 224.

As the Sun rises, the UFO continues traveling East

approaching the Pennsylvania state line.

Patrolman Frank Panzanella, Conway, Pennsylvania is sitting

in his squad car drinking coffee when he sees a large object

fly over him.

His first instinct is also to pursue the UFO.

Panzanella radios dispatch

to see if they have anything on their radar.

They pick up an unidentified object

on their screen.

The officers aren't the only ones interested in this craft.

Four fighter jets appear in the sky.

The police receive confirmation on their radios

that the jets are pursuing the UFO.

The police officers

must be thinking, wow, this is really happening.

The Air Force is going to take down a UFO

right in front of us. But the UFO then shoots upward

into the sky at an incredible speed until it disappears, gone,

before the jets can make a move.

Within hours, this case was picked up by the press.

And from there, the Air Force gave it a lot of attention.

All of the police officers involved are then contacted

by the military's UFO investigative unit,

Project Blue Book. This is where

the Air Force cover-up begins. Blue Book Chief,

Major Hector Quintanilla, arrives on the scene.

Hector Quintanilla headed Project Blue Book from 1963

until its closure in 1970. In addition to his degree

in physics, he was recruited to the position

because they needed a man who was, quote,

"cool under pressure." He gets to Dale Spaur

and the first thing he says to him is, "Tell me about

this mirage that you saw." Can you imagine,

you're a police officer and you've just seen

the most incredible thing and the first thing

the Air Force does is accuse you of seeing a mirage.

Could the officers have witnessed a top secret

military plane, forcing the Air Force

to try and deflect attention from the truth ?

Spaur describes exactly what he saw in great detail,

but Quintanilla doesn't ask anymore questions,

and he doesn't attempt to interview the other

three officers who also saw the UFO.

Major Quintanilla holds a press conference to release

the Air Force's official findings on the incident.

Quintanilla's explanation was simple, the officers

had been chasing an echo communication satellite

and then after the Sun came up, that changed to them

chasing the planet Venus. Quintanilla also denied

that any jet fighters had been in the area attempting to engage

or intercept a UFO. Unsatisfied with the official

explanation, a number of investigators,

including famed ufologist, William Weitzel,

are determined to find out what really happened.

William Weitzel got on the scene and found

three other police officers and four other

civilian witnesses who had seen a UFO between

5:00 and 5:30 that morning.

After Weitzel's findings, Quintanilla is forced

to reopen the case. Realizing simple deflection

was not effective, stronger tactics are employed.

Quintanilla and Spaur sit down for another meeting,

this time attended by William Weitzel

and local reporters, but afterwards, Quintanilla

stands by his original conclusion that

the police officers were chasing Venus.

He says, "There was never a UFO. Case closed."

Project Blue Book head, Quintanilla,

successfully closes the case. The police officers

who witnessed the UFO find themselves discredited,

left trying to understand what they did wrong.

After this whole event was over, the officers involved

really took it hard. Officer Houston quit the force

and moved off to Seattle just to get away.

Officer Neff became a recluse. And I think Dale Spaur

had it the worst. He lost his job

and his marriage, and for years

was hounded by the press, everyone trying to debunk

his case and make him look like he didn't know

what he was doing. And this just made him crazy

because he knew that what he saw was real.

He knew it was legitimate.

During this Cold War era, UFOs were treated

primarily as a threat.

These military people come in and intimidate the officers,

discredit them for something that obviously the government

knows is going on. Was Quintanilla simply

employing the same techniques that began with

Project Blue Book regarding deflection

and discrediting witnesses ? And when did these techniques

come into play ?

Up next ... Zamora starts to back away,

a huge flame bursts out of the craft.

Military and media descend

on a small town after one police officer's

incredible close encounter when we return.

If I had been working back in the fifties and sixties,

I don't think I would've wanted to make a UFO report.

Something like that could destroy your credibility.

You just turn your head and look the other way.

But, you know, that's stressful, and you have to carry that

with you.

Police officers are trained to be meticulous about details.

But when it comes to UFO sightings,

their reports are often challenged or the incident

is dismissed as a hoax. Hangar 1 files suggest that

this treatment lines up directly with how Project Blue Book

and the military dealt with civilian UFO witnesses

and that these protocols were applied

to police officers as well.

April 24th, 1964. Socorro, New Mexico.

Officer Lonnie Zamora is driving in his car

outside of Socorro, New Mexico. He's chasing a speeder.

All of a sudden, Zamora hears this roaring sound,

and he sees what he thinks is a flame object in the sky.

Zamora breaks off from the chase to investigate.

He thinks that a local dynamite shack

may have exploded.

He's moving closer to where this event was taking place.

It's then that he notices a shining object,

which at first he thought was an overturned car.

Zamora gets on the radio and tells the dispatcher

he's leaving his car to check out a situation

in the arroyo.

Suddenly, a loud roar emanates

from the craft.

A huge flame bursts out of the craft.

The craft begins lifting up and then immediately takes off.

Zamora radios a fellow officer, Sergeant Chavez, asking him

if he sees a craft in the sky. Radio silence.

When Chavez finally got there, the two of them

found four indentations in the ground