Lieutenant Ryan Graves is leading efforts to encourage reports of what the military is calling an unidentified aerial phenomenon. Photo: Science Photo Library RF
A former US Navy fighter pilot described how his squadron encountered UFOs almost daily for several months while training off the American coast.
The sightings included a close encounter with an object that looked like a cube inside a sphere and a close encounter with a flotilla of objects moving at 120 knots downwind.
Lt. Ryan Graves, F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, in now leads efforts to encourage sighting reporting and advocates for the scientific study of what the military calls Unidentified Air Phenomena (UAPs).
Last This year, Congress held its first UAP hearing in 50 years, and in the last two years ago, the Pentagon received 350 new reports, 171 of which remain unexplained.
Closed Block of Air
Lt. Graves told the Telegraph how in 2014 his squadron, VFA-11 Red Rippers, was based on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, preparing to deploy to the Persian Gulf.
Pilots trained in a closed block of airspace called W-72 off the coast of Virginia, where no one else was allowed to fly.
After aircraft radar was upgraded, pilots began to pick up objects in the air. training ground.
At first they were dismissed as radar errors, but then they flew closer and began to see them in their FLIR systems, which are infrared cameras that detect heat.
«This it was almost as if the sun was shining like a flashlight [on the UAP],” said Lieutenant Graves. “We would have them on the radar, and then we would have FLIR. We flew past them as low as we could, trying to see them.
“We were trying to figure out what the hell it was. We saw them almost every day. We went out there and they were there in the morning, they were there in the evening.
“These things were almost always there. This can vary from two to three of them, up to six or seven.»
A close impact then occurred as the object passed right between the two aircraft, within 50 feet of the lead aircraft.
>Lieutenant Graves said the pilot was shocked after landing back on the carrier.
A black cube inside a transparent sphere
«He said, 'I almost ran into one of those damn things!' and we all knew what he was saying,» he said.
«He was completely still and he described him as a dark gray or black cube inside a transparent sphere.
«He canceled the flight, not relying on his ability to clear the airspace in front of him.»
Pilots began to operate in different parts of the range to avoid collision with unidentified objects.
In early 2015, the USS Theodore Roosevelt redeployed from Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida as planned.
>But UAP sightings continued close to the ship, despite moving 600 miles further south.
It was then that an F/A-18 pilot filmed one of the most famous UFO videos, showing an object similar to a «top» or «gimbal».
«It was a unique object that we recorded only on one particular night,” said Lieutenant Graves.The video capture shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots showing interaction with an unidentified aerial phenomenon. Photo: AFP
“One plane from my squadron, they were returning to the boat, they were east of the ship, about three or four miles from the coast. That's when they saw the gimbal.»
On the video, which was later declassified, pilots are heard shouting «Oh my God!» and «Look at that thing, man!» and «It's spinning!».
Lieutenant Graves was at a post-flight briefing with other pilots and a significant group of «scouts.»
He said: «No one thought it was benign. It was quite clear that this was unusual and out of the norm.
“What you don’t see [in the declassified footage] is radar information that shows a group of four to six objects that were working outside the stabilizer .
“They turned very quickly, and everything was somehow mixed up, and then rolled out and rebuilt in the opposite direction. They turned, it was a sharp turn.”
He added: «I don't know 100% if these were the same objects we saw before [off the coast of Virginia].»
The Americans. for Safe Aerospace
After leaving the Navy, Lieutenant Graves launched the Americans for Safe Aerospace program to promote UAP messages and promote coordination between the public and private sectors.
He said: “I think this is moving in the right direction. I think that a lot of the cultural baggage that bothered reporters has disappeared, at least in the navy, I can't speak for other branches of the military.
«I get reports from people who are still flying there, who still see these objects.
“Some of them described cubes and spheres. I have heard it described for eight or nine years, mostly reporting on the same object. Unidentified white objects have also been reported.”
He added: “We need to be aware that there are objects in our airspace and we are not fully aware of what they are. Uncertainty in our airspace is a threat to national security.»
What it could be — foreign drones, extraterrestrial — he does not know.
«F/A 18 is not a suitable scientific tool for understanding what we are seeing,” said Lieutenant Graves.
“So we need to collect more data. There are a lot of questions on the table, but we need more data.
«We're just not at the stage where we can draw conclusions yet.»
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