Month: August 2026

UFO Videos Released by the Pentagon Contain Too Many Redactions to Reveal What These Objects Are, Says New Research Paper

A new research paper analyzing more than 100 UFO videos released by the Pentagon found that they are so heavily redacted that they are useless in identifying what these objects are.

The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was posted on the open-access repository, arXiv.org, on Aug. 12, 2026. It was co-authored by Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra, an astrobiologist and co-founder of the research organization Blue Marble Space in Seattle, and Dr. Ravi Kopparapu, a planetary scientist and astrophysicist from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.

(Here is a link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/html/2608.12445v1)

The researchers analyzed 112 videos released this year under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) initiative.

“Redactions to the on-screen displays limit the information available for identifying the nature of the reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP),” the researchers found.

In order for videos to reveal how fast UFOs are traveling, they must include “(1) the range to the object, (2) the velocity of the observing aircraft, (3) the aspect angle between the object’s path and the observer, and (4) the field angle of the camera sensor,” the researchers say in the paper, further expounding: “No sensor video in the PURSUE corpus provides this complete set of information … Without further information, the PURSUE sensor videos in their present form cannot fully resolve unidentified cases or conclusively indicate anomalous velocities.”

The videos in the study were released between late 2025 and mid-2026 under the PURSUE initiative (war.gov/UFO).

“This included 112 sensor videos of targeting-pod and other turret mounted cameras (including infrared and electro-optical, meaning an electronic camera capturing images at optical wavelengths) from military aircraft,” according to the paper.

The researchers note that the now-famous U.S. Navy “GOFAST” video, purporting to show a UFO traveling at extreme speed near the sea surface, contained the necessary unredacted data.

“However, trigonometric reduction using its on-screen telemetry showed the apparent motion to be dominated by parallax from the sensor aircraft, with the object’s implied speed consistent with wind-borne drift. In the GOFAST case, sufficient information was available to constrain the object’s motion relative to the observer and assess it in relation to reported wind conditions.”

Unfortunately, the researchers found, “Such information is either redacted or unavailable in all of the PURSUE sensor videos.”

They concluded: “The PURSUE sensor videos can neither demonstrate nor exclude anomalous kinematics. Cases with a visible prosaic explanation can be set aside, but the remainder cannot be resolved unless additional data become available.”

The researchers suggest other information could be helpful in identifying UFOs, including: “(i) the velocity of the platform … such as provided by flight logs; (ii) sensor metadata describing field-of-view and line-of-sight pointing angles; and (iii) range records or a correlated radar track. Not all of these data will exist for passive encounters, but releasing whatever does exist for a given case would help determine whether the objects in that video exhibit anomalous motion.”

Fifth Bunch of Pentagon UFO Files Yields Cool Cold War Stuff and More of the Same Crappy Videos, Unverifiable Stories That Lack Supporting Evidence  

So, the Pentagon released the fifth group of UFO files on Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, and it should be no news flash that it’s more of the same: ambiguous videos of nebulous dots in the distance and largely redacted, unverifiable stories that lack supporting evidence.

However, there were some really cool Cold War items that I will get to.

It’s all here: https://www.war.gov/UFO/?releaseDate=Release+05&release=05

I found this New York Post article mildly intriguing. The piece contains very scant details about an account from anonymous sources claiming that a U.S. military service member took cellphone videos of a large triangular UFO in 2023 in the skies over Colorado.

According to the article, the videos can’t be released because they are classified.

Here is a link to the article: https://nypost.com/2026/08/08/us-news/ufo-over-colorado-base-in-video-air-force-wont-share-sources/

Amazingly, although the article is very light on details, it states that information provided by sources includes the actual “file numbers” of the videos. Not that there’s anything the general reading public can do with such obscure information, even if it is valid, which we have no way of confirming.

But the file numbers? WTF?!

Anyway, maybe denying public access to these videos makes perfect sense if these triangular objects are top-secret U.S. weapons. Then, the Pentagon simply would be unable to issue said videos because that would be revealing to our adversaries the existence of these weapons.

In such a hypothetical scenario, full UFO “transparency” would be literally impossible, since it is still technically illegal to share military secrets with the public.

Meanwhile, other notable content in the Aug. 7 release is perfect for the Cold War reading room. This stuff is great!

Among these items is a series of documents and reports circa 1947-1948. One prominent report from Air Materiel Command informs that the UFOs fell into four categories: discs, torpedo or cigar shaped, spherical and balls of light.

Interestingly, there’s a suggestion that UFOs could have some sort of connection to the “German flying wings designed by (the) Horten brothers.”  

At the request of U.S. officials, the British military apparently interviewed one of the Horten brothers, Reimar Horten. However, the results of this interview were evidently not included in the material.

One fun distraction within the cache of documents, images and videos, is the now-famous Sept. 23, 1947, summary from Nathan F. Twining, commanding general of Air Materiel Command, which says, among other things:

“It is the opinion that: a. the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious … b. There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft … c. There is a possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors … and d. The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically or remotely.”

Later, the document includes this incredible comment from Gen. Twining:

“It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge – provided extensive detailed development is undertaken – to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description of the object … which would be capable of an approximate range of 7000 miles at subsonic speeds.”

Whaaaat?!

Other cool details describe the following UFO characteristics and encounters:

… “In shape the objects are a thin disc, rounded on top and flat on the bottom, perhaps approximating a C-54 in size. The front half of the disc is often circular, sweeping back to a square tail across the full width.”

… “Extreme maneuverability, coupled with high lateral stability, is noted. Speed is high, with a snaking motion or a lateral oscillation.  A few reports indicate ability to hover; to appear suddenly as if from a dive; to disintegrate or to disappear, perhaps by increasing speed; to group quickly in a tight formation and to take evasive action. Good control of flight is indicated.”

… “On 7 July, 1947, five Portland, Oregon, police officers saw varying numbers of discs flying over different parts of Portland. … On 7 July, 1947, William Rhoads of Phoenix, Ariz., saw a disc in the glow of sunset and took two photographs. The resulting picture showed a round front and square tail in plan form … On 29 July, 1947, Kenneth Arnold, while flying near Tacoma, Washington, saw a formation of flying objects. His sketch of their shape corresponds closely to that shown in the photographs made by Mr. Rhoads. On the same day, two United States Air Force pilots at Hamilton Field, Calif., saw two flying discs trailing (an aircraft), following it toward Oakland, Calif.”

I also found this paragraph interesting:

“Analyzed the possibility that the flying objects were operated or controlled by representatives of a foreign nation—perhaps for photo reconnaissance purposes, or to ferret out our defensive capabilities, or to test the American psychological reaction … it is difficult to conceive why any foreign nation, if it possessed such an unconventional aircraft or missile, would risk sending it near or over the United States for anything short of an attack. Even if the disc contained a self-destroying device, any crash landing would disclose a certain amount of information which the nation possessing such an aircraft or missile would desire to keep secret. This would be particularly true if the form of propulsion was one outside American knowledge. The final answer still has not been obtained from this line of inquiry.”

Well, there you have it, the Pentagon’s newly released fifth group of UFO files.

There is still no evidence of E.T. here, but plenty of evidence for something else. Maybe that something else has nothing to do with extraterrestrials and everything to do with a type of alternative propulsion technology conceived, designed, built, tested and perfected entirely by human beings. Maybe that technology has evolved over the decades and still exists in the black world of top-secret Pentagon weaponry, a shadow air and space program that runs parallel to NASA and the Space Force but is far more capable.

Heavily Redacted Pentagon Report Hints at Military Pilot’s Encounter with Triangular UFO over Mediterranean Sea

Among the latest group of UFO files, released by the Pentagon on July 10, was a particularly interesting if exceedingly cryptic report about a U.S. military pilot’s encounter with a triangular object between Greece and Turkey. The U.S. military aircraft was returning to base when it encountered the UFO flying at about 25,000 feet and traveling at an estimated speed of slightly less than 200 mph.

Was it perhaps a balloon? This would seem most likely, but there are no images with the text report, and pretty much everything else is blacked out, including the date of the encounter.

Here is the link to the report: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/dow-uap-d54-mission-report-mediterranean-sea-na.pdf

As you can see, the report is massively censored under U.S. national security code 1.4(a), which justifies redactions to protect military secrets such as classified systems and the identities of personnel involved.

But you have to wonder what else is being concealed by these redactions.

After all, other reports from the region have included multimedia files such as infrared videos. If this were a balloon, wouldn’t photos or videos help to clear this up?

It’s curious that even the date of the encounter is secret. Is this possibly because the date in question corresponds to some historically significant event related to war or terrorism and revealing it might also provide clues as to the military aircraft’s mission or the UFO’s purpose or provenance?

 Anyway, after all the redactions the only text not covered in black ink was the following:

“GENTEXT/UAP

UAP Description (e.g., size, color, markings, recognizable features): 1X UAP detected with descriptive information such as being a triangluar (sic) and metallic UAP.

Gentext (UAP Event Description): During RTB at 1319Z, (redacted) observed while transiting over 363453N0255943E flying at an altitude of 24,989FT MSL and speed of 168KTS.”

So, completely missing, and evidently redacted, is any mention of the object’s size, its distance from the military aircraft, whether it was moving against the wind or in the same direction as the wind and details about visible features. That means it could have been anything, including a large mylar advertising or promotional balloon.

Is this ambiguity by design, and, if so, why? I mean, if this were something like a party or  advertising balloon, wouldn’t this have been conveyed or addressed within the scant text not redacted?

A balloon caught in the jet stream can easily move at the reported speed of this object. Perhaps it was simply a balloon released from some holiday hotspot in the region? Or, perhaps the reason this report is so heavily censored is because the triangular object was a classified U.S. weapon and no one, including the U.S. military pilot who encountered it, has a “need to know.”

At any rate, you still have to go back to why the date of the occurrence was redacted. Was it, for example, around the same time as some significant security-related event, such as Oct. 7, 2023, or possibly during the first days of the Iran war?

If this were some sort of highly classified U.S. military platform unknown to all but a small circle of Pentagon officials, why release the report at all? Unless, perhaps, its release was mandated as part of the recent push to declassify UFO files. You could have a situation where most members of the military, as well as Congress, and even the president of the United States are kept in the dark about certain classified weapons systems.

Or, it could just have been a balloon, which seems most likely.

The perpetual lack of clarity, the cycle of confusion surrounding UFOs continues.