Are UFOs real? Ex-military officials turned whistleblowers tell US Congress truth is being hidden
Are UFOs real? For decades the debate has raged, with those who claim they do, regardless of whether they are of alien origin or something else, often ridiculed as misinformed or delusional.
But is something really out there? Or is it a trick of the light?
We look at how close the military has claimed to come close to UFOs.
'Uncover the cover up'
In July 2023, America's House Oversight Committee for US Congress said it wants to "uncover the cover-up", inviting three former military whistleblowers who say the truth is being hidden.
A former American Air Force intelligence officer, now whistleblower, told Congress the US is concealing a "multi-decade" programme that captures UFOs.
The committee held a hearing about UFOs, including testimony from retired Major David Grusch.
Two other witnesses took part in the hearing – David Fravor, a former US Navy commander who reported seeing an object flying across the sky during a 2004 training mission, and Ryan Graves, a retired F-18 pilot who claims he spotted unidentified aerial phenomena "firsthand".
In an incredible Q and A session congressmen and women have been told Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) exist, that some have been retrieved from crash sites and reverse engineered, with "non human" remains recovered.
Fighter pilots trained to expertly observe and evaluate what they see from the cockpit recount their personal experiences and conclusions, with calls for an end to the "shaming" of military personnel who report incidents. What do you think? Watch and make up your own mind.
Car-sized UFO shot down
In February 2023, the US Air Force shot down a flying object the size of a car off the northern coast of Alaska.
Two F-22 Raptor fighter jets flying out of Joint Base Elmendorf in Alaska took down the "high-altitude object" following orders from US President Joe Biden.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command detected the object using ground radar and sent aircraft to identify it.
It was confirmed by the pilots that the flying object was unmanned.
"The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000ft and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight," Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said at the time.
The object was flying at the same altitude as civilian airliners which typically fly between 40,000 and 45,000ft.
The car-sized object fell onto sea ice off the coast of Alaska.
'My gosh...look at that thing, dude: US Navy releases footage
In April 2020, video footage was released by the US Navy showing "unidentified" flying objects (UFOs).
One video shows the infra-red tracking of an oddly-shaped UFO that has audio commentary on it, apparently from the time, including comments such as: "My gosh... look at that thing, dude.
"It's rotating."
The US Navy videos, one of which dates from November 2004 and two from January 2015, were already in the public domain after unauthorised releases in 2007 and 2017.
They had been confirmed as American military videos previously, but the US Department of Defense (DOD) said it was "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 characterised as 'unidentified'," they added.
Other footage shows two oblong objects caught on video, again by infra-red sensors.
In one shot, a UFO accelerates quickly and is lost to the sensors.
A former UFO investigator who worked for the Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope, told Forces News at the time: "Well I can’t help but wonder, and I’m not going to be popular with the UFO and conspiracy theory community but what the Pentagon are doing here is the exact opposite of what they normally do on UFOs. Normally it’s all either refuse to comment, or debunk, and it’s all weather balloons and swamp gas.
"So this is so unusual, it does, to me, have the hallmarks of some sort of intelligence operation - a psychological operation, a deception operation, something."
The US DOD said: "After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorised 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."
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