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Are we living in an H.G. Wells novel? The Department of Defense has officially released three videos captured by Navy pilots — which were previously leaked in 2007 and 2017 — that show “unidentified aerial phenomena” on April 27. That sounds eerily similar to UFOs. While alien spacecraft wasn’t confirmed, the strange footage (which was taken in Nov. 2004 and Jan. 2015) was enough to cause a commotion online. In the videos, a pilot can be heard exclaiming “there’s a whole fleet of them…my gosh” and “look at that thing!” while recording the objects — watch for yourself below! It didn’t help that the Department of Defense’s press release was especially ambiguous.
“The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos. 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,” read Monday’s announcement on DOD’s website. Instead of encouraging alien speculation, DOD clarified that it finally decided to declassify the formerly top secret videos “to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real,” and “whether or not there is more to the videos.” For context, the Navy had already confirmed the existence of these “unidentified aerial phenomena” in Sept. 2019.
However, the Pentagon reiterated that the objects in the video are still being characterized as “unidentified” — leaving the public’s imagination to run wild! “The pentagon just randomly confirmed UFO’s… why do I feel like something crazy is about to follow this…,” @FATHERBONNE tweeted amid the many trending UFO tweets (although the government has avoided using that term). In an even weirder twist, it turns out that Blink 182’s former frontman, Tom DeLonge, was responsible for leaking the 2017 videos (yes, as in the same musician who put out the Blink 182 song “Aliens Exist”). He’s the CEO of To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science, which released the previously declassified footage!
"Look at that thing!"
Pentagon declassifies three previously leaked top secret U.S. Navy videos of "unexplained aerial phenomena"—and that some believe could show UFOs. https://t.co/YTuvaPHykM pic.twitter.com/YaKImrnl5M
— ABC News (@ABC) April 27, 2020
“I must be the only musician that started a space-rock band, and then created an Aerospace company in parallel, and then brought out some very important space-related news (UFOs) to help change the world. Follow your passion kids…,” Tom tweeted on Monday. Yup, 2020 takes the crown for wildest year ever (we’re also in the midst of a worldwide health crisis).
https://twitter.com/jazzypech/status/1254891935535230978
Former Navy pilot David Fravor, who witnessed one of these bizarre objects off San Diego’s coast in 2004, later recalled the experience to CNN in 2017. “As I got close to it…it rapidly accelerated to the south, and disappeared in less than two seconds. This was extremely abrupt, like a ping pong ball, bouncing off a wall. It would hit and go the other way,” he told the news outlet. The Twitter conspiracists — and Tom DeLonge — are now hard at work trying to figure out if aliens are behind this “phenomena.”