NASA's Unexplained Files

NASA's mission is to explore the unknown.

Man: There's more that we don't know than we do know.

That's just the nature of the universe.

In the search for answers,

it launches its scientists into space,

its craft beyond the limits of the solar system.

Williams: Taking risk is part of making discoveries.

Space exploration is like lighting a match,

and we don't know what lurks in the shadows.

There could be anything out there.

Life on distant planets...

Swain: I cannot understand what's going on.

I don't see what I'm expecting.

What are these things? Where'd they come from?

Strange phenomena in space...

A dark triangular shape? I mean, that's just strange.

It was a near thing for most of the missions.

And terrifying near-Earth encounters.

That's a big story that is getting no attention.

NASA's missions have uncovered disturbing anomalies.

Man: Okay, we're seeing three or four objects.

Man #2: Yeah, there are three objects.

That continue to perplex

our finest scientific minds.

These are "NASA's Unexplained Files".

-= =- Sync, corrected for web by : UF Original Air Date on March 18, 2014

A rocket launch that almost ends in disaster...

Orwoll: I can't imagine what it must have been like

inside that command module.

...leads to an unexpected encounter in space.

We didn't know what happened. No one knew what happened.

Which leaves some suspecting intervention

from unknown forces.

NASA is being told "stay away from the moon."

we need a rational explanation for that.

Moments after Apollo 12 launches

from the Kennedy Space Center in November 1969,

the unthinkable happens.

Orwoll: Within 30 seconds of launch,

the spacecraft is struck by lightning.

Lunar-module pilot Alan Bean

is unaware of the strike.

Bean: All of a sudden, master alarm comes on.

I look up there at the display

that has all the caution and warning lights on there...

there was more of them on there than I'd ever seen in my life.

Bean struggles to decipher the instruments.

There was no pattern. I had no idea what to do.

Then, in a million-to-one shot...

Within 30 seconds, they're struck again.

As mission control

frantically attempts to assess the damage,

the Saturn V rocket continues on its trajectory,

sending the three-man crew into the upper atmosphere

at 6,000 miles per hour.

There's 7.5 million pounds of thrust going on down there.

That's the biggest, most powerful engine

ever built on Earth.

Orwoll: You've got to, at that moment, say,

"Okay, I'm on a rocket

"that's filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen

"and I'm on my way to space, and everything's dropped off.

What do I do now?"

Mission commander Pete Conrad

has just a few minutes to decide if they should abort the launch.

The spacecraft is still flying the way it's supposed to,

so Pete Conrad, cool as a cucumber,

does not engage the abort for the spacecraft.

The crew keeps calm,

and the system comes back online.

Capcom: Apollo 12, Houston.

The good word is, you're go for TLI.

Conrad: Hoopee-doo. We're ready.

But to some observers, there's something strange

about two lightning strikes happening within 30 seconds.

Apollo 12 defies coincidence.

It's struck by lightning twice.

Lightning doesn't strike twice.

And despite a successful moon landing,

when command-module pilot Dick Gordon

undocks the lunar module,

audio transmissions suggest

that something is interfering with the mission.

Weird objects appear to fly past the command module.

Dick sees something out the window,

and he doesn't know what it is,

and he's just wondering where it came from.

We're on the far side of the moon, and he doesn't know.

The objects are brightly colored

and appear to rotate as they fly past.

NASA assumes the objects are debris from the lunar module.

There shouldn't be pieces coming off,

and if insulation comes off, this can be a clue

that maybe some part of the lunar module will overheat,

so any kind of information like that

has to be reported right away.

But when NASA examines

on-board photos of the undocking procedure,

no insulation is missing.

He wants to make sure it isn't

a part of our spacecraft we need,

but apparently it wasn't.

I don't know.

The debris explanation doesn't satisfy everyone.

If they were natural objects,

they wouldn't be changing colors.

If they were natural objects,

why would they be moving in such strange ways?

I believe we're being warned off.

"Stay away and don't come back."

Whatever the astronauts of Apollo 12 saw,

we do know that every one of humanity's voyages

into the cosmos creates debris,

and we may not be the only travelers

to leave evidence of our travels scattered across space.

Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the solar system,

has a mysterious scar.

There's a giant, black triangle

that's embedded in the rocky asteroid itself.

I mean, a dark triangular shape? I mean, that's just strange.

There are no triangles, really, in space.

They're artificial designs.

Could it be that's a crashed UFO on the asteroid Vesta?

2011.

In the asteroid belt, the Dawn spacecraft

reaches 4.5-billion-year-old Vesta.

The probe starts mapping the planet

and immediately detects something strange.

One of the images that we get back from Vesta in 2011

was a circular region with a triangle structure,

and there's some speculation

that this could be a crashed craft of some sort.

The image is eerily reminiscent of black triangles

spotted in the skies and space above Earth.

Garvie: Time and time again, we hear about the stories

of these large, dark triangular objects in the sky.

Birnes: We've seen triangles, captured triangles on film

right here on planet Earth...

in Belgium, when flying triangles outran NATO F-16s,

in Phoenix, when giant triangles flew overhead.

The Dawn probe's discovery

of precious metals beneath the surface of Vesta

suggests why someone might visit the asteroid.

Vesta contains precious metals

like gold, platinum, and iridium,

at levels that are several orders of magnitude higher

than we see on the surface of the Earth.

Plundering asteroids for precious metals

might sound crazy,

but mining space rocks could one day be commercially viable.

Some people estimate that a single asteroid

could be worth $96 trillion.

Right? That's the GDP of the entire world.

Just think of what that does to your stock price

if you're a mining company.

It is worth the effort to take that shot to try to get there,

because if you're there, you're there first,

you build the technology to do it repeatedly, you're in charge.

Internet and Hollywood billionaires

are currently planning to mine close-Earth asteroids.

But excavating enormous rocks floating in space

would push the limits of our technology.

There are many, many challenges.

I mean, firstly, we've got to get there.

You know, it's a long way away.

I mean, we've only gone to the moon with man so far.

But secondly, you know,

a lot of the things that we take for granted...

the way machines work on Earth, with an atmosphere...

would not necessarily work in the same way on an asteroid.

Dust, for instance... it sticks to everything.

Planetary scientist Richard Binzel

doesn't accept the crash-site theory.

I see a totally natural meteorite impact site.

On an object like Vesta that's been pummeled by impacts,

you get a wide range of bizarre shapes.

It's completely expected.

Whether or not the marks on Vesta

are evidence of interstellar mining,

the appeal of exploiting planets like Vesta is undeniable.

Why not mine somebody else's solar system?

That's what some intelligent life out th

An alien world that appears to mirror planet Earth.

That's a big, big surprise. That's the "aha" moment.

And lost audio recordings from an early NASA mission

reveal evidence of a chilling close encounter.

Collins: Flash, Mark. Young: What the heck are they?

In the early years of the space race...

Young: This is Gemini 10, Houston.

...a manned orbiter spots something strange.

What the heck are they?

You're in a spacecraft. It's a life-and-death situation.

And then this happens.

As the space race intensifies,

is someone or something

attempting to sabotage NASA's Gemini 10 mission?

160 miles above the Earth,

an astronaut struggles to lock on to a rotating rocket booster.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! You bum.

Collins: 360 and holding. How fast are we closing?