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Former Navy pilot says flight crews observed UFOs off Atlantic Coast "every day for at least a couple years"
Next month, a government report is expected to be made public on sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, better known as UFOs. Sunday on 60 Minutes, Bill Whitaker reports on the sightings.
Former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves says he and other members of his F/A-18 fighter squadron detected strange, maneuverable and unidentified objects flying in the restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach nearly every day for two years beginning in 2015. The sightings were so common, he says, pilots and their crews began to take them for granted. Graves is calling those objects a threat to security in a 60 Minutes interview.
Graves is one of several current and former military members who have spoken publicly about what the Pentagon now calls unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP. These documented sightings of UAP, recorded on gun camera video and photos taken by U.S. service members, have been analyzed by the Defense Department for years. But the government only grudgingly acknowledged the internal efforts after unclassified videos of UAP were leaked to the New York Times in 2017. Now, the Senate Intelligence Committee has ordered the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to compile a report on unidentified aerial phenomena to be delivered next month.
"I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue," Graves tells Bill Whitaker in an interview airing Sunday on 60 Minutes. "But because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day."
Graves says pilots who have seen UAP speculate they could be a secret U.S. technology, an enemy spy platform, or something else entirely. Watching one of the unclassified videos he says, "This is a difficult one to explain. You have rotation, you have high altitudes. You have propulsion, right? I don't know. I don't know what it is, frankly."
"I would say, you know, the highest probability is it's a threat observation program," Graves says. He wouldn't rule out the possibility they could be a Russian or Chinese technology.
Luis Elizondo, a former DOD official who investigated UAP for nearly a decade, says these vehicles display technology far superior to anything in any nation's inventory. "Imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 G-forces, that can fly 13,000 miles an hour, that, that can evade radar and can fly through air and water and possibly space, and oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) has seen classified briefings on UAP and called for a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena. Last December, while still head of the Senate's Intelligence Committee, he asked the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon to present Congress with an unclassified report by June 2021.
The 60 Minutes report airs Sunday, May 16, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
Former Navy pilot says flight crews observed UFOs off Atlantic Coast "every day for at least a couple years" - CBS News
Next month, a government report is expected to be made public on sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, better known as UFOs. Sunday on 60 Minutes, Bill Whitaker reports on the sightings.
Former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves says he and other members of his F/A-18 fighter squadron detected strange, maneuverable and unidentified objects flying in the restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach nearly every day for two years beginning in 2015. The sightings were so common, he says, pilots and their crews began to take them for granted. Graves is calling those objects a threat to security in a 60 Minutes interview.
Graves is one of several current and former military members who have spoken publicly about what the Pentagon now calls unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP. These documented sightings of UAP, recorded on gun camera video and photos taken by U.S. service members, have been analyzed by the Defense Department for years. But the government only grudgingly acknowledged the internal efforts after unclassified videos of UAP were leaked to the New York Times in 2017. Now, the Senate Intelligence Committee has ordered the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to compile a report on unidentified aerial phenomena to be delivered next month.
"I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue," Graves tells Bill Whitaker in an interview airing Sunday on 60 Minutes. "But because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day."
Graves says pilots who have seen UAP speculate they could be a secret U.S. technology, an enemy spy platform, or something else entirely. Watching one of the unclassified videos he says, "This is a difficult one to explain. You have rotation, you have high altitudes. You have propulsion, right? I don't know. I don't know what it is, frankly."
"I would say, you know, the highest probability is it's a threat observation program," Graves says. He wouldn't rule out the possibility they could be a Russian or Chinese technology.
Luis Elizondo, a former DOD official who investigated UAP for nearly a decade, says these vehicles display technology far superior to anything in any nation's inventory. "Imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 G-forces, that can fly 13,000 miles an hour, that, that can evade radar and can fly through air and water and possibly space, and oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) has seen classified briefings on UAP and called for a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena. Last December, while still head of the Senate's Intelligence Committee, he asked the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon to present Congress with an unclassified report by June 2021.
The 60 Minutes report airs Sunday, May 16, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
Former Navy pilot says flight crews observed UFOs off Atlantic Coast "every day for at least a couple years" - CBS News
