Jay Stratton on Jesse Watters Primetime: "the Manhattan Project on steroids" (16 October 2026)

0:00 For centuries, we've wondered if we're alone in the universe, and every day we get closer to the truth. Trump dropped the first batch of UFO files just a couple months ago, and whistleblowers say this is just the tip of the iceberg. They claim even presidents have been left in the dark on top of secret alien projects they've been running for decades, like the Legacy Program. Insiders say that the program's holding dozens of recovered UFOs, and we've been quietly reverse-engineering them. Some have even said it's holding alien bodies. Gets even crazier. UFOs have been flying over our nuke sites, not just sightseeing, turning them on and off like a light switch. One of the top officials investigating this tech has seen the tapes, and he's breaking his silence with an explosive new book. Jay Stratton, the former chief of air and space warfare for the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of "Out of the Shadows." All right, tell me a little bit about this legacy program.

1:00 The presidents have no idea? Yes, and Jesse, thanks for having me here. No problem. Really appreciate the opportunity. That's exactly right. This program that has been gatekeeping the secret for over 80 years is in a secret Cold War race with adversaries to reverse-engineer this technology. It's like the Manhattan Project on steroids. And if we don't win that competition, we are going to fall behind. And whoever wins that competition will be the superpower for 100 years. You're saying the Russians and the Chinese have alien craft and we're in a race to reverse-engineer it? Exactly. Whoever wins dominates the century. And I hope that's us. And we hope that's us, absolutely. So tell me about some of this alien technology that you've witnessed. How crazy is it? How advanced? Well, let me take you back to where it started. At the Defense Intelligence Agency, I was the chief of air and space warfare. And in that job, I was responsible for emerging and disruptive technologies. And I had classified understanding of not only our technologies, but that of our adversaries. And a colleague

2:02 pulled me into a room and showed me a video of a black triangle flying over a nuclear missile silo. And it was flying in ways that I could not comprehend. It was defying the laws of gravity. And when I saw that, I knew I had to figure out whose this was. And I went all over the government. I absolutely determined it wasn't ours. I determined it wasn't our adversaries. And that's when the intelligence problem began. Whose is it? There's a part of your book where you talk about studying this and going home and having some alien being follow you and look through the window at your family. Tell me about that. That's right. In the intelligence business, if you put me in Russia, you put me in China, there's a high likelihood that I'm going to get on their radar and they're going to follow me around even back in the United States. So what happened here was, as I'm studying non-human intelligent life on behalf of the U.S. government, I got their attention. And yes, they came home with me. And it was really frustrating if you think about, I've been studying all of this stuff in this paradigm shifting knowledge that I was gaining from

3:03 studying it. But my front door was like a barrier, two different worlds. I couldn't come home and talk about it. And when non-human intelligence, I'm sorry, when non-human intelligent life followed me home, that was kind of a blessing in disguise. Because now I could talk to my family. They'd seen it with their own eyes. And what should have torn us apart really brought us closer together and built a stronger relationship. That must have been the scariest thing of all time. What did it look like? There's a variety of things. And if you talk about the crash recoveries, there's been stories. I'm sorry, the true witnesses of those crash recoveries have said that we've had numerous types of alien bodies recovered. So different types. At home, I'll say in the book, I go into great detail about what I and my family saw. But what's more important than that detail is the context that I provide around that detail and try to understand what we're seeing and experiencing. So do you think the country is ready to accept this? I mean, I know there's suspicions

4:05 that there's stuff out there, but do you think one day the president's going to hold up a craft or hold up a body and say here? Well, the reason I wrote the book is the most senior U.S. official to investigate this on behalf of the government, I felt the responsibility to come forward and tell the public what I know. And the reality that we're not alone in the universe, that we don't know the intent of the non-human intelligence, intelligent life that's here. And even more importantly, we have ongoing activity over U.S. missile, nuclear missile sites and military, sensitive military sites. And on top of that, we've got safety of flight concern for all the military and civilian aviation. You know, I talk in my book about the FAA not using radar anymore. Why? Because after 9/11, they put the responsibility onto the military for defense of the country. So the point of that being is they really aren't tracking these crafts. So five different airline pilots a

5:06 day are reporting UAP activity. So it's important that we raise this concern to the national level and we start doing something about it. What about this submarine situation? You described that in your book. Tell us about that. Yeah. So let me tell you, in the book, I talk about a lot of things. I take the reader behind the scenes of those 16 years investigating this. And in that, I talk about not only interactions with non-human intelligent life, but also the true story of government efforts to lure in these UAP and descriptions of the craft that we recovered, the extent of the cover-up, the entire history, the definitive history of all of my investigations on the government part. And yes, so during that period of the government's efforts to lure in these UAP, I had multiple incidents where I wanted to try to really bring them in to gather data and understand. It's all about data and evidence. And in one incident, I used a submarine that was there and available and a platform that

6:10 could collect on these things. And the UAP showed up and we were able to collect some data. Wow. That's unbelievable. Out of the shadows, revealing the truth about non-human intelligent life. This is a captivating and explosive book. We wish you the best and be safe. Yeah. The truth is coming out, whether the gatekeepers want it or not. Thank you, Jay Stratton. We appreciate it. Thank you.