Tag: close encounters

Former Defense Officials Raise Concerns About Unexplained Drone And UAP Threats To U.S. Airspace

Former senior defense officials issued stark warnings to lawmakers Thursday about intensifying threats posed by unattributed drone incursions and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) reported around the U.S. — particularly over military bases, assets, and nuclear facilities.

“I don’t think the public is aware of the extent of our airspace vulnerabilities and failures, and the degree to which they’ve already been exploited and are being exploited today, and the challenge that we face in trying to sort this out,” Christopher Mellon, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, said during an event hosted on Capitol Hill by the UAP Disclosure Fund and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Across multiple sessions at the hourslong summit, Mellon and other national security and research experts — including Dr. Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor, and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, former oceanographer of the Navy — spotlighted recent incidents involving UAP and drones impacting military and civilian infrastructure. 

They also called on Congress to introduce new investments and proposals to help confront challenges associated with the Pentagon’s detection capabilities and what they view as the over-classification of certain UAP records and data.

The U.S. government has a long, complicated history dealing with technologies observed to perform in ways that seem to transcend what’s possible with contemporary capabilities. But with mounting pressure from the public and high-profile proponents over the past decade, Congress has made a series of recent moves to destigmatize the UAP topic, and more strategically investigate perplexing encounters with unidentifiable craft — including by requiring the Pentagon to launch the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) via the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

At the event Thursday, Mellon and other expert panelists praised that recent progress, but argued that further coordination and accountability measures are needed.

“One of my career frustrations in the intelligence community has been that we have incredible sensors that are far more than $1 billion dollars, and we have a great many of them, and they are collecting information today which is directly pertinent to this topic,” Mellon said. “But that information is not reaching Congress. It’s not reaching the scientific community. In many cases, I don’t think it’s reaching AARO, which is the office that Congress established to study and evaluate this phenomenon.” 

He recommended that the lawmakers in attendance consider mandating a U.S. government- and military-wide assessment of sensor systems collecting data that could support ongoing UAP examinations — as well as an evaluation of classification issues that are preventing the release of unclassified data.

Mellon noted that shortly after he provided three unclassified videos of reported UAP incursions captured by military personnel to the New York Times in 2017, “somebody created the classification guide” inside the government and “we suddenly said, ‘in contradiction to the executive order on classification signed by the president, that essentially, anything having to do with UAP is now suddenly mystically classified because it might damage national security.’”

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New footage shows the mystery Tic Tac UFOs that rise from the Pacific Ocean and photographed by the Navy

When a UFO expert released a new video showing the infamous Tic Tac aircraft, it revealed bombshell theories about the phenomena.

Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and filmmaker, has once again ignited public debate over UFOs since footage captured aboard the USS Jackson in 2023.

The video released on April 8, after a multi-year verification process, shows what Corbell and military witnesses describe as a ‘self-luminous, wingless, tailless’ craft rising from the Pacific Ocean.

But Corbell insists the new footage is far from an isolated event and says it fits a broader and increasingly alarming pattern: repeated sightings of intelligently controlled craft that defy known aerodynamics, appear regularly in the same offshore military training zone, and may originate from below the ocean’s surface.

According to the expert , the 2023 incident echoes two other major military encounters: the 2004 Nimitz sighting and a lesser-known but well-documented 2019 event in which a swarm of UAPs surrounded ten Navy warships over multiple nights.

The new footage, Corbell argues, is not a standalone revelation but part of a growing body of evidence pointing to intelligently controlled craft – capable of transmedian travel (moving seamlessly through space, air, and water) – that have repeatedly appeared over decades in the same region, warning Area 291, off the coast of Southern California. 

The 2023 release was supported by a new military witness: an active-duty U.S. Navy combat information center operator who claims to have seen the object rise from the ocean with his own eyes. 

Corbell and paranormal journalist George Knapp, known for handling sensitive testimonies, vetted the witness and aligned his account with radar data and forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imagery.

The Navy vet tracked the object using the ship’s high-powered Sapphire FLIR thermal-targeting system. Radar detected four unknown targets in the area, though two were captured on video. 

According to the witness, all four UAPs performed an instantaneous, synchronized maneuver – shooting off simultaneously without visible propulsion, suggesting intelligent coordination.

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Navy crew reports dramatic encounter eerily similar to iconic ‘Tic Tac’ incident

Sailors aboard a U.S. Navy warship off the coast of Southern California reported having a dramatic encounter with four unknown objects that seemingly flew away in a synchronized formation.

That formation seemed eerily similar to the now-famous “Tic Tac” object seen in those same waters in 2004 and investigated by a secret government program based in Las Vegas.

It appears the “Tic Tac” is back, or maybe never left, as the crew members aboard the USS Jackson said that they saw four of the oddly shaped craft, one of which emerged from the ocean.

The sailors were able to record video of two of the “Tic Tacs” as they appeared on a thermal sensor in the ship’s command center. That video was made public Tuesday in a podcast that 8 News Now Investigator George Knapp co-hosts and is likely to rekindle questions about who is piloting these objects.

When Navy aviators first encountered a “Tic Tac” shaped object off the coast of Southern California in 2004, it was largely ignored until 2008 when a new UFO program based in Las Vegas learned about the incident.

The program, dubbed AAWSAP, was launched by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), with support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Bigelow Aerospace as the contractor.

As it turns out, the 2004 “Tic Tac” is pretty much identical to the 2023 model. In February 2023, crew members aboard the Navy’s USS Jackson saw an illuminated object emerge from the ocean off the coast of Southern California — in the same general area where the original “Tic Tac” was seen.

Inside the ship’s command center, the sailors saw a familiar shape on the thermal sensor. The thermal system, known as Safire, is a heat sensor, not a camera. A closer look showed that there were two of the objects, not just one. The witness said they saw four “Tic Tacs” in formation.

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Chilling declassified CIA file reveals aliens committed ‘revenge massacre’ after UFO was shot down

According to the report, Soviet troops shot down a flying saucer hovering over the Soviet military unit in Siberia roughly 35 years ago, and what happened next was truly terrifying.

In the document, summarizing a 250-page top secret file acquired by US intelligence agents, eyewitnesses said five aliens climbed out of their wrecked craft, combined themselves into one creature, exploded in a burst of intense energy, and turned 23 soldiers into solid rock.

One CIA official referred to the shocking battle as ‘a horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze.’ 

The agency added that the ‘extremely menacing case’ proved the aliens who visited Earth possessed weapons and technology far beyond the US government’s ‘assumptions’ – suggesting they were already aware of the aliens’ existence.

The unearthed document, declassified in 2000, was recently the topic of the AI or Evil podcast, where host Josh Hooper revealed that two of the soldiers at the UFO crash site actually survived the encounter.

However, the 23 ‘petrified soldiers’ could not be saved. Their remains and the debris from the spacecraft were reportedly moved to a secret research base near Moscow.

An even more concerning detail of the CIA file is the description of the aliens reportedly involved in this massacre, who have been mentioned in UFO reports and sightings for nearly 80 years.

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JFK advisor reveals US Navy secretly shot and retrieved ‘orb’ UFO during 1962 missile test

An ‘orb’ UFO was shot out the sky and retrieved by the US Navy during a 1962 missile test, a former top aide to four US presidents revealed. 

Harald Malmgren was a senior advisor to John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford.

The retired government official said he was briefed by top CIA and Atomic Energy Commission officials on a videotaped missile test that took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, during which the shocking UFO incident occurred.

Malmgren’s daughter, economist Dr. Pippa Malmgren, herself a former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, revealed the details of her father’s story on her blog last week, after the veteran presidential aide passed away on February 13 aged 89.

She said before his death, her father had recently decided to tell his full story ‘for the sake of history’.

Harald described a video of a missile test launch from October 25, 1962, in which a mysterious ‘white orb’ can be seen flying in circles around the rocket as it speeds through the air.

The missile was equipped with what Pippa described as ‘an X-ray machine in the nosecone’, designed to use radiation to disable an incoming enemy nuclear missile.

But the test missile’s intense X-ray burst appeared to disable the UFO too.

‘The X-rays knocked it out of the sky. The US Navy retrieved the orb out of the ocean,’ Pippa wrote in her March 18 blog post, recounting her father’s story.

And it wasn’t the first time an orb had been spotted chasing a US missile, according to Harald.

‘We called them ‘tagalongs,’ Harald said, according to the blog post. ‘We knocked a “tagalong” out of the sky.’

Pippa said her father was briefed on the incident because he was in charge of the budget for the missile testing program, as a top White House and Pentagon official.

‘Before my father recently passed away, he went on record explaining what he knew about all this because he felt it was important for the sake of history,’ she said.

Harald, who was active on social media site X even in his final months, alluded to the incident in a tweet last August.

’60+ years ago I was provided highest level classifications to lead DOD [Department of Defense] work on nuclear weapons and antimissile defense,’ he wrote.

‘Informally briefed on “otherworld technologies” by CIA’s Richard Bissell (who had been in charge of Skunkworks, Area 51, Los Alamos, etc.) but sworn to secrecy.

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Was that a UFO above this Florida town Saturday? Shape-shifting object has some wondering

A shape-shifting, slowly turning object hovered high above Green Cove Springs on Saturday afternoon, leaving many to speculate about it.

The morphing, black object was high above just west of U.S. 17 and south of County Road 315, slowly heading south. It made no noise and was at least a few hundred feet off the ground.

At times the shape was like a spacecraft while it also looked like a turtle shell, a ball inside with white outline that almost looked like a mouth and teeth.

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The Phoenix Lights: 28 years later, the mystery endures

On the night of March 13, 1997, thousands of Arizonans looked up and saw something they couldn’t explain—a massive, V-shaped formation of lights hovering in the sky.

Twenty-eight years later, the Phoenix Lights remain one of the most infamous UFO sightings in U.S. history, fueling speculation, debate, and ongoing scientific curiosity.

Among those who witnessed the phenomenon firsthand was Dr. Lynne Kitei, a former medical professional who was so profoundly impacted that she left her career in medicine to study the lights full-time.

“They have become the most witnessed, the most documented, the most anomalous aerial sighting in modern history, if not all of history,” said Kitei, founder of the Phoenix Lights Network.

Kitei recalls the day vividly, describing how two lower orbs appeared to hover motionlessly.

“It was just bizarre. Again, I’m a healthy skeptic, but I was seeing something that was so extraordinary.”

While some, like Kitei, are convinced that the lights were something beyond our current understanding, others believe there is a more earthly explanation.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, points out that the southwest sees an unusually high UFO reports—coinciding with the region’s large number of Air Force bases, frequent military flights, and clear skies.

“You know, the Southwest generates a lot of UFO sightings, and it’s not coincidental,” Impey explained. He says he tends to believe the more conventional theory that the Phoenix Lights could have been A-10 aircraft flying in a chevron formation, followed by military flares.

And sometimes, he adds, people may just be seeing the planet Venus.

“After sunset, you’ll see it low on the horizon, and with atmospheric effects, it might look like it’s moving or hovering. That’s a classic UFO sighting.”

Kitei, however, remains unconvinced.

“The impact it made on the witnesses themselves is so compelling,” she said. “It cannot be explained.”

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FOIA-Released Emails Mention Alleged Triangular UAP Photo; Former UAP Task Force Director Speaks Out

Newly released documents obtained by The Black Vault through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) under case 21-F-0299 reveal email exchanges within the Department of Defense (DoD) discussing a photograph reportedly showing a triangular Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) emerging from the ocean. The FOIA request was originally filed in December 2020. Along with these documents, John “Jay” Stratton, former Director of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), has now spoken exclusively to The Black Vault about this claim, offering brand-new clarification that no such photograph depicting a triangular craft emerging from the ocean was ever received by the UAPTF.

The long-rumored photograph in question gained significant attention following a December 2020 article by The Debrief, which described an “extremely clear” image of a large triangular object with rounded edges and white spherical lights in each corner. According to the article, the photograph was allegedly taken in 2019 by an F/A-18 fighter pilot after the object emerged from the ocean and ascended vertically. The story quickly became one of the most talked-about pieces of evidence that the DoD was allegedly withholding, with references by public figures such as Luis Elizondo which fueled widespread discussion across social media.

The FOIA-released emails, dated December 3 and 4, 2020, show internal communication within the DoD discussing The Debrief article. In one email addressed to Susan Gough (her name is redacted in the “to:” line but not in the body of the email), someone (name redacted) from the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) office states, “Jay [Stratton] tells me the photo is part of the active investigation, so it would probably be withheld from release for that reason.”

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UFO alert in Türkiye’s Gaziantep: Flights halted

Flights were suspended at Gaziantep Airport on Monday night after pilots reported a luminous, unidentified flying object (UFO).

At around 10:00 p.m. local time (GMT+3), pilots of an aircraft reported spotting a bright, unidentified object at an altitude of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 feet.

UFO alert in Türkiye’s 6th biggest city led to a brief chaos at the airport. Gaziantep is located in southeastern Türkiye, near the Syrian border.

The object, which did not appear on radar, was reported to air traffic control, prompting authorities to halt flights as a precaution.

One Turkish expert claimed that the light might be coming from a Starlink satellite.

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Bizarre ‘Plasma Jellybean’ UFO Spotted Over Oklahoma City

An Oklahoma City man captured mystifying footage and photos of a bizarre UFO that he likened to a jellybean filled with plasma. According to a local media report, the odd sighting occurred on January 25th as Chris Frederick and his wife were about to head out for dinner. Their Saturday evening excursion came to a sudden stop when they reached their driveway and received a call from a concerned neighbor who had spotted something unusual in the sky. A buzz soon swept through the neighborhood, recounted Frederick, “before long, we were all standing out in the street and had our phones out.”

What captivated the witnesses was a peculiar glowing object behaving strangely in the sky. In footage captured by Frederick, he can be heard describing the UFO as the sighting unfolded. “I don’t hear anything, and something is moving in erratic ways,” he marveled, “it’s in the shape of a jellybean, but the interior was like plasma.” The couple’s dinner plans were now decidedly delayed as a curious Frederick decided to deploy his drone to get a better look at the aerial anomaly. However, adding another layer of mystery to the case, his UAV immediately experienced a series of weird issues.

“My controller talks to me,” he recalled, “and it said, ‘unable to take off, electromagnetic interference.'” After several subsequent attempts to launch the drone, he finally managed to get the craft airborne to about 1,000 feet beneath the UFO. From there, the UAV snapped three tantalizing photos, because the device’s video capability was inexplicably disabled, before almost immediately running out of power. “It had a fresh battery in it, it has a 35-minute flight life,” Frederick said, “and as soon as I took those three pictures, my controller said, ‘low battery, return to home.'”

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