Pentagon Formally Releases Navy UFO Videos
Three videos that have tantalized those who study unidentified flying objects were officially released by the Navy this week.
One video dates from 2004, and the others from 2015. The 2004 video has been circulating since 2007; the others drew attention in 2017.
The Pentagon announced the release of the videos in a Monday news release on the Defense Department’s website.
“The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017,” the news release said.
Sue Gough, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the Pentagon decided there was no harm in officially releasing them.
“After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena,” Gough said in a statement to CBS News.
Gough said the videos were released to prove they were authentic.
“DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos,” Gough said. “The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.'”
In September, Joseph Gradisher, a spokesman for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, spoke to the site The Black Vault about the videos.
“The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena,” he said.
When asked for clarification about the label, he replied, “The ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ terminology is used because it provides the basic descriptor for the sightings/observations of unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects that have been observed entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges.”
The videos, known as “FLIR1,” “Gimbal” and “GoFast,” were made public between December 2017 and March 2018 by The New York Times and To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a company that former Blink-182 musician Tom DeLonge co-founded.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday the release is a first step to telling the public what he thinks is the truth about UFOs.
I’m glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available. The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be informed. https://t.co/1XNduvmP0u
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) April 27, 2020
In a 2017 article, The New York Times reported the recollections of Navy Commander David Fravor, who was piloting one of the F-18s that encountered the UFO from the 2004 video.
Fravor recalled spotting an oval object 50 feet above the Pacific Ocean that was 40 feet long.
After initially circling to get a closer look at the object, only to have it rise as if to meet the F-18, Fravor went directly for the object, which then flew away.
“It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he said, adding that he was “pretty weirded out.”
The jet Fravor was flying and another were then directed to meet at a point 60 miles away, known as a “cap point.”
Fravor recalled being told from a radar operator on the USS Princeton, “Sir, you won’t believe it … but that thing is at your cap point.”
“We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point,” Fravor said, adding that the object was gone when the F-18s arrived.
“I have no idea what I saw,” Fravor said. “It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s.”
Luis Elizondo, who formerly ran a classified Pentagon program that studied alleged UFO sightings, has said “there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”
These aircraft — we’ll call them aircraft — are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of,” Elizondo told CNN in 2017.
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