UFOsU.S. Navy Releases "Unexplained Aerial Phenomena" Videos
The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this week released three declassified videos of “unexplained aerial phenomena” (the official name for “unidentified flying objects,” or UFOs). The three videos released Monday had already been leaked to the press in 2007 and 2017. Believers in the existence of extraterrestrial life cheered the Pentagon’s release of the videos, but experts caution that earthly explanations usually exist for such sightings — and that when people do not know why something happened, it does not mean it happened because of aliens.
The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this week released three declassified videos of “unexplained aerial phenomena” (the official name for “unidentified flying objects,” or UFOs).
In a statement accompanying the release, the Pentagon said it wanted to “clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real.”
The New York Times reports that the videos released Monday had already been leaked in 2007 and 2017. Two were published by the New York Times, while the third was leaked by To the Stars Academy, an organization co-founded by former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge.
After the earlier public airing of the videos, some UFO enthusiasts claimed the videos showed alien spaceships, or UFOs.
The Times says that a clip from 2004 was filmed by two navy fighter pilots. It shows a round object hovering above the water, about 100 miles out into the Pacific Ocean.
Two other videos, filmed in 2015, show objects moving through the air, one of which is spinning as it moves. In one, a pilot is heard saying: “Look at that thing, dude! It’s rotating!”
In its statement, the Pentagon said: “After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena.
“DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’.”
Believers in the existence of extraterrestrial life cheered the Pentagon’s release of the videos, but experts caution that earthly explanations usually exist for such sightings — and that when people do not know why something happened, it does not mean it happened because of aliens.
Harry Reid, the former Nevada senator (D) and majority leader, has long pushed for more research on unidentified flying objects, often citing the 1947 discovery in New Mexico of alloys said to have been part of an unidentified phenomena.
For Reid, the DOD released videos are only a hint of what the public might learn about U.F.O.s and other mysteries of space.
