UFO HUNTERS - Underwater Area 51

History Channel - Original Air Date: 5/13/09

The team investigates rumors of an underwater alien base off of the Bahamas, possibly connected with the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) -- described as "the Navy's Area 51."  It's known that the area is equipped for undersea war games and testing.  They talk with former AUTEC employees, one of whom claims to have "seen" a giant USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) that manifested as a land mass appearing on radar.  Compass anomolies accompanied the "hit," but no one actually saw anything.  The target, supposedly 3 miles wide, then melted away.  Kevin points out this could be merely a radar malfunction.  Another former employee saw some kind of glowing object rising from the sea.  Bill decides to try for a public tour of AUTEC, but they have no luck with the pubic affairs officer.  (Can't imagine why anyone woudl turn UFO Magazine away.  Aren't they reputable journalists?  At least as reputable as Fox?)  As they walk toward the front gate, a helicopter buzzes the area and a cop drives by -- but it could be a conincidence.  Another man describes his compasses going crazy whenever he dives near AUTEC.  The team takes a boat out and gets as close to the site as they can.  Then they dive down and find some strange undersea cables, which run from AUTEC to the "tongue of the ocean" -- a deep-water drop-off.  The cables vanish into the deep.

Having exausted their scientific exploration possibilties, they now go to a "remote viewer" -- which despite once being used by the US government, remains a scientifically unproven technique.  The remote viewer describes USO objects and alien beings inside with three fingers.  Bill concludes these are similar to other alien sightings. The RV man refuses to divulge more, saying it's "classified."  So the team turns to a French UFOlogist.  This "expert" claims the government has made a deal with the aliens; Kevin presses him for sources, and he says if he gave them out, they would all disappear.  (Or be made to disappear by the goverment.)  Kevin concludes that no reputable scientist would back up any of the UFOlogist's claims.  The expert also has theories about extra-dimensional experiments and Atlantis connected to AUTEC.  Pat says, skeptically, they're trying to roll every UFO theory into one giant burrito.  Next, they talk to a pilot who claims to have flown through a strange tunnel of clouds and come out in the future (further than could be accounted for by the time of the trip).  He claims to have made the trip 30 minutes faster and having consumed 10 fewer gallons of fuel than usual; Kevin does some calucations poving that, if the witness is telling the truth, his plane could not have made the trip as fast as it did -- it cannot travel at the required speed (not even with tail winds).  Bill now ties these incidents, and perhaps AUTEC, too, into the Bermuda Triangle.

They then talk to a physicist, who explains how wormholes in space could make time travel possible.  After that, they talk to two people who are searching for Atlantis.  They've found an undersea formation similar to the Bimini Road (believed by geologists to be a natural rock formation).  Pat goes diving with them and finds some interesting rock formations 20' down.  He says it looks intentional (but one might think the same of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland).  The structure, if that's what it is, is 4000 years old and made from beach rock.  The researcher thinks it might be a former harbor.  Kevin points out there's a lot of strange stuff going on around AUTEC, but no tangible proof of any kind, and certainly no proof of aliens.  Bill and Pat seem to be willing to take the word of the remote viewer.  And Pat again draws the connection between AUTEC and Area 51.  (That might, also, be true -- but it doesn't mean there are aliens in either place; they could just be secret testing facilities.)  While the information about AUTEC was intriguing (sadly, their website is currently down), it seems to me that by the end of this show, the UFO "burrito" had gotten very full indeed.