'There’s something out there that was better than our airplane': UFO mystery makes it to 60 Minutes

Ahead of a June deadline for an intelligence report on UFOs, the mystery over what the U.S. government calls “unidentified aerial phenomena” was featured on 60 Minutes for the first time. Navy pilot witnesses and former government officials argued this is a serious issue.

The declassified report on UFOs scheduled to be handed over next month was mandated thanks to the $2.3 trillion bill that former President Donald Trump signed into law in December, which contained a "committee comment" from the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling upon the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon to provide what they know.

Navy pilots such as Cmdr. Dave Fravor, Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich, and former Lt. Ryan Graves, the former head of the U.S. government’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Luis Elizondo, and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, Christopher Mellon, all weighed in on Sunday to say that UFOs are real, though what, exactly, they are remains a mystery.

Fravor, the commander of an F/A-18F squadron on the USS Nimitz at the time of a November 2004 encounter with a UFO, and Dietrich, who had never spoken publicly about it until Sunday, spoke about what they saw when the ship asked them to investigate while separately piloting naval aircraft roughly 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, describing their bizarre encounter with a white “Tic Tac”-like UFO, the existence of which was also caught on camera and radar by the Navy, which they said they spotted hovering above a patch of whitewater in an otherwise calm ocean. They said that they and their respective co-pilots watched for about five minutes.

“So, as we’re looking at this, her backseater says, ‘Hey skipper, do you —‘ And about that got out, I said, ‘Dude, do you see that thing down there?’ And we saw this little white Tic Tac-looking object, and it’s just kinda moving above the whitewater area,” Fravor said, adding that its movements were “just like a ping pong ball — very, very random.”

Dietrich described its movements as looking like what happens if you drop your phone and it bounces around. Fravor said he spiraled down to get a closer look while Dietrich’s plane circled above.

“The Tic Tac is still pointing north-south — it goes ‘pop’ and just turns abruptly and starts mirroring me — so, as I’m coming down, it’s coming up … It was aware we were there,” Fravor said. “I want to see how close I can get, so, I go like this, and it’s climbing still, and when it gets right in front of me, it just disappears … Disappears, like, gone … When it turned and started coming up, it was like, ‘OK!’ Because we have nothing that goes that fast and just starts climbing at will.

“I felt the vulnerability of not having anything to defend ourselves, to not having any rounds, anything on the rails. If this was in fact a hostile threat, and we were engaged … I felt vulnerable, and then, I felt confused when it disappeared.”

The duo said the UFO appeared on the USS Princeton’s radar 60 miles away a few seconds later, and the “Tic Tac” was also caught on infrared video by another flight crew before it accelerated away. Fravor and Dietrich said they reported it right away and that the reaction on the ship was mostly to laugh about it, with Fravor saying that the crew “started giving us a lot of grief,” while Dietrich said they were met with “ridicule” as crew members proceeded to play Men In Black, Independence Day, and Signs on the ship’s TV.

Fravor said he believed the admiral staff made some phone calls but didn't take it too seriously.

“I’m not a UFO guy,” Fravor said. “Oh there's definitely something that — I don't know who's building it, who's got the technology, who's got the brains. But there's something out there that was better than our airplane.”

Last year, videos from the Navy were released through the Freedom of Information Act that showed UFOs moving at incredible speeds and performing impressive aerial maneuvers. One of the videos was shot in November 2004, featuring the so-called Nimitz encounter, while the other two were shot in January 2015. The three videos were code-named “FLIR1,” “Gimbal,” and “GoFast.” In the 2015 videos, Navy pilots can be heard expressing disbelief. All three UFO videos were captured by Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets.

The videos were made public and published in part through efforts by To The Stars Academy, which was founded by Tom DeLonge, a founder and vocalist for the rock band Blink-182. Elizondo worked to declassify the videos, and Mellon told 60 Minutes he then leaked them to the New York Times. These videos are said to have been a part of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which was founded in 2007 at the insistence of then-Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid but that the Pentagon said ended in 2012.

The Defense Department announced in August that it had approved the creation of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and that the group will be led by the Navy under the "cognizance" of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

Mellon, who had worked at the Pentagon under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said, “In the case of the Nimitz, these vehicles seem to have unlimited loiter time, which we don’t have. We’re limited in terms of altitude. It’s hard to design something that functions well at ground level that can go to 60,000 or 80,000 feet … and then drop down to the deck or drop to 20,000 feet, and it’s like a straight vertical line … in seconds. … I’ve talked to some of the radar operators who’ve observed that. Then, the acceleration is far beyond anything we’re capable of … There’s nothing we can build that would be strong enough to endure that amount of force and acceleration.”

Elizondo, who spent a couple decades helping run military intelligence operations before joining the AATIP, said in his interview, “Imagine a technology that can do 6 to 700 G-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar, and that can fly through air and water and possibly space, and oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces, and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing.”

Graves said that in 2014, his own F/A-18F flight crew repeatedly detected UFOs in restricted airspace close to Virginia Beach, saying that this occurred “every day for at least a couple years.” He speculated it was a “threat observation program” potentially of Russian or Chinese origin and said he was worried because “if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue, but because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day.”

The Pentagon has recently begun confirming the authenticity of leaked UFO videos and photos, though it has not said what conclusions it has reached about them. The Biden administration may miss the deadline to release its UFO report, according to Sen. Marco Rubio, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when it wrote up a 180-day directive for such a disclosure. The deadline is June, and a spokesperson for Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines would tell the Washington Examiner only that the intelligence community is "aware of the requirement and will respond accordingly.”

Rubio told 60 Minutes: "There's a stigma on Capitol Hill. I mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kinda, you know, giggle when you bring it up, but I don't think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question."

What is all of the evidence that a uap dropped 80,000 feet almost instantaneously?

There's this:

According to Fravor, the USS Princeton told him it had been tracking objects for weeks that “appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range or shot straight back up.”
Graves, in describing his 2014-15 incidents, said the objects were known for “showing up at 30,000 feet, 20,000 feet, even sea level. They could accelerate, slow down and then hit hypersonic speeds.”
Graves also mentioned another feature the UAPs seemed to have that his own fighter did not: much more energy than one would expect for a small craft.
“These things would be out there all day,” Graves said. “Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”
Source

“What happened when these Navy guys tried to shoot it down?”

There was a pilot in Kentucky after WWII that tried to shoot one down in a P-51. They found pieces of his aircraft.

You’d have to ask the folks in charge of whatever program this is. If it’s testing of black budget technologies, obviously it would be in the government’s best interest to disavow knowledge of these things.

“If these things turn out to belong to our enemies, our military is inadequate to the task of our defense.”

If they belonged to our enemies why are we still here?

That begs the question, what's the governments motive for doing all this and then pretending they have no idea what they are? I've yet to hear a plausible explanation of this.

Furthermore, even our classified nuclear secrets and other classified data get leaked or sold. This would have to be so elaborate, involving all kind of peoples, it would be impossible to keep a lid on. Doing all this then pretending they have no clue what they are make no sense.

If they were real and had the abilities that people are claiming, earth would already be their conquered new home. No, these are alien hobgoblins that the globalists concocted for you to believe in, so they can eventually come up with a ruse to “defend” you, at the cost of your rights of course. Globalists know people love to fasten their own shackles and chains.

I see what you are saying, but I think you are missing something. In order for many of these stories to be true, the laws of physics must be suspended.

When Glen Curtiss saw what the Wright brothers had done, he immediately understood and imagined the improvement of ailerons. He did not envision magically defying gravity and travelling as pure energy through the galaxy and doing so without any fuel or motive power whatsoever.

The Treaty of Torsedillas causes people to believe in magic?

_Anything that is possible...is possible. Anything that is not possible is a miracle and can be done by God Almighty, as has happened as told in His word.

I have had my own experience with a similar object. I was driving across Nevada between Tonopah and Winnemucca around midnight when a brightly lit orb appeared out of now where in my rearview mirror.

It just hovered at road level for what seemed like a 1/4 mile behind me like it was pacing me. Then it zoomed up to within a few car lengths and stayed there for several seconds. At this point I woke up my parents and older brother and they all looked out the back window to see it.

Next thing it went straight up in the air, over my car, and then came down in front of us a few car lengths. It stayed there for several more seconds then shot straight to my left about 1/2 in the desert. It hovered there for a couple of seconds then shot straight up into the sky andcwas gone.

Every movement was 90 degrees. The light intensity seemed to stay the same no matter what distance it was and there was no wobble or vibration to it.

It acted similar to the one observed by the Navy thar was shown last week.

Thank you. With this as a.starting point we can see double hearsay at the very top.

IOW, somebody told somebody else who in turn told somebody else.

B3cause it is hearsay it is immediately suspect.

Double hearsay, doubly so.

Verification is desirable, yes?

That begs the question, what's their motive for doing all this and then pretending they have no idea what they are?

You’d have to ask the folks in charge of whatever program this is.

I see, they go put together all these elaborate schemes using all this unknown sophisticated technology, playing peek a boo with our military and are seen in many other venues, then they deny knowing anything about them, and you suggest I ask those involved in this epic hoax to explain themselves?

Really? C'mon!

Yep. There is no reasonable explanation as to why the Pentagon would be lying to the public in this case.

It's becoming quite clear that these things aren't ours and they aren't Russian or Chinese.

In fact, a general at the Pentagon told Elizondo that he should stop investigating UAP's. He said, "We know what they are. They're demonic."

During the 1970s, the government did not clarify when stealth aircraft were observed and reported as UFOs. Why would they? If you had advanced technologies you were testing, would you say, “Hey, everyone—check out this cool secret stuff we built,” or would you keep it quiet?

We are told it was, so maybe it was.

Now what do we know about the radar(s?) In queztion?

What kind was it, who was operating it, when was it installed, when was it last repaired, wss the event recorded, where is that recording, how manyboperators saw the event when it happened, what are their names, where can they be contacted, was there a corresponding visual observation of this particular event, who saw it, where can that person or persons be contacted, is there video, where is thT video, what kind of camera recorded that video, who was operating that camera, where can that person/s be contacted,

Etc

I do not doubt you for a second.

However, our personal anecdotal experiences convince no one like sure untampered photos do, photos that show details transparently, not ones so obscure that the object could objectively be any number of things.

My problem is that with all the evidence that gets reported, and that individuals can tell, I know of no such unmistakable photos.

Only such photos will move the mystery to reality.

I operate a small optical observatory and use cameras in the optical train and take lots of images/video, as well as observations directly through the eyepiece. I’ve seen a few things over the years that flat out made me recoil at the eyepiece. I have no idea what they are, but it sure consumes my attention.

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