95% of all UFO sightings can be explained. The rest cannot... and they demand to be taken seriously.

SECRET ACCESS: UFOs ON THE RECORD

Two-hour special premieres Thursday, August 25 at 8 p.m. ET on HISTORY

NEW YORK, August 2, 2011 - History is filled with accounts of new phenomena that are misunderstood and ridiculed. Galileo was charged with heresy for his observations about the universe. Einstein's general theory of relativity was dismissed by many as a conspiracy.

Now, a former Air Force general, a retired Air Force colonel, a former FAA executive, and other credible witnesses are stepping forward to reveal something that nobody would believe: first-hand encounters with UFOs. They'll tell their stories in SECRET ACCESS: UFOs ON THE RECORD, a two-hour special premiering Thursday, August 25 at 8 p.m. ET on HISTORY.

The film features in-depth accounts by people who are willing to risk their jobs and reputations to speak out about their extraordinary experiences, such as former Arizona Governor Fife Symington III; Nick Pope, former head of the British Defense Ministry's UFO Investigative Unit, and others. Commentary is provided by investigative journalist Leslie Kean, author of the NY Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, who spent ten years studying the UFO phenomenon and bringing together high level sources from around the world.

Sightings of strange lights and darting orbs are reported from all over the world, and most are easily explained. But a few other cases present evidence that UFOs are real. SECRET ACCESS: UFOs ON THE RECORD focuses on claims that cannot be ignored: sightings over a nuclear-armed military base near Phoenix, a forest in England, a small city in Belgium. These remarkable eyewitness stories are illustrated with actual source materials such as footage, radar images and voice recordings from NASA, the Air Force and the FAA.

Although the government has determined such episodes to be "insignificant," records have nonetheless been confiscated, and the experts were sworn to secrecy... until now.

SECRET ACCESS: UFOs ON THE RECORD is produced for HISTORY by Break Thru Films. Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg are Executive Producers for Break Thru Films. Julian P. Hobbs is Executive Producer for HISTORY.

HISTORY(R) and HISTORY HD(R) are the leading destinations for revealing, award-winning original non-fiction series and event specials that connect history with viewers in an informative, immersive and entertaining manner across multiple platforms. Programming covers a diverse variety of historical genres ranging from military history to contemporary history, technology to natural history, as well as science, archaeology and pop culture. Among the network's program offerings are hit series such as American Pickers, Ax Men, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, Ice Road Truckers, Top Gear, Pawn Stars and Top Shot, as well as acclaimed specials including America the Story of Us, WWII in HD, 102 Minutes That Changed America, The President's Book of Secrets and Life After People. HISTORY has earned four Peabody Awards, seven Primetime Emmy(R) Awards, 12 News & Documentary Emmy(R) Awards and received the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the network's Save Our History(R) campaign dedicated to historic preservation and history education. Take a Veteran to School Day is the network's signature initiative connecting America's schools and communities with veterans from all wars. The HISTORY website, located at www.history.com, is the leading online resource for all things history, featuring over 20,000 videos, images, audio clips, articles and interactive features that allow visitors to dig deeper into a broad range of thousands of historical topics.