Official Statements
The following is a carefully curated compilation of various public quotes gathered from government officials, experienced pilots, and numerous other individuals from the wider public realm. Each of these enlightening quotes originates from reputable sources, ensuring their credibility. Furthermore, all quotes are supported with a direct link to their official publications, whether they stem from authoritative printed news articles, insightful media interviews, or reliable online sources.
We have things flying over our military bases and places where we’re conducting military exercises and we don't know what it is and it isn't ours...
— Marco Rubio
US Senator (R)
7/16/2020 | Fox News
I think some of the phenomena we’re seeing continues to be unexplained and might... constitute a different form of life.
— John Brennan
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
12/16/2020 | Podcast
Usually we have multiple sensors picking up these things... There are a lot more sightings than have been made public... Objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or in satellite imagery, that engage in actions that... we don't have the technology for, or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom... Technologies that we don’t have and, frankly, that we are not capable of defending against.
— John Ratcliffe
Director National Intelligence
3/22/2021 | Fox News
So it's not us, that's one thing we know. I could say that with very high degree of confidence in part because of the positions I held in the department...
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/16/2021 | 60 Minutes
There is footage and records of objects in the skies. We don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.
— Barack Obama
US President (D)
5/19/2021 | Late Late Show with James Corden
I don’t know what it is, but any time you have legitimate pilots describing something that doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics that govern aviation and is in US airspace, I think It’s something we need to get to the bottom of... If there is a foreign government that had these kinds of capabilities, I think we would see other indications of advanced technology. I can't imagine that what has been described or shown in some of the videos belongs to any government that I'm aware of... I have no idea what it is but I think we should figure it out.
— Martin Heinrich
US Senator (D)
5/21/21 | TMZ
There are things flying around out there that we haven’t fully identified yet.
— Bill Clinton
US President (D)
6/8/2021 | Live with Kelly and Mark
That leaves aliens, which we presume it probably is. Although I don't wanna go too far here.
— Ben Rhodes
Deputy National Security Adviser
6/30/2021 | Podcast
We were able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The other [143] remain unexplained... Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.
We currently lack data to indicate any UAP are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary... Some UAP observations could be attributable to developments and classified programs by U.S. entities. We were unable to confirm, however, that these systems accounted for any of the [144] UAP reports we collected.
— Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena 2021
6/25/2021 | Report to Congress
Well I don't believe they are coming from foreign adversaries. Why if there were that would suggest they have a technology that is in a whole different sphere than anything we understand, and frankly China and Russia just aren't there, and neither are we by the way...
— Mitt Romney
US Senator (R)
Former Presidential Nominee
6/27/2021 | CNN
We hope it’s not an adversary here on Earth that has that kind of technology. But it’s something.
— Bill Nelson
NASA Administrator
10/19/2021 | UVA Center for Politics
There’s always the question of ‘is there something else that we simply do not understand, that might come extraterrestrially?’
— Avril Haines
Director of National Intelligence
11/16/2021 | Washington Post
It's clear that the majority, that many of the observations that we have are physical objects from the sensor data... We haven't had a collision. We have had at least 11 near misses.
— Scott Bray
Deputy Director Navy Intelligence
5/17/2022 | Congressional hearings
There are so many of us now on the intel committee and armed services that we're going to stand by the service members who documented this stuff. They have video. They have radar. They have heat sensors. They have everything.
— Kirsten Gillibrand
US Senator (D)
Committee on Armed Services
8/26/2022 | Twitter
UAP continue to represent a hazard to flight safety and pose a possible adversary collection threat. Since the publication of the ODNI preliminary assessment in June 2021, UAP reporting has increased, partially due to a concentrated effort to destigmatize the topic of UAP and instead recognize the potential risks that it poses as both a safety of flight hazard and potential adversarial activity. Whereas there were previously 144 UAP reports covered during the 17 years of UAP reporting included in the ODNI preliminary assessment on UAP, there have been 247 more UAP reports during the 17 months since.
— Office of the Director of National Intelligence
2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
1/12/2023 | Report to Congress
Advanced objects demonstrating advanced technology are routinely flying over our restricted or sensitive airspace posing a risk to both flight safety & national security.
— Marco Rubio
US Senator (R)
2/28/2023 | Twitter
In the coming days, I will launch Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA), a new advocacy organization for aerospace safety and national security. ASA will support pilots and other aerospace professionals who are reporting UAP. Our goal is to demand more disclosure from our public officials about this significant safety and national security problem... If the phenomena I witnessed with my own eyes turns out to be foreign drones, they pose an urgent threat to national security and airspace safety. If they are something else, it must be a scientific priority to find out.
— Ryan Graves
Founder, Americans for Safe Aerospace
Former F/A-18 pilot
2/28/2023 | Politico
We see these [‘metallic orbs’] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.
— Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick
Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
5/31/2023 | NASA IST Briefing
The [UAP Disclosure Act of 2023] introduced as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that will be on the Senate floor next week, would direct the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to create a collection of records to be known as the UAP Records Collection and direct every government office to identify which records would fall into the collection. The UAP Records Collection would carry the presumption of immediate disclosure, which means that a review board would have to provide a reasoning for the documents to stay classified...
Former Majority Leader Harry Reid sponsored a project to investigate incidents surrounding UAPs. After that project became public, Senators, Congressmen, committees, and staff began to pursue this issue and uncovered a vast web of individuals and groups with ideas and stories to share. While these stories have varying levels of credibility, the sheer number and variety has led some in Congress to believe that the Executive Branch was concealing important information regarding UAPs over broad periods of time. Congress recognizes that these records – if they exist – were likely concealed under the good faith goal of protecting national security. However, hiding that information from both Congress and the public at large is simply unacceptable. Our goal is to work cooperatively with the executive branch to responsibly disclose these documents and bring the topic into the public sphere in a process that the American people can trust.
— U.S. Senate
Joint bipartisan statement from Senators Schumer, Rounds, Rubio, Gillibrand, Young and Heinrich
7/14/2023 | Press Release
For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time they get some answers. The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public. I am honored to carry on the legacy of my mentor and dear friend, Harry Reid and fight for the transparency that the public has long demanded surround these unexplained phenomena.
— Chuck Schumer
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
7/14/2023 | Press Release
A number of these [whistleblowers] believe and have stated — and we believe them now — that they have seen something. And we are investigating.
— Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick
Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
7/20/2023 | ABC News
I can tell you that advanced UAP are a national security and an aviation safety problem. It has been more than a decade since my squadron began witnessing advanced UAP demonstrating complex maneuvers on a regular basis, and we still don’t have answers. I founded Americans for Safe Aerospace to create a center of support, research, and public education for aircrew impacted by UAP encounters... Today, I would like to center our discussion around three critical issues that demand our immediate attention and concerted action... As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported... The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security... The government knows more about UAP than shared publicly, and excessive classification practices keep crucial information hidden.
— Ryan Graves
Founder, Americans for Safe Aerospace
Former F/A-18 pilot
7/26/23 | Testimony to Congress
In 2019, the UAPTF director tasked me to identify all Special Access Programs & Controlled Access Programs (SAPs/CAPs) we needed to satisfy our congressionally mandated mission. At the time, due to my extensive executive-level intelligence support duties, I was cleared to literally all relevant compartments and in a position of extreme trust in both my military and civilian capacities. I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-on’s. I made the decision based on the data I collected, to report this information to my superiors and multiple Inspectors General, and in effect become a whistleblower.
— David Grusch
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Officer
7/26/23 | Testimony to Congress
There is a lot of unidentified aerial phenomena out there. That’s true. And they’ve got pilot reports, there’s various other sensors out there, and some of it is difficult to explain… some [UAP are] really kind of weird and unexplainable
— Gen. Mark Milley
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
8/6/2023 | Washington Times
We’ve also been notified by multiple credible sources that information on UAPs has also been withheld from Congress, which if true, is a violation of laws requiring full notification to the legislative branch... It is an outrage the House didn’t work with us on our UAP proposal for a review board. This means declassification of UAP records will be up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades. We will keep working to change the status quo.
— Chuck Schumer
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
12/13/2023 | Senate floor speech
I have met with pilots...they are not conspiratorial, they are not crazy, and they tell me stories that they've seen things that you wouldn't believe. Am I a believer? No, I can't say I am. But I have met with people, serious people, that say there are some really strange things flying around out there.
— Donald Trump
US President (R)
6/14/2024 | Podcast
There are things that cannot be explained... I don't know what the explanation is for those unexplainable things, but I will say there are phenomena that have been witnessed by multiple people that are just inexplicable by any kind of science, the science available to us.
— Gen. H.R. McMaster
National Security Advisor, Lt. General
9/6/2024 | Bill Maher
All over the world. There have been sightings all over the world.
— John Ratcliffe
Director National Intelligence
3/22/2021 | The Guardian
Allies have seen these. China has created its own version of a UAP task force, so clearly a number of countries have seen objects in their airspace that they can't identify.
— Scott Bray
Deputy Director Navy Intelligence
5/17/2022 | Congressional hearings
Both countries [China and Russia] have active UFO groups... They certainly have had their own incidents over the years... France has had an official UFO investigative group for decades. This is very much a global phenomenon.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/30/2021 | The Joe Rogan Experience
For twenty-one years, from 1983 to 2004, I was the director of the French program to investigate and analyze unidentified aerospace phenomena... The existence of UFOs is without question. UFO's seem to be 'artificially controlled objects' and their physical characteristics can be measured by our detection systems — particularly radar. They display a physics seemingly far different from that which we employ in our most technologically advanced countries. Ground and on-board radar show that their performance greatly exceed our best aeronautical and space capabilities. These capabilities include stationary and silent flights, accelerations and speeds defying the laws of inertia...
— Jean-Jacques Velasco
Director GEPAN
Head of French UAP program
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 128
In 10 of the 11 cases [investigated], the conclusion was that the witnesses had witnessed a material phenomenon that could not be explained as a natural phenomenon or a human device. One of the conclusions of the total report is that behind the overall phenomenon there is a 'flying machine... whose modes of sustenance and propulsion are beyond our knowledge.'
— National Security Agency
Declassified summary of GEPAN report, French Government UAP office
1999 | Document
Hundreds of people [in 1989] saw a majestic triangular craft with a span of approximately 120 feet, powerful beaming spotlights, moving very slowly without making any significant noise, but, in several cases, accelerating to very high speeds. [In] the following days and months, many more sightings would follow... On one occasion two F-16s registered changes in speed and altitude which were well outside the performance envelope of existing aircraft.
— Wilfred De Brouwer
Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Belgian Air Force
2010 | In Plain Sight, p 89
The crafts performed in ways not possible by known technology. They were able to remain stationary and hover, even in unusual positions such as vertical and/or banking at 45 degrees or more. They could fly at slow speeds and accelerate extremely fast, faster than any known aircraft, and they remained silent, or made only a very slight noise, even when hovering or accelerating.
— Wilfred De Brouwer
Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Belgian Air Force
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 35
On the morning of Number 2, 1982... I noticed... another 'aircraft'. It didn't have wings and it didn't have a tail, only a cockpit! It was an oval shape. What kind of airplane could that be?... I flew directly to a point along the trajectory of its elliptical course. It came toward me and flew right over me, on top of my aircraft, and stopped there, like a helicopter landing but much, much faster, breaking all the rules of aerodynamics. It was very close to my plane, only about 15 feet. I was astonished. I closed my eyes and I froze at this moment without reacting. There was no impact... It then flew off in a flash... One of the other pilots saw the whole thing... Right after landing, all three of us filed detailed, independent written reports about the incident.
— Julio Miguel Guerra
Captain, Portuguese Air Force
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 49
On April 11, 1980 at 7:15 am...The squad commander... ordered me to take off ... to intercept the balloon before it got any closer to our base... Zeroing in on the balloon... I shot a burst of sixty-four 30mm shells, which created a cone-shaped 'wall of fire' that would normally obliterate anything in its path... but nothing happened. Then suddenly the object began to ascend very rapidly and head away from the base... I initiated a chase... at a speed of 600 mph and the 'balloon' remained about 1,600 feet in front of me... [up to] 36,000 feet. It came to a sudden stop and forced me to veer to the side... It eluded my attack three times, each time at the very last moment. We reached an altitude of 63,000 feet and suddenly the thing stopped completely and remained stationary... I got as close as about 300 feet from it. I was startled to see that the 'balloon' was not a balloon at all. It was an object that measured about 35 feet in diameter... It lacked all the typical components of aircraft. It had no wings, propulsion jets, exhausts, windows, antennae, and so forth. It had no visible propulsion system. At that moment, I realized this was not a spying device but a UFO, something totally unknown... Suddenly, I was afraid.
— Oscar Santa Maria Huertas
Comandante, Peruvian Air Force
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 89
December 9, 1979 at around 9:15 am... The object [had] a precise contour, a gray metal color on the top and dark blue below, with no lights or portholes. It went about three meters from the ground, not stabilized, and then rose to the level of the trees [250 meters away], while continuously oscillating, then went down again slightly and stopped. It went up a little once again, always while oscillating; it tilted and accelerated quickly to reach a speed much higher than that of a Mirage III [French fighter jet capable of Mach 2], and disappeared.
— Jean-Pierre Fartek
Captain, French Air Force
1979 | UFOs: Generals ... p 124
An outstanding report: this [1976 Tehran] case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon. The object was seen by multiple witnesses from different locations... and viewpoints. The credibility of many of the witnesses was high (an Air Force General, qualified aircrews and experienced tower operators). Visual sightings were confirmed by radar. Similar electromagnetic effects were reported by three separate aircraft. There were physiological effects on some crew members (i.e., loss of night vision due to the brightness of the object). An inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs.
— Roland Evans
Major Colonel, Defense Intelligence Agency
10/12/1976 | UFOs: Generals ... p 150
At about 11 pm on the evening of September 18, 1976, citizens were frightened by the circling of an unknown object over Tehran at a low altitude. It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter... And then I saw it. It was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue lights so bright I was not able to see its body... I approached, and I got close to it, maybe 70 miles or so in a climb situation. All of a sudden, it jumped about 10 degrees to the right, in an instant! [6.7 miles]. Ten degrees... And then it jumped 10 degrees, and then again... We now had a good [radar] return on the screen, and it was at 27 miles... At this moment, I thought this was my chance to fire at it. But it — whatever it was — was close to me, my weapons jammed and my radio communications were garbled. We got closer, to 25 miles at our twelve o'clock position. All of a sudden it jumped back to 27 miles in an instant... I was really scared... I attempted to fire, and looked at the panel to confirm my selection of the missile. Suddenly, nothing was working. The weapons control panel was out, and I lost all the instruments, and the radio. The indicator dials were spinning around randomly, and the instruments were fluctuating... [the UAP] started circling around us.
— Parviz Jafari
General, Iranian Air Force
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 88
I'm glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available.
— Harry Reid
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
4/27/2020 | Twitter
I am saying most of [the evidence] hasn't seen the light of day.
— Harry Reid
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
5/16/2021 | The Phenomenon
I actually wanted to get this information out and declassify it before I left office but we weren't able to get it down into an unclassified format that we were able to talk about quickly enough.
— John Ratcliffe
Director National Intelligence
3/22/2021 | Fox News
If UAP do indeed represent a potential threat to our security, then the capabilities, systems, processes, and sources we use to observe, record, study or analyze these phenomena need to be classified at appropriate levels. We do not want potential adversaries to know exactly what we're able to see or understand or how we come to the conclusions we make. Therefore public disclosures must be carefully considered on a case by case basis...
— Scott Bray
Deputy Director Navy Intelligence
5/17/2022 | Congressional hearings
Finally my biggest failure of 2014, once again not securing the disclosure of UFO files.
— John Podesta
Chief of Staff to President Clinton
2/13/2015 | Twitter
I did attempt to discover if there were any secret government documents that reveal things, and if there were, they were concealed from me too. I wouldn't be the first president that underlings had lied to or career bureaucrats have waited out. There may be some career person sitting around somewhere hiding these dark secrets even from elected presidents, but if so they successfully eluded me and I am almost embarrassed to tell you I did try to find out.
— Bill Clinton
US President (D)
2014 | The Phenomenon
At some point, the information about 'alien' stuff and true US national defence information crosses paths. Patriots with clearances do not want to be traitors to their country or their way of life. For instance, if I told you the exact electromagnetic signature of a high-match UFO that US sensors search for, but don't attack, and you put it in a book, the Soviets/Chinese would manufacture a bomber with sigint/elint countermeasure equipment that generated that exact signature.
— Bob Fish
Defense communications intelligence
2021 | In Plain Sight, p 103
If there is some recovered debris say, it is so deeply buried and squirreled away that it's outside of those normal oversight processes and that's why there is a problem in this area.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/16/2021 | The Phenomenon
[Congressional staffer]: Can you provide us a specific example of an object that can’t be explained as having been human made or natural?
[Bray]: I mean the example that I would say is still unresolved, that I think everyone understands quite well is the 2004 incident from [the USS] Nimitz [aircraft carrier]. We have data on that, and it simply remains unresolved...
— Scott Bray
Deputy Director Navy Intelligence
5/17/2022 | Congressional hearings
The most compelling case is the [USS] Nimitz case. Because you have so many witnesses and so many sensors and the FLIR [video] is part of that, but you have to look at the whole case. You have to talk to all the pilots involved [Commander Fravor and Lt. Dietrich and their backseat Weapons Systems Officers], which I have done. You have to talk to the radar operators on the [USS] Princeton [Kevin Day and Gary Voorhis]. There's also radar operators up on the E2C Hawkeye which was up there monitoring this... Then you have this third F/A-18 [pilot Lt. Underwood] that goes up and takes that [FLIR] video. So there is a lot of different information from a lot of different sources and the thing is, it is all perfectly congruent. It all hangs together. No one is contradicting someone else's story. And what people are seeing is what the sensors are reporting. So that case overall is the most compelling to my mind.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/30/2021 | The Joe Rogan Experience
We were off the coast of San Diego, USS Nimitz carrier strike group was getting ready to go on deployment. At around the evening of the tenth of November 2004, all these contacts were popping up on my radar coverage right off Catalina Island right by Los Angeles. At first there were ten or twelve objects. Watching them on the display was like watching snow fall from the sky. Their relative position didn't change from each other moving real slow, 28,000 feet at 100 knots, which is extremely weird. Usually things that high don't travel that slowly because they'll fall out of the sky...
— Kevin Day
Senior Chief, US Navy
Lead radar operator USS Princeton
2021 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
The SPY [radar] guys came down and said 'Oh we got clutter'... Asked me to reset all the computer systems. Brought it all back up and lo and behold, they're there still. Then we started getting confirmation from the other ships that they were seeing it too. We were just seeing three tracks. Sometimes they were only going a couple hundred knots, sometimes they were stationary, sometimes they were going really fast. The way they went around us, it looked like they were just monitoring us.
— Gary Voorhis
Petty Officer, US Navy
Radar technician USS Princeton
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
[The Aegis SPY-1 radar] eliminated the possibility that it could have been friendly aircraft of some kind, enemy aircraft of some kind. Nothing really fit... I was just chomping at the bit. I really wanted to intercept these things... All of a sudden this object drops 28,000 feet down to the surface, and I figured it out later, it was 0.78 seconds. [24,000 miles per hour, more than 30x speed of sound]. Captain said ok let's go intercept one and I said hell yeah.
— Kevin Day
Senior Chief, US Navy
Lead radar operator USS Princeton
2021 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
We were operating off the coast of California in a designated working area with our carrier strike group. We had launched to perform a practice flight against each other. Clear blue skies, middle of the day. We were interrupted by a ship born controller. The tone was urgent. Their requests were unusual. 'This is not an exercise, this is a real world intercept.'
— Alex Dietrich
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 1: The UFO Insiders
We grabbed one of the flights that was doing a check flight off the carrier. It happened to be Commander Fravor's flight. They got into an area which we call merge plot, where the pilot is in the visual arena with whatever they are intercepting.
— Kevin Day
Senior Chief, US Navy
Lead radar operator USS Princeton
2021 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
There was something in the water... There was churning... We were all clamoring to get on the radio. 'Do you see, in the water, what the f* is that?.' No windows. No flight surfaces. Smooth. White. No intakes. No smoke trails. It looked like a giant Tic Tac. Maybe 40 feet. Large enough to scare the crap out of me. It was so unnerving because it was so unpredictable. High g[-force turns], rapid velocity, rapid acceleration, so you're thinking 'How can I possibly fight this?'...
[Commander Fravor] had that fighting instinct, so it wasn't surprising his actions on that day. This object seemed to recognize that we were there and went from low altitude to maneuvering in an erratic very rapid manner. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up. I am thinking I am going to be watching a disaster.
— Alex Dietrich
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 1: The UFO Insiders
I wanted to see what it was. If I could have joined right up on it and gotten Blue Angel close, then I probably would have done that...
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 1: The UFO Insiders
It's about 40 feet long. It's white. It has no wings. It has no rotors. It has no control surfaces. Think of a white Tic Tac.
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another similar to if you threw a ping pong ball against a wall. And we start to kind of orbit because we are going to watch this thing... It is still doing its erratic thing around this disturbance in the water and I say 'Hey, I am going to go check it out, I am going to go down there'... And all of a sudden it goes [zip] and it kind of turns, now it's mirroring us, it seems to know we are here... It goes from almost a hover, to a pretty aggressive climb up to our altitude. So now there is a bit of fear because you have no idea what it is. It is actually reacting to what we are doing.
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 1: The UFO Insiders
Pilots are screaming and everyone on the radio is screaming.
— Kevin Day
Senior Chief, US Navy
Lead radar operator USS Princeton
2021 | In Plain Sight, p 141
Oh god. I'm engaged. I'm engaged. Oh shit.
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
11/14/2004 | In Plain Sight, p 141
I kind of pull a nose to where he is going to be, he just rapidly accelerates beyond anything that I have ever seen, crosses my nose, and it's gone. And I'm like 'woah'... The controller from the [USS] Princeton comes up right as we are doing all this and says 'Hey sir, you are not going to believe this. That thing is at your CAP [combat air patrol] point.' You got something that can accelerate and disappear and then show up 60 miles away [> 3,600 mph]. Kind of in awe a little bit because we don't have that...
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 1: The UFO Insiders
So your mind tries to make sense of it. I'm going to categorize this as maybe a helicopter or maybe a drone and when it disappeared I mean it was just...
— Alex Dietrich
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
5/16/2021 | 60 Minutes
It was there... then it rifled out of sight in a split second. It was as if the object was shot out of a rifle. There was no gradual acceleration or spooling up period, it just shot out of sight immediately. I have never seen anything like it before or since. No human could have withstood that kind of acceleration.
— Jim Slaight
Lt. Commander, US Navy
Weapons System Officer
2021 | In Plain Sight, p 142
[It went] right back up to 28,000 feet... At that point you've got your other aircraft launching off the carrier, and all these other intercepts were happening. Before I knew it, I had these objects raining out of the sky. Choo choo choo choo choo, it was raining UFOs. I am telling you it was the most humbling experience of my life.
— Kevin Day
Senior Chief, US Navy
Lead radar operator USS Princeton
2021 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving. And what I mean by erratic is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I've ever encountered before flying against other air targets. It was just behaving in ways that aren't physically normal. That's what caught my eye. Because aircraft, whether they are manned or unmanned, still have to obey the laws of physics. They have to have some source of lift, some propulsion. The Tic Tac was not doing that. It was going from like 50,000 feet to, you know, 100 feet in like seconds, which is not possible.
— Chad Underwood
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
2019 | In Plain Sight, p 145
This thing was going berserk, like making turns. It is incredible the amount of g-forces that it would have put on a human. It made a maneuver like they were chasing it straight on, it was going with them, then this thing stopped turning, just gone. In an instant. The [FLIR] video you see now, that's just a small snippet in the beginning of the whole video.
— Jason Turner
Petty Officer
USS Princeton
2021 | In Plain Sight, p 146
Nothing accelerates that fast... I doubt that we have developed that technology.
— David Fravor
Commander, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot and Black Aces Squadron Commander
10/6/2020 | The Phenomenon
There is something there measurable by multiple instruments, yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics or science more broadly. That to me poses questions of tremendous interest...
— Adam Schiff
US Congress (D)
Chair House Intelligence Committee
5/17/2021 | Congressional hearings
[Reading the classified UAP report as a Senator], the hair stood up on the back of my neck... [The pilots] know they saw something.
— Bill Nelson
NASA Administrator
6/25/2021 | The Washington Post
In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics. Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings. The [UAP Task Force] holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management.
— Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena 2021
6/25/2021 | Report to Congress
Hypersonic vehicles that we work on today want to be above 50,000 feet [not down to sea level]... You don't see any exhaust plumes [in the FLIR video], and they would show up in this type of [infrared] image. The shape is wrong. The flight regime, the point in the sky it flies to is wrong. How it flies is wrong.
— Steve Justice
Director, Advanced Systems Development at Skunkworks, Lockheed Martin
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 2: Raining UFOs
[Commenting on 2015 Go Fast video]If this were some type of aircraft with a conventional propulsion system, we would definitely see some type of heat signature [on the FLIR video]. Everything we know about propulsion systems is that they create an intense amount of heat.
— Christopher Cooke
Lt Colonel, US Marines
Pilot
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 4: UFO Fleet
The fact that [the 2015 GIMBAL UAP] was just getting himself on his wingtip [at 90 degrees], with no turn, while staying in the exact same point, isn't how aircraft work.
— Ryan Graves
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 4: UFO Fleet
[Commenting on the 2015 GIMBAL video] It is definitely rotating, or changing angle of bank. It appears to have stopped moving quickly across the horizon. I have no idea. I have always been skeptical... but I have never seen anything remotely like what I saw today. I am a lot more convinced now that these vehicles do exist.
— Christopher Cooke
Lt Colonel, US Marines
Pilot
2019 | Unidentified S1 Ep 4: UFO Fleet
On a clear, sunny day in April 2014, two F/A-18s took off for an air combat training mission off the coast of Virginia. The jets, part of my Navy fighter squadron, climbed to an altitude of 12,000 and steered towards Warning Area W-72, an exclusive block of airspace ten miles east of Virginia Beach. All traffic into the training area goes through a single GPS point at a set altitude — almost like a doorway into a massive room where military jets can operate without running into other aircraft. Just at the moment the two jets crossed the threshold, one of the pilots saw a dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere — motionless against the wind, fixed directly at the entry point. The jets, only 100 feet apart, zipped past the object on either side. The pilots had come so dangerously close to something they couldn’t identify that they terminated the training mission immediately and returned to base.
— Ryan Graves
Lieutenant, US Navy
F/A-18 Pilot
2/28/23 | Politico
As a pilot and former Air Force officer, I can definitely say that this craft [Phoenix Lights incident] did not resemble any man-made object I'd ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares [as stated by the Air Force], because flares don't fly in formation.
— Fife Symington
Governor, Arizona
1997 | In Plain Sight p 119
My position both privately and publicly expressed over the last dozen years or more [about the 1980 Rendlesham forest incident at RAF Bentwaters], is that there are only two possibilities, either: a) An intrusion into our air space and a landing by unidentified craft took place at Rendlesham, as described. Or: b) The Deputy Commander of an operational, nuclear armed, US Air Force base in England, and a large number of his enlisted men, are lying. Either of these simply must be 'of interest to the Ministry of Defence,' which has been repeatedly denied, in precisely those terms.
— Lord Hill-Norton
Admiral, UK Chief of the Defence Staff
10/22/1997 | UFOs: Generals ... p 173
[Tape recording during Rendlesham incident with other soldiers]
I see it, too... It's back again... It's coming this way... There is no doubt about it... This is weird... It looks like an eye winking at you... It almost burns your eyes... He's coming towards us now... [panic] Now we are observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground... One object still hovering over Woodbridge base... beaming down.
— Charles Halt
Lt Colonel, US AIr Force
Deputy Base Commander, RAF Bentwaters
12/28/1980 | UFOs: Generals ... p 170
I was the senior security officer in charge of Woodbridge base security [Rendlesham]... I held a top-secret US and NATO security clearance... It maneuvered through the trees and shot off at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was gone in the blink of an eye. In my logbook, which I still have, I wrote 'Speed Impossible.' I subsequently learned that other personnel based at Bentwaters and Woodbridge, all trained observers, had witnessed this takeoff.
— James Penniston
Sergeant, US Air Force
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 179
I spoke to former RAF radar operator Nigel Kerr [about Rendlesham]... for three or four sweeps, something did show up, directly over the base. But it faded away... Arguably the most critical piece of evidence... The Defence Intelligence Staff had assessed the radiation readings taken at the landing site and judged them to be 'significantly higher than the average background,'... about seven times what would have been expected for the area concerned.
— Nick Pope
UK Ministry of Defense (Ret.)
2010 | UFOs: Generals ... p 171
Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense... To hide the facts, the Air Force has silenced its personnel.
— R.H. Hillenkoetter
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral US Navy
2/28/1960 | The New York Times
If we persist in refusing to recognize the existence of the UFOs, we will end up, one fine day, by mistaking them for the guided missiles of an enemy — and the worst will be upon us.
— L.M. Chassin
General
NATO coordinator of Allied Air Service
1960 | US Air Force
No agency in this country or Russia is able to duplicate at this time the speeds and accelerations which radars and observers indicate the flying objects are able to achieve. There are signs that an intelligence directs these objects because of the way they fly. The way they change position in formations would indicate that their motion is directed.
— Delmer Fahrney
Admiral
Head of Navy guided missile program
1/1/1957 | In Plain Sight p 47
Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.
— H. Marshall Chadwell
Asst. Director CIA, Scientific Intelligence
12/2/1952 | The New York Times
Probably what we saw [in 1952 over Washington, DC] was from somewhere else. Look the Air Force is a very deadly being when it comes to intercepting an unknown. If it proves hostile we are going to shoot it down. Other than that, no problem.
— William Coleman
Colonel, US Air Force
Public Spokesman for Project Blue Book
10/6/2020 | The Phenomenon
[In 1952 over Washington, DC], I am convinced they are solid objects. I am convinced that they are probably from another planet or outer space somewhere. I have always felt that way since that night.
— Albert M Chop
Press Spokesman for Project Blue Book
10/6/2020 | The Phenomenon
[At an Air Force base in Germany 1952] Unlike fighters they would almost stop in their forward velocity and change 90 degrees, sometimes in their flight path... We had practically all the fighters we could muster on the base up climbing as high as they could climb with guys that have binoculars with them... they were round in shape and very metallic looking. And they would come over and do the same maneuvers that we make except everyone once in a while one of them goes 'zip' [hand motion]. And you just can't do that in a fighter.
— Gordon Cooper
NASA Astronaut and US Air Force fighter pilot
1998 | The Phenomenon
They came in like this and went out like this [makes a v]. There would be no way to make a complete reversal or 90 degree turn at 12,000 miles [per hour] or greater without making the occupants juice on the wall. That kind of really shook us up... Nothing could have gotten to that degree of scientific progress without some of the intermediate steps becoming public knowledge. We just knew that they were not from this planet.
— William Nash
Pan American pilot, former fighter pilot
10/6/2020 | The Phenomenon
Since 1947 we have received and analyzed between 1,000 and 2,000 reports... However there have been a certain percentage of this volume of these reports, that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things. We can say that the recent sightings are in no way connected with any secret development by any department by the United States.
— John Samford
Director of Intelligence, Major General US Air Force
1952 | The Phenomenon
Not entirely impossible that the objects sighted may possibly be ships from another planet such as Mars.
— John Samford
Director of Intelligence, Major General US Air Force
1952 | UFOs: Generals ...
This [Evelyn and Paul Trent case] is one of the few UFO cases in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial flew within sight of two witnesses.
— Air Force UAP inquiry
Case 46: McKinville. Oregon
5/11/1950 | Condon Report
The [UAP] phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious... extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and motion which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar... [which] lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, or remotely.
— Nathan Twining
Commander of Air Materiel Command, Lt. General US Air Force
9/23/1947 | US Air Force
I kept looking for their tails. They don't have any tails. I thought well something is wrong with my eyes. They seemed to flip and flash in the sun just like a mirror. I'd be glad to confirm it with my hands on a bible because I did see it. Whether it has anything to do with our army or some foreign country, I don't know.
— Kenneth Arnold
Pilot
1947 | The Phenomenon
After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports — some were substantive, some not so substantive — that there were actual [UAP] materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession... It is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out.
— Harry Reid
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
7/23/2020 | The New York Times
[Tucker Carlson]: Do you think the US government has debris from a UFO right now?
[Elizondo]: Aaah, simply put, yes.
— Luis Elizondo
Director AATIP
Head of Pentagon UAP program
5/1/2019 | In Plain Sight, p. 244
Luis Elizondo's very brief answer to Tucker Carlson's question about whether the US government is in possession of recovered, crashed, and landed UFO technology hardware is 1,000% accurate. My national security NDAs prevent me from adding any further comment to this.
— Dr. Eric Davis
Astrophysicist
Consultant to AATIP, Pentagon UAP study program
6/2/2019 | In Plain Sight, p. 245
[Coulthart]: Are you able to confirm to me that the US has been trying to develop recovered alien technology?
[Kobitz]: Yes, I can say that's so.
— Nat Kobitz
Director of US Navy Science and Technology Development
2020 | In Plain Sight, p. 282
I will tell you, I have never said this before, but I have been told by multiple people who have credentials and access, that there is some truth to these stories [about Roswell]. So I don't discount this when people say this, I have had people who had substantial scientific or military credentials, that they believe it is true. So I encourage people on the Hill to pursue it.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/30/2021 | The Joe Rogan Experience
I won't talk to you about what I know about [Roswell], but it’s very interesting... [Asked by his son to declassify it]... Well, I'll have to think about that one.
— Donald Trump
US President (R)
6/19/2020 | NBC News
There was so much [debris at Roswell]. It was scattered over such a vast area [12 football fields]. We found a piece of metal, about a foot and a half or two feet wide, about two to three feet long, felt like it had nothing in your hands. It wasn't any thicker than the foil out of a pack of cigarettes. The thing that got me is that you couldn't even bend it, you couldn't dent it, even a sledge hammer would bounce off of it... All I could do was keep my mouth shut. Being an intelligence officer I was familiar with every, just about all the materials used in aircraft, and in air travel, this was nothing like that. It was not anything from this earth, that I am quite sure of.
— Jesse Marcel
Major US Air Force
Chief Intelligence Officer, Roswell Army Air Field
[1993] | The Phenomenon
Mr. Davis, who now works for Aerospace Corporation, a defense contractor, said he gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March about retrievals from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”
Mr. Davis said he also gave classified briefings on retrievals of unexplained objects to staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 21, 2019, and to staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee two days later.
— The New York Times
No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public
7/23/2020 | The New York Times
Even before this ‘whistleblower’ legislation was signed into law, credible individuals were providing Congress information alleging that the US government has recovered extraterrestrial technology. This process began in 2019 when I brought astrophysicist Dr. Eric Davis to Capitol Hill to meet with staff from the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Dr. Davis, author of the famous Wilson-Davis memo, provided specific information lending credence to sensational reports that an official US government program is actively seeking to exploit recovered technology that was fashioned by some other species or perhaps advanced AI machines.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
12/24/2022 | Unprecedented UAP Legislation
We have crash retrievals and they have been analysed and unfortunately our laboratory diagnostic technologies and our material sciences and the understanding of physics that we had were not advanced enough to be able to make heads or tails of what it is, of what they had their hands on.
[Editor's note: Mr. Davis retains his security clearance and government contractor employment despite making this public claim.]
— Dr. Eric Davis
Astrophysicist
Consultant to AATIP, Pentagon UAP study program
[Rogan]: [What about the] possibility that we have obtained this extraterrestrial craft and are in the process of trying to back engineer it?
[Mellon]: That's a really ticklish question for me and awkward. And if I were to say 'Yep, it's true' nobody would believe me. If I really knew, I couldn't say yes. And it's hard to give good answers to that question. I think it's plausible. I don't think people should rule that out. There's enough information to say that may have happened. We may have recovered some debris... It would be so deeply squirreled away you wouldn't be able to bring in the best scientists, you wouldn't be able to bring in world class scientists, you would have a few people available in some aerospace company and they would be hamstrung in their ability to test and examine the material and so forth. It would just be locked away somewhere.
— Christopher Mellon
Dep. Asst. Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
5/30/2021 | The Joe Rogan Experience
I talk over the following weeks with other anonymous insiders. To protect their identities, I cannot reveal much of the astonishing detail of what they told me but I am left in no doubt that they all assert that the US military, almost certainly the US Air Force, is in possession of retrieved non-terrestrial — alien — technology. Intriguingly, what I am told matches the claims made in the Admiral Wilson memo, that a private aerospace company now exercises control over this alien technology.
— Ross Coulthart
Investigative journalist
Author of In Plain Sight
2021 | In Plain Sight, p 286
I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials. And I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve that. I don't know what all the numbers were, what kind of classification it was, but they would not give that to me. That's why I wanted AATIP [to get Special Access Program status] to take a look at it. But they wouldn't give me the clearance.
— Harry Reid
US Senator (D)
Senate Majority Leader
5/1/2021 | The New Yorker