It wasn’t supposed to be there. It was a weird shape. It was moving in unexpected ways.
So the United States Pentagon ordered it shot down.
Two Air National Guard F-16 Falcon combat jets were assigned the task. And they intercepted and observed the unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – that’s politikspeak for unidentified flying object (UFO) – flying at 20,000ft (6km) above Lake Huron on the border with Canada in February 2023.
One locked on the strange – reportedly octagonal – object with low-resolution infra-red sensors.
“I wouldn’t really call it a balloon, I don’t know what …” audio recordings of the two pilots talking revealed at the time. “ I can see it outside with my eyes … there’s some kind of object that’s distended … It’s hard to tell, it’s pretty small.”
A heavily redacted combat camera photo shows a bulbous shape, with strands dangling beneath.
“In the targeting pod, I can’t tell if it’s metallic or what. But I can see like lines coming down below it. But I can’t see anything below it,” one of the pilots adds.
“It’s so slow and so small, I just can’t see it.”
Nevertheless, one of the combat jets went ahead and did what combat jets do: It fired a single $US500,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the illegal “alien”.
The object burst into a shower of fragments. And fabric.
Now, three years later, the truth is out there.
Again.
“Debris has been recovered from the shores of Lake Huron, but after careful analysis, it was determined not to be of national security concern,” Canada’s Royal Mounted Police (Mounties) told local media in 2024.
I’m not saying it’s aliens …
Because it was a $US150 “pico”-style amateur weather balloon.
Freedom of information requests produced Mountie emails describing the debris as including electronics “from a company who sells weather monitoring equipment”.
But that didn’t deter the hype and speculation surrounding a series of similar interceptions over North America about that time.
And the fresh release is still light on anything that can be called evidence.
“Spaceships. That’s all I’m asking for. Just one actual stinking spaceship,” begs University of Rochester astrophysicist Professor Adam Frank.
“I’d also take an actual alien body – I’ve been told that the government has some of them as well.”
Known knowns
The US Pentagon released 64 new UAP documents over the weekend. The second tranche of declassifications comes only after renewed pressure from prominent Republican Representative for Florida, Anna Paulina Luna.
The Make America Great Again activist has been pursuing this core concern among the movement’s conspiracy theory-obsessed constituents.
She thought she’d got what they wanted.
“President Trump directed the Department of War to identify and release government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects because he is the most transparent president in history,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly insisted back in February.
That release of 161 files took place on May 8. To less than excited reviews.
So, what were they (still) hiding?
“The continued lack of transparency surrounding these anomalies and the potential national security threat they pose is troubling,” Representative Luna wrote in March to the Trump Administration’s Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth.
“To continue its investigation, the Task Force requests certain video files related to UAP sightings.”
Now, she’s got (some of) them.
This time, it’s for real.
“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fuelled justified speculation — and it’s time the American people see it for themselves”, Secretary Hegseth said upon its release.
Believers and sceptics are doing just that: The Pentagon’s public UAP archive has reportedly received more than 1 billion hits in the weeks since its launch.
But the sequel has also received mixed reviews.
“The most recent release from the US does little to answer the questions about what UAPs are. This lack of answers is perhaps the most intriguing part,” argues military strategy, technology and national security researcher Dr James Dwyer.
“Given the wide range of cases, there is likely no single explanation for all of them. Some seem likely to be drones and others likely image artefacts, but there is a real group of genuinely hard-to-identify phenomena.”
Known unknowns
Representative Luna and her MAGA voters know what they want.
They were promised it back in July 2023.
Congress was told (under oath) by former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch that “non-human” spacecraft and “biologics” had been recovered by the US Federal Government.
This was a bombshell: He was a real-life “spook”, someone who had honest-to-goodness government high-security intelligence clearance.
Mr Grusch said the project was beyond top secret and involved both the military and private corporations.
But no: he had not personally seen anything related to these projects.
And, no: He could say no more because “It’s classified”.
The Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) initiative was supposed to reveal all.
“While past administrations have sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, the President is focused on providing maximum disclosure to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files,” the Trump Administration insists.
But, so far, it’s just more of the same.
“What I’ve seen so far of the website … looks more like fuzzy images and retracted accounts of ordinary people and members of the military seeing ‘something,” Professor Frank states.
“Low-resolution images of flying blobs cannot begin to answer the existentially important question of alien life.”
Science can detect that the 4300-year-old Amesbury Archer body found near Britain’s Stonehenge came from Central Europe. It should be able to tell whether the materials that enable a UFO to achieve inconceivable feats are extraterrestrial.
Which is why Professor Frank wants a piece of the action. Literally.
“If disclosure is going to have real teeth for anyone besides true believers, then show us some real alien teeth, or skin, or tentacles,” he writes. “Until there are samples that can be shared with scientists around the world, the whole story is just that – a story.”
Until then, it’s a matter of belief versus knowledge.
Unknown unknowns
Of the dozens of videos, photos and testimonies released, less than a handful appear truly out of the ordinary.
“Video recordings showing bright lights zipping may be explained by insects flying by the camera at close proximity – they would be out of focus, and appear to move at high speeds,” explains Dr Dwyer.
“Other cases are more difficult to immediately dismiss. Some recent examples demonstrate that something is occurring, even if we do not know what.”
The University of Tasmania lecturer points to US Navy footage released in 2020 of F/A-18 Hornets combat aircraft encountering “mysterious Tic Tac” objects flying in ways that defy current understanding of technology, without any obvious propulsion”.
Dr Dwyer says the fact that a variety of sensors on the fighter aircraft tracked these objects suggests they were real, and not equipment errors or distortions.
Professor Frank agrees. To a point.
“Suddenly, serious people were taking the possibility of alien vehicles seriously,” he states. “The modern era of ‘disclosure’ had begun.”
“Perhaps the ‘best’ explanation we have is drones, or other known technologies,” Dr Dwyer adds. “This still seems partial, as some phenomena seem to exceed current technological capabilities, and it leaves open the question of who is behind the phenomena.”
The US Congress was told last year of an MQ-9 Reaper drone intercepting a UAP. The drone shot a $US150,000 ($209,000) Hellfire missile at it.
“The object seemed to be deflected from its direction of travel momentarily, suggesting it was a real physical thing, but it appeared to suffer no damage and continued on its course,” Dr Dwyer explains.
But was it of extraterrestrial origin?
“Of the available explanations, non-human intelligence is perhaps the most entertaining – but also by far the least probable,” he concludes.
“It is far more likely that the cause of these incidents will eventually be identified much closer to home. What does seem clear is that governments are watching closely, and with significant concern.”
