Gulf War I build-up, in Saudi.
I was a forward air controller with the 101st. Was in a Kiowa 2-place helo, working radio relay during an exercise.
Saw a VERY DARK AND LARGE (POSSIBLY 100-YD ACROSS) SHADOW racing from the southeast to northwest. Shadow had very sharp edges, meaning it must be close to the ground. Could see the ground in the shadow. Could not see anything except for the shadow and it was traveling about 800-1,000 knots.
It zipped by us about a few hundred yards away.
About 10-min later we saw the shadow return, reverse course. I, an A-10 pilot and the Army pilot (Apache pilot), turned to fly an intercept course, to get in front of it. As we closed to about a few hundred yards the shadow abruptly stopped, dead. It didn’t slow, it stopped.
We reflexively banked towards the shadow and it was instantaneously moving again, about 800-1,000 knots and flew away to the southeast.
It was gone.
Pilot and I looked at each other, wowed by what we saw.
When we landed there was none of that hokey “I didn’t see anything” rot you see in movies and such, instead, we couldn’t stop talking about what we saw.
Was it extraterrestrial or not, can’t say.
I can say with certainty that we saw something REAL that was extraordinary and well beyond any capabilities and limitations we “know” we are bound by.
I don’t share your absolute feeling that we have all the answers. We are not God and that means we don’t know everything so somethings may be possible, especially stuff we feel may not be possible.
Those that have never witnesed a UFO will never believe it until they have actually seen one. As a youngster growing up on the farm, with no AC, a lot of time was spent outdoors even in the evening. Not counting the hundreds of times camped out sleeping under the stars or varmint hunting or fishing at night. I have seen many unexplainable phenomina yet to try and explain that to someone who has never spent much time outside at night is near impossible, they just refuse to believe it.
My uncle - who’s in his late nineties now - was an Air Force pilot in the early 1950’s. He saw one in broad daylight, chased it and had a similar OMG reaction when the thing took off at speeds he knew were not possible. In his case he only shared the event with my father and his wife.