Since May, the United States has released hundreds of previously classified files related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs). Labeled as unresolved cases, the Department of Defense says the government is unable to make a "definitive determination" about the nature of the observed phenomena.
As reported by CBS News, the latest batch of documents includes 14 reports, 19 videos, four audio files and three images from multiple agencies, including the Pentagon, NASA, the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Energy.
But unlike the previous three releases, the documents made public on July 10 include a report from a military aviator who said a mysterious object was "unlike anything I had seen" after nearly three decades of flying military aircraft at altitudes of up to 50,000 to 60,000 feet.
One of the documents includes a video recorded during a 2019 flight over the eastern United States by a military aviator accompanied by four other personnel. The footage appears to show a rectangular object traveling at high speed.
"I noticed an object with flight characteristics unlike anything I had seen in my 28 years of performing for the [Air Force] and Navy," the aviator wrote. "A small object was below us and appeared to be traveling in a straight line opposite our direction at high speed. I tracked it for ~10-15 seconds before we turned on the recorder to provide the attached video. When I zoomed in to try and achieve more resolution, the object's speed took out of my FOV and I was unable to reacquire, even at a lower zoom. Upon analysis after the flight, the object appeared to be rectangular. Others with equal or more experience were also unsure as to what this object might be."
Among the other notable incidents highlighted by CBS News was a case released by the Department of Energy detailing an unidentified object's intrusion into the airspace over the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Texas, in September 2015.
In that case, two officers chased an object that "did not make any sound" and, according to their account, appeared to have no visible propulsion system after they examined it through binoculars.
As noted by the outlet, about half of the files are dated 2010 or later, with videos showing infrared footage captured by military cameras. According to the unclassified documents, the encounters occurred around the world, including over the western Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Middle East.
The oldest documents released on July 10 include a 1948 report from the Air Materiel Command regarding Project Sign, a U.S. Air Force program launched in the late 1940s to investigate the nature and origin of UAPs.
According to the report, investigators documented 100 UAP sightings between 1947 and 1948, with oval, disc or saucer-shaped objects reported in 31 cases. Witnesses described the objects as ranging in apparent size from that of a 25-cent coin to as large as 250 feet in diameter, and from the size of a pursuit aircraft to the combined bulk of six B-29 bombers, the aircraft best known for carrying out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Pentagon said the latest release will not be the last disclosure under the President Donald Trump's executive order.
"The Department of War and our agency partners are actively working on the next release of UAP files," spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
