UFOs exist and their existence is documented. The confirmation comes directly from the Pentagon, which in August 2020 reconstituted the division dedicated to the study of unidentified flying objects, known in the environment as Uap (unidentified aerial phenomena). In the US, the belief is taking hold that it is necessary to investigate the matter, not only to understand what it is, but also to find out if behind the sightings there is a threat from an entity or a hostile country.
The latest episode of the well-known American news program 60 Minutes kept the audience glued to the television screens. The segment, led by Bill Whitaker, included several testimonies from members of the American military – including one absolutely unpublished – and video evidence released (and later confirmed) by the Pentagon. Among these, sightings of unrecognized flying objects, of variable but often oval shape, apparently capable of reaching very high speeds with frightening accelerations and hovering in the air without propulsion systems or visible emissions.
Former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graveshe told Whitaker he had seen UFOs “every day for at least a couple of years” off Virginia, on the Atlantic, an off-limits airspace. The first sighting occurred when his squadron of F-18s upgraded the onboard radars with infrared zoom sensors, which made it possible to notice the objects. According to Graves, pilots training in the area see similar objects “continuously”.
According to pilots interviewed by 60 Minutes, the sightings can be one of three things: secret American technology, a hostile spy vehicle, or something extraterrestrial. And the second hypothesis in particular deserves attention, because it could reveal the existence of advanced technologies (and therefore a military advantage) in the hands of actors such as China and Russia.
“I’m worried, honestly,” Graves said; “If these were tactical jets from another country out there, it would be a huge problem. But as they look slightly different we are not willing to actually look the problem in the face. We are content to ignore the fact that these [objects] are out there, watching us every day. ”
Commander Dave Fravor and Lt. Commander Alex Dietrich , who was testifying for the first time, also told Whitaker they had a close encounter with a UFO in 2004 while training in the Pacific. The two were aboard their respective F-18s when another ship, the USS Princeton, registered the presence of an unidentified object on radar and asked them to perform a reconnaissance.
Fravor and Dietricht said they noticed an area of bubbling water, above which hovered a “small white object that looked like a Tic-Tac”, roughly the size of their fighters, with no signs, wings or exhaust jets. visible. The UFO would then rise and accelerate so abruptly that it disappeared, only to reappear almost immediately on the USS Princeton radar – sixty miles away. But nothing happened following their post-mission report.
“The question is: what are they
What are their intentions and what are their abilities
” asked Loue Elizondo, the American veteran who headed the Pentagon’s $ 22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat Recognition (Atip) program from 2007 to 2012. Part of his job at Atip was to retrieve direct testimony from military personnel, who often kept silent about their sightings. for fear of not being taken seriously. The video evidence he collected, however, is harder to ignore.
The first video was made by members of Graves’ F-18 squadron.
“It’s not us, that I know for sure,” Christopher Mellon , Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Intelligence under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Realizing that the testimonies and evidence regarding the UAP were not being taken seriously in the Pentagon, Mellon decided in 2017 (playing the role of a normal civilian) to obtain and send those videos, appropriately declassified by Elizondo, to the New York Times.
In 2020 the Pentagon confirmed its authenticity. “What [the Pentagon] is recognizing is that there are indeed aircraft that are violating restricted airspace. This happens and continues to happen, and we don’t know where they come from, and we don’t understand the technology, ”Mellon told 60 Minutes.
Today, members of the US military are encouraged to share testimonies and evidence of sightings. In 2020, Undersecretary of Defense David Nordquisthas created a small task force within the Navy in charge of studying UAPs. And Senator Marco Rubio , vice president of the US Senate intelligence commission, is fighting for a government report on the matter, due out in June, to be declassified and shown to the American Congress.
According to Rubio, the question must be treated with more seriousness; “We cannot allow stigma (associated with UFOs, ed) to prevent us from having an answer to a fundamental question […] I want to have a process to analyze the data every time it arrives,” he told Whitaker. “Perhaps the answer is very simple. Maybe not”.
