UFO Stories The Government Can't Explain | Unveiled

UFO Stories the Government Can’t Explain

The human fascination with unidentified flying objects has grown and grown over the last one hundred years or so. And the idea that Earth may be visited by creatures not of this world has fuelled many an imagination and given basis for countless sci-fi films and stories. But every so often, a real-world incident takes place that truly defies all expectation and understanding.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re exploring the incredible UFO stories that the government can’t explain.

In recent times, the US government has made headlines all over the world as it continues to release details of freshly declassified UFO documents. With the content of some of these documents dating back decades, we’re beginning to build a clearer picture than ever before of how significantly UFOs have impacted human history. How often they’ve cropped up, and how often they’ve stumped the authorities. Because, while some examples can be quickly explained away as a trick of the light or, dare we say it, as a weather balloon… there are others that still can’t be so conveniently solved. In this video, we take a closer look at what’s going on.

The conversation around UFOs truly started to take off in recent times around the year 2017. This was thanks to work carried out by the New York Times with regard to confirmed UFO clips, and to the early work of the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, amongst others. To the Stars was founded in 2017, with an immediately high profile thanks to one of its co-founders being Tom DeLonge, a member of the US punk band Blink-182. In December 2017, though, it released startling, previously classified UFO footage. The Gimbal clip, for example, which has now been viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, shows a UFO as seen from an F/A-18 Super Hornet jet. It’s flying into the wind at impossible speeds, and the audio reveals how the pilots could find no explanation for what they were seeing. It should’ve been impossible, but it was happening right in front of their eyes.

The clip was then included in an official release by the Pentagon in April 2020, as the US government declassified it (plus two more UFO films) in a bid to “clear up any misconceptions”, and to confirm that they were genuine. Of the other clips, one earned particularly close attention as it showed an object racing over the sea, again at seemingly impossible speeds. What arguably sets these UFOs apart from most others, however, is that upon declassifying the footage, the Pentagon didn’t offer much by way of an explanation. In the old days, conspiracy theorists might’ve at least expected a bungled cover-up attempt by the authorities… but, not anymore. Instead, these amazing visuals had been officially recognised by the American government, with the caveat that no one could satisfactorily describe what it was that they showed.

Importantly, a UFO isn’t automatically an alien spaceship. The two aren’t one and the same, and the government has been keen to stress this over and over in recent times. Thanks to science fiction and ingrained UFO lore, whenever we see something in the sky that doesn’t make sense… one of our first thoughts is that it must be extraterrestrial in nature. But, actually, the government itself is perhaps most interested in these clips from a national security point of view. When unexpected things show up on radar systems, sonar maps, and even outside of fighter jet windows, the first concern is that it’s a threat in some way. The second concern is that, even if it isn’t a threat, it’s advanced technology that the US hasn’t seen before - and that’s a worry, as well, for a country that’s striving to remain a global superpower. If, for example, one of the declassified UFOs from 2020 turned out to be just a drone, then who on Earth has a drone with those capabilities? And how on Earth does a drone like that even work?

Former president Barack Obama made headlines in May 2021, when he was interviewed about UFOs by the talk show host James Corden. Obama opened by admitting that there were some things he “just couldn’t tell [us] on air”… but he did say that there wasn’t a top secret alien research lab in the US, thereby denying the various Area 51 claims that many conspiracy theorists swear by. On UFOs in particular, however, Obama revealed that there was footage of “objects in the skies [and] that we don’t know exactly what they are”… saying that their movements and trajectories couldn’t be explained, and that they “did not have an easily explainable pattern”. The three UFOs featured in the clips released in 2020 would certainly fall into this category. But there have been others as well.

Between the years 2007 and 2012, during the Bush and Obama administrations, the US government ran a then-secret but now not-so-secret investigation, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. It was broadly tasked with getting a greater understanding of unidentified flying objects (or, UFOs) and unidentified aerial phenomena (or, UAP). Today, the UAP acronym is increasingly used in government documents, in favour of UFO… the idea, once again, being to widen what we might consider something strange in the sky to be. The official message remains that a UAP isn’t automatically an alien. That there could be a number of other explanations (as well as it potentially being an alien) for what we’re seeing.

Nevertheless, by the time the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was closed, it had amassed a wealth of data. Data that’s only now beginning to be revealed to us. In the year 2021, UAP and UFOs moved from the fringes of science to the top table of current affairs and politics. The Pentagon has increasingly responded to calls from the public for the government to reveal what they know. So much so, the current climate might reasonably be compared to the interest that surrounded the infamous Project Blue Book in the 1950s and ‘60s. Ultimately, Blue Book was found to have investigated more than twelve thousand UFO cases over the course of its run, with more than seven hundred of them being officially categorised as unexplained. Will we get similar numbers from the AATIP? And how will modern technologies effect what we know? These are questions that we could now be on the verge of having answers for.

Of course, UFOs aren’t only an American obsession. There have been high profile cases all over the world, including in the UK, Brazil, and Russia in particular. And, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a global increase in the amount of UFO reports fielded by local authorities all over the world map. One way of looking at this is to say that more people had more time on their hands during the pandemic, and so were able to notice more unusual goings on in the world around them. The other point of view, however, says that an increase in UFO sightings directly suggests an increase in alien activity. Again, the US government’s line is that UFO doesn’t equal alien, but it’s little wonder that so many declassified documents from the Pentagon are making headline news right now.

As for why the US government is choosing now to open up its UFO files, sometimes years after the UFO encounters they refer to happened, it’s again most likely a matter of national security. The three clips released in 2020 were all unofficially leaked years beforehand, which it could be argued, in itself, represented a major security breach… so, now, the government is calling the shots again. We might expect multiple UFO reports over the coming years, not just in 2021, as these mysteries are taken out of the shadows of conspiracy theory territory and thrust under the all-seeing lights of the mainstream media and world news. We might also expect more countries to release their own UFO back catalogues, until we have a comprehensive picture of UFO history that’s free for anyone to study.

What’s your verdict on UFOs? Have you seen one before? If so, what was it like? Often, the US government does offer some kind of explanation when strange things are caught on tape. It might be an unusual cloud formation, a simple optical illusion, a confirmed hoax, or a top-secret military exercise that shouldn’t have been seen… But, sometimes, not even the powers that be have an answer. Initiatives like Blue Book and the AATIP have revealed that some flying objects truly are unidentified… and examples like the Gimbal clip have ignited a global interest. Now, the world waits with bated breath, wondering whether first contact has already happened… or if it’s just around the corner.