Credit: 60 Minutes
By Alliance President Terry Gips
In honor of World UFO Day June 24, we’re sharing the landmark 60 Minutes expose on UFOs from May 16, 2021. 60 Minutes interviewed Luis Elizondo, the Pentagon’s former head of the top-secret Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). He said, “Imagine a technology that can do 6-to-700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that 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.”
What’s he’s referring to is video and interviews with Naval fighter pilots who see UFOs do these things EVERY day in restricted airspace off the east coast. So why is the Alliance highlighting this story on UFOs (which the US Government now calls unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP)? People should know there appears to be a way to fly at astounding speeds with no pollution. A carbon-free future is possible. Could we learn how to do it? Could aliens be here because of concern for our planet’s future? Could they possibly intervene to stop our climate catastrophe and the threat of nuclear war?
Democrat and Republican Presidents withheld information
Sadly, the US government has been withholding information on UFOs for decades, whether the President was a Republican or Democrat. When President Carter was a trained Naval observer he said he saw a UFO and reported it. He pledged that if he was elected President, he would open up the files of the top-secret government compendium of unexplained UFO sightings. He won and didn’t open them up. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have followed suit after him.
When 60 Minutes host Bill Whitaker asked Elizondo, “So what you are telling me is that UFOs, unidentified flying objects, are real? Elizondo responded, “Bill, I think we’re beyond that already. The government has already stated for the record that they’re real. I’m not telling you that. The US government is telling you that.” Elizondo said, “In some cases there are simple explanations for what people are witnessing. But there are some that, that are not…You’re still left with the fact that this is in our airspace and it’s real, that’s when it becomes compelling, and that’s when it becomes problematic.”
Naval pilots observing UFOs daily
When 60 Minutes interviewed former Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves, he said that whatever is out there is a security risk. He said his F/A-18F squadron began seeing UAPs hovering over restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach in 2014 when they updated their jet’s radar, making it possible to zero in with infrared targeting cameras. Graves showed targeting camera images and said that pilots training off the Atlantic Coast see things like that all the time: “Every day for at least a couple years.”
However, as 60 Minutes points out, “The government has ignored it – at least publicly – since closing its project Blue Book investigation in 1969. But that began to change after an incident off Southern California in 2004, which was documented by radar, by camera, and four naval aviators.” 60 Minutes spoke to two of them: David Fravor, a graduate of the Top Gun naval flight school and commander of the F/A-18F squadron on the USS Nimitz and his wing, Lt. Alex Dietrich, who had never spoken publicly about the encounter.
Naval pilots interacting with UFOs
They described how in November 2004 the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was training about 100 miles southwest of San Diego. The advanced new radar on the nearby USS Princeton detected a week of what operators called “multiple anomalous aerial vehicles” over the horizon. The vehicles descended 80,000 feet in less than a second. Fravor and Dietrich were asked to investigate on November 14, each with a weapons systems officer in the backseat. They discovered an area of roiling whitewater the size of a 737 in an otherwise calm, blue sea.
Fravor: “So as we’re looking at this, her back-seater says, ‘Hey, Skipper, do you…’ And about that got out, I said, ‘Dude, do you, do you see that thing down there?’ And we saw this little white Tic Tac-looking object. And it’s just kind of moving above the whitewater area.”
As Deitrich circled above, Fravor went in for a closer look.
Bill Whitaker: “So, you’re sort of spiraling down?”
Fravor: “Yep. The Tic Tac’s still pointing north-south, it goes, click, and just turns abruptly. And starts mirroring me. So, as I’m coming down, it starts coming up.”
Whitaker: “So, it’s mimicking your moves?”
Dave Fravor: “Yeah, it was aware we were there.”
He said it was about the size of his F/A-18F, with no markings, no wings, no exhaust plumes.
Fravor: “I want to see how close I can get. So I go like this. And it’s climbing still. And when it gets right in front of me, it just disappears…Like, gone.” It had sped off.
“Oh yeah. There was four of us in the airplanes literally watching this thing for roughly about five minutes. Seconds later, the Princeton reacquired the target. 60 miles away. Another crew managed to briefly lock onto it with a targeting camera before it zipped off again.”
Pilots file reports that are ignored
60 Minutes noted, “The aircrew filed reports. Then like the mysterious flying object, the Nimitz encounter disappeared. Nothing was said or done officially for five years, until Lue Elizondo came across the story and investigated.” Elizondo: “We spend millions of dollars in training these pilots. And they are seeing something that they can’t explain. Furthermore, that information is being backed up on electro optical data, like gun camera footage. And by radar data. Now, to me, that’s compelling.”
His findings were met with skepticism inside the Pentagon and AATIP’s funding was eliminated in 2012, according to 60 Minutes. However, Elizondo said he and a handful of others kept the mission alive until finally, frustrated, he quit the Pentagon in 2017, but not before getting three videos declassified. Then things took a stranger turn.
Leaking the declassified videos
Christopher Mellon served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush and had access to top secret government programs. He tried to help his colleague, Lue Elizondo, in order to “elevate the issue in the department and actually get it to the Secretary of Defense.” Mellon grew concerned nothing was being done about UAPs, so he decided to do something, according to 60 Minutes.
“In 2017, as a private citizen, he surreptitiously acquired the three Navy videos Elizondo had declassified and leaked them to the NY Times.” As he said, “It’s bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda.”
He and then civilian Elizondo started to tell their story to Members of Congress, newspapers, the History Channel and anybody who would listen. That actually produced results. In August 2020, the Pentagon resurrected AATIP, which is now called the UAP task force and service members are encouraged to report strange encounters. And it drove the US Senate to ask for answers.
The Senate’s call for a report
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R, FL), Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, received classified briefings on UAPs and then called on the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon to present Congress an unclassified report within a month. As he said, “Anything that enters an airspace that’s not supposed to be there is a threat.” Bill Whitaker responded, “The Pentagon and other branches of the military have a long history of sort of dismissing this. What makes you think that this time’s gonna be different?”
Rubio responded, “We’re gonna find out when we get that report. You know, there’s a stigma on Capitol Hill. I mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kinda, you know, giggle when you bring it up. But I don’t think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question.”
Government UAP report issued acknowledging 144 mysterious sitings
A new August 29, 2021 piece pointed out that a few weeks after the original astounding 60 Minutes report aired, the Director of National Intelligence and Secretary of Defense released a highly-anticipated, unclassified report about UAPs (UFOs): “The government’s grudging acknowledgment of 144 mysterious sightings documented by our military comes after decades of public denial.” The government report said that there is probably a lack of a single explanation for UAPs, but that some “appear to demonstrate advanced technology” meriting “further analysis.”
What do you think about UFOs?
So, what do you think? Do you believe the 60 Minutes reporting? Are UFOs real? Do you feel the UFOs are a threat or a possible opportunity to utilize transformational technology? Can these UFOs teach us something about how to live together in peace and not destroy the planet? Let us know: info@afors.org
