The United States Pentagon on Monday officially declassified three videos depicting unidentified flying objects that have previously been released by private parties. The videos, each depicting what is described as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” show small, drone-like objects flying through the sky at high speeds.
The videos, which were captured by Navy pilots over the last several years, one of which was recorded in 2004 but wasn’t released to the public until 2017. The flying objects are deemed particularly interesting to intelligence officials because they cannot be identified as known aircraft by any party—both domestic or foreign. Stringent laws on aircraft and FAA regulations require aircraft to be registered in order to take flight so they can be identified in these situations.
Though the videos are not new, the Pentagon officially declassified them to clear up any misconceptions or accusations that the videos were fabricated to spark virality online. “The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos,” said a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Defense on Monday.
“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,” said the department in a statement.
The videos (which you can watch here) were taken from Naval aircraft and were recorded on infrared cameras. Though blurry, the videos depict small black aircraft in the distance, each flying at high speeds. For someone unaware of how to look at or recognize these types of images, they don’t look like much more than a drone flying in the distance.
For a Naval pilot though, they’re clearly out of the ordinary and unlike any other aircraft in the world. The pilot that caught the footage taken in 2004 told CNN in 2017 that the aircraft was unlike anything he had seen before. “As I got close to it … it rapidly accelerated to the south, and disappeared in less than two seconds,” said the pilot in the 2017 interview.
While the video’s don’t confirm the presence of extraterrestrial life, the confirmation from the Pentagon was all that many needed to prove suspicions that the government knows more about UFO’s and other signs than they usually let on. What the Pentagon has confirmed, though, is that the older videos that surfaced in the late 2010’s were in fact real.
