For decades, military pilots, radar operators and ordinary citizens have reported strange objects darting through the skies, often dismissed by officials or buried under classification.
Despite congressional hearings and government task forces, little clarity has emerged about what Americans are actually seeing.
Now, the director of a new explosive documentary is pulling back the curtain on that mystery.
Director and producer Dan Farah sat down with Fox News' Bret Baier Friday to discuss his new documentary, "The Age of Disclosure."
UFO TRACKER MAPS EERIE CLUSTERS OF UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS LURKING BENEATH US SHORELINES: 'WE'RE BEING LIED TO'
"For a very long time, the public, Congress and even the president have been kept out of the loop on this subject," Farah said. "In the last few years, senior members of Congress, senior members of the administration - thanks to whistle-blowers - have found out what's been going on, and they are now in pursuit of the truth for themselves and for the American people."
The film explores an alleged "80-year global cover-up" of non-human intelligent life and a secret race among world powers to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin. It features interviews with 34 senior members of the U.S. government, military and intelligence community, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"Every single person I interviewed made it very clear that it was no longer a question of whether this was a real situation," he said. "It's a very real situation."
Farah, who worked on the film for more than three years, said each person he spoke to had "direct knowledge of this issue" and "extreme credibility."
"We've had repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it's not ours," Rubio said in the trailer.
He said the film reveals how the U.S. government is engaged in a "high-stakes, secret Cold War race with adversarial nations like China and Russia to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin."
HOUSE WITNESS TESTIFIES UFOS NEARLY ACTIVATED RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MISSILES DURING 1982 INCIDENT
"The first country that cracks the code on this technology will be the leader for years to come," Jay Stratton, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official and director of the government's UAP Task Force, said in the film's trailer.
Farah said some are calling it "the Manhattan Project on steroids."
"The fear here is that if another nation wins this race, it could really change the lay of the land in terms of power," he said.
But skepticism about UAPs remains. Farah said the question now isn't whether UAPs exist, but where they come from, who controls them and what their purpose is.
He said joking about this topic is "the equivalent of laughing at a terrorist threat."
"Who would do that?" he said. "It makes no sense when you think about it. You know, if someone said, 'Hey, there's this constant terrorist threat. Terrorists are penetrating the airspace over our nuclear weapons sites.' Who would laugh at that? It makes no sense."
JD VANCE SAYS UFOS, ALIENS COULD BE 'SPIRITUAL FORCES' AS VP VOWS TO 'GET TO THE BOTTOM' OF MYSTERY IN SKIES
High-level officials in the film claim the issue was moved away from presidential oversight, with defense contractors "gatekeeping information." However, Farah said members of Congress and the Trump administration are now working to uncover answers.
"Now we have leaders in Congress and in the administration that are trying to get to the bottom of it, and there are people in this film who are respected in their fields who say they have seen these craft and have seen the recovered non-human bodies," he said.
He said on-the-record interviews are even more important in this digital age, with many people dismissing everything they see as fake or artificial intelligence. He hopes the film will serve as the evidence many believe doesn't exist.
"Some officials go on record claiming to have seen craft and non-human beings with their own eyes, and these are people who are putting their reputation and their names on the line," he said.
Farah said he thinks President Donald Trump could be the first president to speak openly about this unexplained phenomenon.
"I think it's only a matter of time at this point before we have a sitting president step to the microphone and have the biggest moment a leader can possibly have, which is telling all of humanity that we're not alone in the universe and that the United States intends to lead the way," Farah said.
The film will be released Nov. 21 and will play in select theaters in New York; Washington, D.C.; and Los Angeles, and will also be available worldwide to purchase or rent on Amazon Prime Video.
