science

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The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was posted on the open-access repository, arXiv.org, on Aug. 12, 2026.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.

The Recent Big UFO Reveal Suggests — not Space Aliens — but Semi-Official Disinformation Designed to Confuse the Issue Entirely

Let’s get one thing straight: The black triangle UFOs are not illusions. They’ve been seen by too many credible witnesses, from cops to accountants, schoolteachers to military officials.

These things have been observed at low altitude. During a series of encounters in 2000 in rural Illinois, police said the object floated silently across the sky and then darted from place to place, showing instantaneous acceleration.

Again, they observed this at low altitude. One officer attempted to take a photo of it with his crime-scene Polaroid camera. Of course, it’s of very poor quality, but it does capture the pattern of lights in the rear of the craft. Something was there.

We have the Hudson Valley sightings in the 1980s, where, again, police officers and many witnesses observed a very similar object: a large, delta-shape craft that glided overhead with no audible sound.

We have the Belgium UFO flap of 1989-1990, where military pilots attempted to intercept some of these UFOs.

We have the Phoenix lights in 1997, an astonishing event in the annals of ufology in which none other than the governor of the state witnessed a huge triangular craft fly directly overhead. He and other observers described the ofject in detail. They didn’t just see lights; they saw a structured craft.     

So, after several decades of such sightings and encounters, it is likely that our military and intelligence agencies have gathered evidence in the form of photos and videos. Yet we’ve seen none. The only kinds of  photos and videos that have been released thus far are nondescript dots and blurry blobs that could be anything.

Maybe the reason we haven’t seen any photographic or video evidence of these triangular objects is because these are all top-secret Pentagon weapons and revealing them to the public also would be revealing them to our adversaries, constituting a major national security crisis? After all, it is still technically illegal to publicly disclose secret military weapons.

Meanwhile, we continue to have a steady flow of disinformation from former military and intelligence officials. These stories include allegations that:

  1. Extraterrestrials are inhabiting the earth’s oceans.
  2. A bunch of space aliens have crash-landed on earth.
  3. The U.S. military is reverse-engineering E.T. spacecraft tech.
  4. The bodies of space aliens have been recovered.
  5. Various species of space aliens are visiting the earth.

Of course, such tall tales are never accompanied by any actual hard evidence. It’s one of those “trust-me” things.

Let’s assume such disinformation is designed to cloud the issue, drawing public scrutiny away from secret Pentagon weapons and the sprawling “black budget” that conceals them. Hey, if it’s space aliens, it couldn’t be the Pentagon, right? Or, maybe it’s China or Russia, some dubious information sources have suggested, leaving aside the fact that the so-called Tic Tac encounter happened in 2004, and you have to assume that if these authoritarian countries possessed such a technology more than twenty years ago we would have seen it in military applications by now.

No, only the Pentagon has the discipline, continuity of purpose, resources and technical wherewithal to maintain such a military conspiracy of perhaps unprecedented scale and duration.

When Barack Obama recently declared in some talk-show venue that “government” is terrible at keeping secrets, I’m sure he’s right about Congress and the executive branch, which tend to leak like a collective sieve. However, he is NOT correct if by “government” he means to include the Pentagon, an agency well skilled in the art of subterfuge.

The stealth fighter was developed in complete secrecy. The public didn’t even know it existed until its maiden mission.

And space aliens were not responsible for temporarily shutting down U.S. missile facilities in the 1960s. Based on excellent reporting in the Wall Street Journal, we now know this was the Pentagon, employing a classified electromagnetic-pulse technology to test whether the missile systems could withstand a direct hit from a Soviet nuke. This was never revealed to the public, and we still don’t know what kind of platform was used to put this electromagnetic system in place over these missile bases.

The SR-71 and the U-2 were operated covertly for years, with disinformation and black-budget secrecy shielding them from public view. Meanwhile, commercial pilots were reporting these planes as UFOs because they outperformed any known aircraft.

So, yes, the Pentagon is fully capable of keeping secrets, especially big ones.

Anyway, now it appears that we’re going to get another dose of disinformation, disseminated by the same general cast of characters, this time on the steps of Congress.

Here is an article circulated by PR Newswire that announces the event, scheduled for today (June 9, 2026) at 1 p.m.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/push-for-uap-ufo-transparency-intensifies-as-members-of-congress-and-whistleblowers-call-for-release-of-groundbreaking-conclusive-files-302784861.html

We can only hope that perhaps this event won’t hew the constant drumbeat of E.T. disinformation. Maybe it won’t be another dog-and-pony show, repeating second-hand fictions that simply cannot be corroborated.  

All of this is happening after two considerably large tranches of UFO records released by the Pentagon over the past month have included not one iota of evidence for any of these sensational claims. There were no pictures of dead aliens or crashed spacecraft. There is no evidence of reverse-engineered technology and absolutely nothing to indicate that planet earth is being visited by various species of extraterrestrials.

Perhaps this is because the whole extraterrestrial hypothesis is incorrect, at best, and an elaborate, decades-long sham-conspiracy at worst?

I mean, the most compelling document in the May 22 tranche was filed by an alleged intelligence officer, who is anonymous, and supposedly encountered orb-like UFOs at an unnamed military range somewhere in the United States in late 2025. Unfortunately, no videos or photos accompany the report, even though the intelligence officer says he or she was riding in a military helicopter dispatched on a reconnaissance mission specifically to look for UFOs, meaning it would have been a priority to record data including video and pictures. The alleged intelligence officer tries to justify this flaw in the story, saying they didn’t get a chance to take photos because they were too busy assessing the potential danger posed by the UFOs, even though the entire series of encounters supposedly lasted about ONE HOUR. It seems highly unlikely that such a mission would have relied on one person sitting in a helicopter to shoot photos with a handheld camera when modern military helicopters are equipped with state-of-the-art camera systems.

Considering everything, it’s time to pause the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs and begin to fully entertain the terrestrial hypothesis. For example, the Tic Tac object encountered in 2004 by Navy pilots over a U.S. military training range, is, in fact, a U.S. military platform. That’s why it was observed there. Furthermore, the fact that this encounter took place over a training range would suggest that these are not “experimental aircraft,” but operational platforms.

This terrestrial hypothesis also proposes that the Pentagon has likely developed various top-secret platforms and that these weapons are entirely unknown to Congress, the president, the public and even other military officials who lack a “need to know.”

Logically, then, the terrestrial hypothesis would suggest that a whole bizarre inventory of encounters involving U.S. military personnel and civilians alike have always been top-secret Pentagon technologies known only to a small circle with appropriate clearances. Everything from those flying saucers over Washington, D.C., in 1952 – possibly a demonstration ordered by President Truman, much as he had ordered a similar demonstration of the flying wing aircraft in 1949  – to the UFOs that disabled nuclear missile launch systems, the huge triangular thing over the Hudson Valley, the Phoenix lights, another huge triangular thing encountered by police officers in rural Illinois, the flying disc over Chicago O’Hare in 2006, the Tic Tacs, etc., etc.

According to this terrestrial hypothesis, then, there simply can’t be UFO transparency because the UFOs are top-secret U.S. weapons, so disclosure is all-but impossible. 

As to why the Pentagon would sometimes be flying these weapons over populated areas, perhaps it’s real-world training, a “living lab” to perfect tactics and to study how well they perform against state-of-the-art, white-world technologies like F-16s. There have been examples of military training exercises taking place over populated areas. This excellent article in The War Zone documents one such exercise over Los Angeles: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38753/those-mysterious-gray-helicopters-were-landing-on-multiple-downtown-la-rooftops-last-night

Here is a relevant excerpt from the excellent War Zone article:

“There is no substitute for the real thing, though, especially for aviation units. A “live” urban area, especially one as big and bustling as the greater Los Angeles area, is full of real-life potential hazards and bystanders, from power lines to other helicopters, which need to be navigated around. Atmospheric conditions, including the bright lights of the city, can impact what pilots see through their night vision goggles, as well. Buildings like James K. Hahn City Hall East and the towers at California Plaza provide a valuable break from routine training involving landing and taking off from and otherwise flying around better-known structures, no matter how realistic they might be, at established training facilities.”

So, there is precedent for covert military training in real-world environments like U.S. cities.

Moreover, the terrestrial hypothesis proposes that the Pentagon has made a series of technological breakthroughs in propulsion going all the way back to the first important UFO sighting, that of Kenneth Arnold in 1947. These technologies are so unconventional they could easily be mistaken for something from another planet, but they are not necessarily new at all.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), has alluded to this possibility in his writings and statements. He and an official AARO report reviewing sightings and encounters since 1945, have unequivocally stated that witnesses, including members of the military, have unwittingly observed top-secret technologies and have mistaken these systems for extraterrestrial visitation.

Here are some excerpts from the AARO “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)” published in February 2024:

• AARO assesses that some portion of sightings since the 1940s have represented misidentification of never-before-seen experimental and operational space, rocket, and air systems, including stealth technologies and the proliferation of drone platforms.

• AARO concludes many of these programs represent authentic, current and former sensitive, national security programs, but none of these programs have been involved with capturing, recovering, or reverse-engineering off-world technology or material.

• In many cases, the interviewees named authentic USG (U.S. government) classified programs well-known and understood to those appropriately accessed to them in the Executive Branch and Legislative Branch; however, the interviewees mistakenly associated these authentic USG programs with alien and extraterrestrial activity. 

• AARO assesses that all of the named and described alleged hidden UAP reverse-engineering programs provided by interviewees either do not exist; are misidentified authentic, highly-sensitive national security programs that are not related to extraterrestrial technology exploitation …

• The interviewees and others who have mistakenly associated authentic sensitive national security programs with UAP had incomplete or unauthorized access to these programs; discussion of these programs outside of secure facilities presents a high risk of exposing national security information.]

This terrestrial hypothesis further proposes that UFOs have never been extraterrestrials. Instead, there has been an extraordinary, multi-decade-long conspiracy to keep propulsion advances secret, in part by masking them under the rhetoric of space-alien disinformation. And there’s justification for this extraordinary effort since, hypothetically, these are technologies that can never be used in the “white world” of military defense contracts or NASA programs. They must always exist solely in the black world. Otherwise, soon our adversaries would have them, and that must not happen.

This hypothesis maintains that these are advances conceived, engineered, tested and perfected not by extraterrestrials but entirely by Homo sapiens, the same species that has brought us nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, microchips, fiberoptics, lasers, radar, microwave ovens, jet propulsion, untold medical miracles, the Antikythera mechanism,  the Pantheon, the Mona Lisa, and so on and so forth.

No assist from space aliens needed!

About That Intelligence Officer’s Orb-UFO Reveal Getting So Much Attention: Why No Video or Photos? Modern Military Helicopters are Equipped with Advanced Camera Systems

Among the second tranche of UFO documents and videos released by the Trump administration on May 22, 2026, is a very compelling first-person account purportedly from a senior U.S. intelligence officer.

The brief document describes the encounter, which is said to have occurred in late 2025 at an unidentified U.S. military range somewhere in the country. According to the document, the intelligence officer and two pilots in a military helicopter were dispatched on a reconnaissance mission specifically to investigate sightings of orb-like UFOs. They supposedly experienced “a series of close UAP encounters lasting over an hour,” yet this report contains no video or photos.

The unidentified senior intelligence officer says in the report: “I didn’t take photos, as I was focused on assessing what it was and whether it posed a threat.”

It would seem highly unlikely to rely on one person sitting in a helicopter to record photos of such an astonishing event.

First of all, U.S. military reconnaissance and observation helicopters are equipped with highly advanced, turret-mounted camera systems. These systems allow crews to gather real-time intelligence from miles away, day or night. They have several distinct capabilities: infrared and thermal imaging, high-definition optical zoom, and cameras integrated with lasers that can calculate distances and illuminate targets.

Also, the report states military fighter jets also were involved in this encounter, and such aircraft would have been equipped with camera systems as well.

So, why were there no videos or photos accompanying this report? Perhaps the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) could address this?  Anyway, here is the text from the report, in brackets and quotation marks. I bolded some of the most salient details:

[“In late 2025, during early evening daylight hours, I – a senior U.S. intelligence officer – along with a colleague and two pilots, departed our Joint Operations Center (JOC) in a helicopter. Our mission was to investigate loud thuds heard in the mountains on the test range, which coincided with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings reported over the previous several nights. We aimed to search remote mountain areas for possible debris or objects that might explain the orb-like sightings.

After leaving the JOC, we flew a low-altitude “map of the earth” route through the mountain range for several hours. Multiple times, we spotted debris on the ground and descended for closer inspection. Each time, we determined it was remnants from rockets and other projectiles that had crashed during years of weapons testing on the range. As we continued searching near areas of reported orb activity, we discovered a large cave entrance with no visible end in sight. The terrain around the entrance offered no safe landing spot, so I instructed the pilot to orbit it several times for observation. We noted the location and then pressed on.

Running low on fuel, we headed to a prearranged rendezvous point to meet a ground team and let my colleague disembark. The two pilots and I then proceeded to a prepositioned tanker on the range for refueling. Our plan was to return to base afterward, but the JOC radioed with a request to search a nearby mountain for debris spotted by one of the ground teams. By this time, the sun had set, and the pilots switched to Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) and Night Vision Goggles (NVG), while I continued using the unaided naked eye.

After a brief search of the mountain yielded no findings, the pilots began navigating back to the JOC to end the mission. I then received a message from the JOC: radar had detected hits several miles up range from our position—the same area where UAP activity had been observed on prior nights. I relayed this to the pilots, and we altered course to intercept.  What followed was a series of close UAP encounters lasting over an hour.

En route, ground teams reported spotting a UAP on FLIR, describing it as “super-hot,” low to the ground, and moving east then south at high speed. The object then split into two and changed direction. Upon arrival, we scanned the area using NVG, FLIR, and the naked eye. The ground team suddenly radioed that the object had risen from the ground, approached within ten feet of the helicopter, dropped below us, and then sped away. The pilots observed it through NVGs and saw it split into two as a smaller object emerged before it accelerated out of sight. We briefly pursued but broke off, unable to match its speed. At one point, the JOC informed us that several fighter jets had launched on a training mission in our operating area and requested their assistance in identifying the UAP.

Minutes later, the JOC directed us to nearby radar detections. We took up a hovering position at approximately 700 feet above ground level (AGL). In the distance, we saw countless orange orbs swarming in all directions against the backdrop of the mountain. The display lasted several minutes before fading. The JOC then redirected us to our previous position based on fresh radar hits. I provided coordinates to the pilots, and we moved to intercept, hovering again at 700 feet AGL. Through NVGs, the pilots and I (using the naked eye) observed two large orbs flare up side by side, close to the helicopter—stationary and just above the rotor disk to our right. They were oval-shaped, orange with a white or yellow center, and emitted light in all directions.

After a few seconds, a third orb flared up below the pair, followed by a fourth below that, forming a total of four or five in a “T” formation under the original two. Moments later, they dimmed in reverse order, remaining stationary until they vanished from view. The entire event lasted 10–15 seconds. I didn’t take photos, as I was focused on assessing what it was and whether it posed a threat.

After this encounter, the pilots briefly considered landing due to the objects’ proximity but opted to remain hovering at 700 feet AGL for further observation. We then spotted the fighter jets entering visual range at about 23,000 feet AGL, identifiable by their blinking navigation lights. As watched from afar, the same type of orbs appeared directly above the fighters. They flared up one at a time in a horizontal formation, matching the jets’ speed and flight path. After 10–15 seconds, they dimmed sequentially and disappeared. This repeated several times as the jets transited the airspace and eventually landed. I remarked to the pilots that it seemed the same orbs we had encountered were now “chasing” the fighters. We also observed orange orbs flaring up and down around us for several minutes, forming a distinct triangle before vanishing. Low on fuel, the pilots decided to return to the JOC. After landing, I briefly spoke with them—mostly to express thanks. We were virtually speechless after these observations. I then entered the JOC for a quick debrief before driving home.”]

Regarding President Trump’s Order to Release the UFO/Alien Files: Let the Redactions Begin!

President Trump ordering the release of all UFO/space-alien records and documents at the Pentagon and various other federal agencies is the biggest crock I’ve heard in years.

First of all, the only people who will benefit from such a fiasco are the manufacturers of black ink, which will flow in copious volumes to support the multifarious redactions this will entail.

The notion that any one president could snap his or her fingers and demand transparency on this issue is laughable.

If you fall for this, you’re beyond gullible. When it comes to the entire subject of UFOs, the executive branch is not in control of public disclosure. Only the Pentagon can dictate such disclosure.

Since most, if not ALL, of the unsolved UFO cases on the books are rooted in top-secret U.S. military technologies, NOT extraterrestrials, these documents will NEVER be released to the public. They simply cannot be released to the public because doing so would constitute a breach of national security on a scale never before realized.

If people want to believe the UFO phenomenon is based on E.T. visitations, bless their hearts.

At any rate, I refer you to an excellent column by New York Times writer Ross Douthat, published today (Feb. 21, 2026)

Here is just a brief portion, bolded, in quotation marks and in brackets, and a link to his interesting piece. I encourage all to read his appraisal of the situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/opinion/obama-trump-aliens.html:

[“… Second, why has the national security state produced a steady supply of would-be whistle-blowers who claim to have encountered some sort of hidden “legacy program” dedicated to contact with nonhuman intelligence? Are these figures liars? Are they self-deceived, perhaps through some kind of misunderstanding of normal classified programs? Is this all just circulation of rumors associated with the former Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and his creation of a clandestine U.F.O.-studying group inside the Pentagon? Is it possible that some permanent government disinformation apparatus exists to encourage false U.F.O.-related beliefs in government officials? And if so, is it part of a continuing effort to deceive the public as well? … If it can’t or won’t resolve any of them, though, it will only strengthen my sense that parts of our government, for some unknown reason, are very happy to encourage Americans to wander in a strange and haunted fog.”]

Thank you Mr. Douthat, and if I may, let me be so presumptuous as to opine on what I believe the “unknown reason” is for keeping Americans in this disinformation-induced fog.

It is almost certainly because the Pentagon has developed advanced propulsion technologies far and away more capable than conventional systems, a secret so immense, a quantum leap so monumental, that it requires ANY means of subterfuge necessary to keep the public, and Congress, in the dark.

I am talking about, at the very least, some form of electromagnetic field propulsion system, the kind first witnessed by Kenneth Arnold in his seminal 1947 encounter in Washington state. The kind of propulsion advance that wowed then-President Harry Truman in a demonstration he himself likely ordered over Washington, D.C., in 1952. The kind that baffled and befuddled onlookers of giant delta-shaped UFOs over the Hudson Valley and Belgium in the 1980s and 1990s and over rural Illinois in the year 2000. The kind that shut down nuclear missile control systems when UFOs were inexplicably seen hovering over silos in the 1960s. The kind that was behind the confounding encounter of a disc-shaped craft seen floating over Chicago O’Hare International Airport in 2006, etc., etc., etc.

I propose that ALL of these instances represent tests of this kind of technology. A technology that isn’t new, but rather has been in development and refinement for many decades, hidden under the veil of the Pentagon’s burgeoning black budget. A technology that cannot be rolled out on the tarmac for the public to see because then, soon afterward, everyone would have it. Soon afterward, our adversaries would have it, and then we would longer enjoy a monopoly of this technology.

Anyway, let’s call this viewpoint the “terrestrial hypothesis” for UFOs, as opposed to the extraterrestrial hypothesis (i.e., the UFOs are space aliens), which has dominated the whole national conversation about this phenomenon since the beginning.

Well, then, the terrestrial hypothesis would suggest that the whole bizarre inventory of encounters involving U.S. military personnel and civilians alike have always been top-secret Pentagon technologies known only to a small circle with a “need to know.”

So, why the disinformation? Because as soon as you entangle the entire subject of UFOs within the rhetorical quagmire of space aliens you relegate the whole story to the fringe. The public and the media don’t take it seriously. The only people who do take it seriously are those who are already convinced that it’s E.T. or are just cynically profiting from the space-alien hype.

Over the decades, we’ve seen a series of books and articles by former military personnel who claim to have encountered extraterrestrials. It’s a legacy that in my opinion goes back many years and includes The Day After Roswell, published in 1997. (If you are interested, please read my review of The Day After Roswell, which I regard as a masterpiece of disinformation, here, https://emilvenere.com/files/138490884.pdf)

The goal of this disinformation is not necessarily to convince people that the UFOs are extraterrestrial, but to muddy the whole subject, to distract people who might otherwise suspect that the Pentagon has achieved amazing propulsion breakthroughs that would be highly disruptive if they became known to the public. Breakthroughs that have nothing to do with extraterrestrials, but that were dreamed up and perfected by the same species that has brought us a host of other powerful innovations, from nuclear weapons to lasers, microchips to advanced medical imaging and so on and so forth.

No assist from space aliens needed!

As to why the Pentagon would sometimes be flying these weapons over populated areas, perhaps it’s real-world training, a “living lab” to hone tactics and to study how well they perform against state-of-the-art, white-world technologies like F-16s. There have been examples of military training exercises taking place over populated areas. This excellent article in The War Zone documents one such exercise over Los Angeles: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38753/those-mysterious-gray-helicopters-were-landing-on-multiple-downtown-la-rooftops-last-night

Anyway, this terrestrial hypothesis for UFOs leads to many follow-up questions and concerns, chief among them: Is there a shadow space program that runs parallel to NASA and the Space Force that is far more capable than either of those entities? If so, how far have we gone? Do we have military bases in deep space?  Are any of these top-secret platforms nuclear-powered? Have we gone interstellar?

Obama’s Aliens-are-Real Episode Illustrates a Sad Truth: Presidents Don’t Have a ‘Need to Know’ About UFOs, and These Objects Likely Aren’t E.T.

All the online excitement over former President Barack Obama’s whimsical remark that aliens are real, only to witness him walking it back in a clarification the next day, only serves to illustrate that presidents don’t know anything when it comes to UFOs. Presidents, at least those in the modern era, aren’t told what’s going on, and they are just as much in the dark about the phenomenon as is the general public.

Taking this line of reasoning a step further, the whole Obama episode might serve to support the hypothesis that the UFOs have nothing to do with space aliens but have always been entirely a product of human ingenuity.

Anyway, here is one retelling of Obama’s statements, as reported in The Guardian newspaper, excerpted in bold print and enclosed in brackets, and a link to the article, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast:

[In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a speed round of questioning where the host asks guests quick questions and the guests respond with brief answers.

After he was asked “Are aliens real?”, Obama said: “They’re real but I haven’t seen them.”

He went on: “They’re not being kept at Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

… However, following the media frenzy, Obama released a statement on Instagram on Sunday evening.

“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”]

Let’s all get one thing straight: UFOs are very real, but they’re not necessarily synonymous with extraterrestrials. There have been too many examples of credible witnesses observing them, often at close range.

To support this fact, I will note just a few high-profile encounters from UFO lore.

In the 1960s UFOs were observed hovering over U.S. nuclear missile launch facilities. During these encounters, the launch-control systems were shut down, and there has been much speculation over the years that space aliens were involved. However, the Wall Street Journal in 2025 revealed that these encounters actually stemmed from a Defense Department operation. The Journal revealed that the Pentagon ran these top-secret electromagnetic tests over U.S. nuclear missile systems to learn whether the nuclear bunkers would still function if they received a direct hit from Soviet nukes. This fact, however, was never revealed to the public.

In the year 2000 police officers from several jurisdictions in rural Illinois encountered a large delta- or triangular-shaped object moving slowly at low altitude and then suddenly darting around the night sky. The object accelerated instantaneously, and I have proposed the technology might have been using the Casimir effect.

One of the officers took a photo of the object with his Polaroid camera, and although the photo is very low quality, it does reveal an object in the sky. It was there. So, this object was quite real, but rather than jumping automatically to the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs, it would be wise to first exhaust ALL other possible explanations.

The one possible explanation that I have been fixated on for years is that the Pentagon has possibly developed a range of extraordinary advances in propulsion that have been kept from the public ever since the first important UFO encounter after World War II, that of Kenneth Arnold in 1947.

I further propose that the UFOs over Washington, D.C., in 1952 were likely the result of a deliberate test ordered by then-president Harry Truman, who ordered a similar demonstration of the Flying Wing aircraft a few years earlier, when the aircraft flew at low altitude over our nation’s capital. I suggest that he likely ordered the 1952 operation to determine whether platforms equipped with an advanced field propulsion system could out-maneuver conventional aircraft. I further propose that the reason these encounters happened on two separate occasions exactly one week apart was that the president was not satisfied with the first flyover and wanted to see how well these platforms would perform against state-of-the-art jet fighters.  

There are so many other examples of UFO encounters involving credible witnesses that have yet to be adequately explained.

At any rate, whether we want to believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs or the terrestrial hypothesis for UFOs, the fact remains that there isn’t a shred of solid evidence supporting the former. That means either hypothesis carries equal weight.

I Agree With Elon Musk: UFOs Are Real, But They Have Nothing To Do With Space Aliens

Interesting to see Elon Musk repeating previous statements casting serious doubt on the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs.

His latest comments came during a Katie Miller podcast, as reported in this article in the International Business Times on Dec. 12, 2025.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/musk-claims-ufos-are-not-aliens-they-could-new-weapons-program-1762436

Here are the most relevant bits from the article, bold and in brackets:

[‘I have seen no evidence of aliens,’ Musk told Miller, before addressing the notion that a major player like SpaceX might be withholding cosmic knowledge. He confirmed he had directly questioned his highest-level staff. ‘No one on the SpaceX senior team has any evidence of aliens … For Musk, these mysterious objects aren’t vehicles from another star system, but rather terrestrial prototypes developed by governments right here on Earth, likely the US government. His assessment is cold, cynical, and centred firmly on national security, suggesting these are not interstellar explorers but rather advanced military hardware.

‘UFOs… it could be like a new weapons programme… or hypersonic missiles. It’s just basically a weapons prototype. It’s not aliens.’]

So, this would suggest that all of UFO sightings and encounters reported by everyone from Gordon Cooper to Jimmy Carter were actually top-secret Pentagon platforms known only to a small circle of people with the appropriate classification status.

In other words, hardly anyone really has a need to know because these technologies are so important to the national defense.

This is a viewpoint that I share, but it doesn’t explain why we have numerous former U.S. military personnel going on national television claiming to have evidence that these UFOs are extraterrestrial.

However, there is one very plausible reason for this: A concerted, organized and professional-grade disinformation program designed to confuse the public and journalists alike about the nature of these vehicles. After all, if it’s E.T., then it couldn’t be the Pentagon. The secret remains safe.

Why would such a disinformation program be warranted?

Because the secret is so profound, the breakthroughs in propulsion (which have nothing to do with extraterrestrials) are so sensational, that keeping these technologies hidden from the public is a major priority. Once the secret is out, it wouldn’t be long before everyone would figure it out, much as other nations acquired nuclear weapons after World War II.

At the same time, we are not seeing this kind of disinformation in any other country. Now, why is that? Perhaps because there isn’t a need for it in any other country.

People have asked the perfectly logical question: If the United States possessed such a propulsion advance, why not use it, to, say, beat China back to the Moon. The reason is quite simple: because then it would be out, and then soon everyone would have it.

So, you see, these platforms cannot be employed for any overt purposes.

Based on the historical record, it would seem that these propulsion breakthroughs go all the way back to the first truly important UFO sighting, that of Kenneth Arnold in 1947.

If is my hypothesis that the sightings of 1952 over Washington, D.C., were likely a technology test ordered by then President Harry Truman, much as he had earlier ordered a test of the Flying Wing aircraft, when the experimental plane flew at low altitude over our nation’s capital in 1949. (I explore this idea in my novel Flying Saucers.)

You might say this is a crazy idea, but is it any crazier than space aliens traveling trillions of miles from another solar system, only to forget how to land, crashing not once, but numerous times?

It’s worth noting that the only time in spaceflight history that humans landed on another planetary body we managed to do so without crashing, and more than once. That’s what that whole ‘The Eagle has landed” thing was all about.

We know the UFOs are real. They are not a figment of anyone’s imagination. I will point to just one case, that of the giant triangular craft spotted by police offices in rural Illinois in 2000. It was observed at low altitude by cops, one of whom took a photo of it with his Polaroid camera. Granted, the photo is blurred, but you don’t try to take a photo of an illusion or a hallucination. You just don’t.

Moreover, Musk suggests these sightings are possibly “prototypes,” but I would suggest these are not prototypes but fully operational platforms. The “tic tac” encounter was in 2004, so if it was a prototype then, it surely wouldn’t be by now. Anyway, that’s my take on the mysterious realm of UFOs, which continues and is very real.

Wall Street Journal Blows Lid Off Pentagon’s UFO Disinformation Machine. The American People, and the UFO Community, Have Been Had!

The Wall Street Journal has conducted an investigation that has revealed a Pentagon UFO disinformation effort going back decades aimed at making people think the objects are extraterrestrial to distract from top-secret U.S. military programs.

Here is one retelling of the Journal’s investigation, posted on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1l58uui/wsj_the_pentagon_disinformation_that_fueled/

Among the major takeaways:

  • The Pentagon has been issuing UFO disinformation for decades to distract from top-secret programs.
  • Incoming military officials have been the victims of UFO “hazing,” a practice in which they are fed disinformation to make them think top-secret programs are reverse-engineered extraterrestrial tech.
  • Bizarre UFO encounters over U.S. missile installations in the 1960s were top-secret Pentagon tests to determine whether the silos would be vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses from Russian nukes. Even the officials who operate the installations did not know about the secret tests, leading them to think all these years that it was E.T.
  • The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, omitted revelations about the Pentagon disinformation efforts in its big report released last year, but the information in some redacted form will be included in the next report from AARO, whenever that’s going to be released.

MAJOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:

  • The electromagnetic test apparatus used over the nuclear missile launch facilities was suspended from or housed within some kind of platform. What was that platform?
  • What are all of the other top-secret programs that were being protected by disinformation? Were any of these new or different types of propulsion systems that might appear to be from an alien planet if you didn’t know otherwise?
  • Is the Pentagon UFO disinformation continuing to this day? So, are some of the people who have been testifying recently before Congress agents of the Pentagon disinformation machine?
  • Is the disinformation being used to hide the existence of a host of top-secret programs in aviation and space travel? If so, is there a shadow space program that runs parallel to NASA and the Space Force but is far more capable than either of those entities.
  • Have all of the major UFO encounters and sightings over the decades stemmed from top-secret U.S. technologies, starting with Kenneth Arnold’s sighting in 1947 and the UFOs over Washington, D.C., in 1952?

‘Vetted’ Podcast and Rogan Interview Acknowledge That Pentagon UFO Disinformation Likely Aims to Distract from Top-Secret Military Programs

I noticed this item in a recent edition of Vetted: The UFO Sleuth podcast and YouTube show.

https://www.vetted.show/episodes/bombshell-allegations-against-hal-puthoff-this-changes-everything

It summarizes a recent interview by Joe Rogan focusing on UFO disinformation: who is likely doing it and why they are likely doing it.

Here are the main points from the Vetted blog as I see them, in brackets, quote marks and bold print.

 [“Why would government agencies want to confuse and mislead the public—and their own citizens—about UFOs? The answer is as complex as the web itself. According to Gentile, and as recounted by Patrick, the U.S. government (and presumably others) may be more invested in safeguarding advanced technology than in revealing any “alien” truths. These disinformation campaigns are not just random acts—they’re strategic moves to distract researchers and keep prying eyes away from sensitive projects.

“…Even now, stories are planted, personalities are manipulated, and the public is kept guessing … There’s a sad irony in all this: those most passionate about the search for truth are often the ones most misled. The frustration expressed by AJ and echoed by Patrick is palpable. Wouldn’t we be farther along in understanding the phenomenon if not for years—decades—of calculated misdirection?”]

To this, I say, amen!

Of course the Pentagon has been creating and distributing UFO disinformation – not only to the public at large but evidently to Congress  as well – and there can be only one logical reason for this: to confuse the public about the development of astonishing propulsion breakthroughs by the U.S. government going all the way back to the 1940s.

There have been numerous examples of credible sightings of aerospace platforms that are based on a different type of propulsion system than conventional technologies, encounters that roughly began in the United States with Kenneth Arnold’s seminal sighting in 1947.

So, I would propose that the Pentagon has likely developed various top-secret propulsion platforms, entirely unknown to the public and developed over the past seven decades or so, thanks to a burgeoning “black budget” that keeps these programs hidden from Congress.

Logically, then, let’s assume that if you observe something ON planet Earth, it is probably OF planet Earth. Let’s further assume, therefore, that all of the UFOs encountered over the decades are of terrestrial origin: Some nation on Earth has developed a different kind of propulsion tech, and possibly more than one novel type of propulsion system.

Because these sightings began during the immediate postwar period, the most logical conclusion, then, is that it’s the United States that has developed these systems.

Anyway, let’s call this viewpoint the “terrestrial hypothesis” for UFOs, as opposed to the extraterrestrial hypothesis (i.e., the UFOs are space aliens), which has dominated the whole national conversation about this phenomenon since the beginning.

Well, then, the terrestrial hypothesis would suggest that a whole bizarre inventory of encounters involving U.S. military personnel and civilians alike have always been top-secret Pentagon technologies known only to a small circle with a “need to know.” Everything from those flying saucers over Washington, D.C., in 1952 (possibly a demonstration ordered by President Truman, much as he had ordered a similar demonstration of the flying wing aircraft in 1949), to the UFOs that disabled nuclear missile launch systems in the 1960s (possibly a new type of antimissile system being tested by the Pentagon but unknown to most military personnel), the huge triangular thing observed over the Hudson Valley in the 1980s, the “Phoenix lights” in 1997, another huge triangular thing encountered by police officers in rural Illinois in 2000, the “Tic Tac” craft encountered by U.S. Navy pilots in 2004, the flying disc over Chicago O’Hare in 2006, etc., etc.

Why the disinformation? Because as soon as you entangle the entire subject of UFOs within the rhetorical quagmire of space aliens you relegate the whole story to the fringe. The public and the media don’t take it seriously. The only people who do take it seriously are those who are already convinced that it’s E.T. or are just cynically profiting off the space-alien hype.

Over the decades, we’ve seen a series of books and articles by former military personnel who claim to have encountered extraterrestrials. It’s a legacy that in my opinion goes back many years and includes The Day After Roswell, published in 1997. (If you are interested, please read my review of The Day After Roswell, which I regard as a masterpiece of disinformation, here, https://emilvenere.com/files/138490884.pdf)

The goal of this disinformation is not necessarily to convince people that the UFOs are extraterrestrial, but to muddy the whole subject, to distract people who might otherwise suspect that the Pentagon has achieved amazing propulsion breakthroughs that would be highly disruptive if they became known to the public. Breakthroughs that have nothing to do with extraterrestrials, but that were dreamed up and perfected by the same species that has brought us a host of other powerful innovations, from nuclear weapons to lasers, microchips to advanced medical imaging and so on and so forth.

No assist from space aliens needed!

As to why the Pentagon would sometimes be flying these weapons over populated areas, perhaps it’s real-world training, a “living lab” to hone tactics and to study how well they perform against state-of-the-art, white-world technologies like F-16s. There have been examples of military training exercises taking place over populated areas. This excellent article in The War Zone documents one such exercise over Los Angeles: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38753/those-mysterious-gray-helicopters-were-landing-on-multiple-downtown-la-rooftops-last-night

Anyway, this terrestrial hypothesis for UFOs leads to many follow-up questions and concerns, chief among them: Is there a shadow space program that runs parallel to NASA and the Space Force that is far more capable than either of those entities? If so, how far have we gone? Do we have military bases in deep space?  Are any of these top-secret platforms nuclear-powered? Have we gone interstellar?