1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:07,000 We have tackled many strange stories on 60 Minutes, but perhaps none like this. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:18,000 It's the story of the U.S. government's grudging acknowledgement of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAP, more commonly known as UFOs. 3 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:27,000 After decades of public denial, the Pentagon now admits there's something out there, and the U.S. Senate wants to know what it is. 4 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:38,000 The Intelligence Committee has ordered the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to deliver a report on the mysterious sightings by next month. 5 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:44,000 The story will continue in a moment. 6 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:54,000 So what you're telling me is that UFOs, unidentified flying objects, are real? 7 00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:02,000 Bill, I think we're beyond that already. The government has already stated for the record that they're real. I'm not telling you that. The United States government is telling you that. 8 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:11,000 Luis Elizondo spent 20 years running military intelligence operations worldwide in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Guantanamo. 9 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:24,000 He hadn't given UFOs a second thought until 2008. That's when he was asked to join something at the Pentagon called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. 10 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:36,000 The mission of AATIP was quite simple. It was to collect and analyze information involving anomalous aerial vehicles, what I guess in the vernacular you call them UFOs. We call them UAPs. 11 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:50,000 You know how this sounds. It sounds nutty, wacky. Look, Bill, I'm not telling you that it doesn't sound wacky. What I'm telling you is real. The question is, what is it? What are its intentions? What are its capabilities? 12 00:01:50,000 --> 00:02:12,000 Buried away in the Pentagon, AATIP was part of a $22 million program sponsored by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to investigate UFOs. When Elizondo took over in 2010, he focused on the national security implications of unidentified aerial phenomena documented by U.S. service members. 13 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 G-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar, and that can fly through air and water and possibly space, and oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces, and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing. 14 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:51,000 Elizondo tells us AATIP was a loose-knit mix of scientists, electro-optical engineers, avionics, and intelligence experts, often working part-time. They combed through data and records and analyzed videos like this. 15 00:02:51,000 --> 00:03:06,000 A Navy aircrew struggles to lock onto a fast-moving object off the U.S. Atlantic coast in 2015. 16 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:19,000 Recently released images may not convince UFO skeptics, but the Pentagon admits it doesn't know what in the world this is. Or this. Or this. 17 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:30,000 So what do you say to the skeptics? It's refracted light, weather balloons, a rocket being launched, Venus. 18 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:38,000 In some cases, there are simple explanations for what people are witnessing. But there are some that are not. 19 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:44,000 We're not just simply jumping to a conclusion that's saying, oh, that's a UAP out there. We're going through our due diligence. 20 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:52,000 Is it some sort of new type of cruise missile technology that China has developed? Is it some sort of high-altitude balloon that's conducting reconnaissance? 21 00:03:52,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Ultimately, when you have exhausted all those what-ifs and you're still left with the fact that this is in our airspace and it's real, that's when it becomes compelling and that's when it becomes problematic. 22 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:12,000 Former Navy pilot Lieutenant Ryan Graves calls whatever is out there a security risk. 23 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:28,000 He told us his F-18 squadron began seeing UAPs hovering over restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach in 2014 when they updated their jet's radar, making it possible to zero in with infrared targeting cameras. 24 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:36,000 So you're seeing it both with the radar and with the infrared. And that tells you that there is something out there. 25 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,000 Pretty hard to spoof that. 26 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:47,000 These photographs were taken in 2019 in the same area. The Pentagon confirms these are images of objects it can't identify. 27 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:54,000 Lieutenant Graves told us pilots training off the Atlantic coast see things like that all the time. 28 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:59,000 Every day. Every day for at least a couple years. 29 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,000 Wait a minute. Every day for a couple of years? 30 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:02,000 Mm-hmm. 31 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:04,000 You know, I don't see an exhaust plume. 32 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:12,000 Including this one, off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida in 2015, captured on a targeting camera by members of Graves' squadron. 33 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:17,000 Look at this thing! It's rotating. My gosh! 34 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:20,000 My gosh! 35 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:24,000 They're all going against the wind. The wind's 120 knots from the west. 36 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:25,000 Look at that thing, dude! 37 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:27,000 You can sort of hear the surprise in their voices. 38 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:33,000 You certainly can. They seem to have broke character a bit. And we're just kind of amazed at what they were seeing. 39 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,000 What do you think when you see something like this? 40 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:42,000 This is a difficult one to explain. You have rotation. You have high altitudes. You have propulsion, right? 41 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,000 I don't know. I don't know what it is, frankly. 42 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:49,000 He told us pilots speculate they are one of three things. 43 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:56,000 Secret U.S. technology, an adversary spy vehicle, or something otherworldly. 44 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:00,000 I would say, you know, the highest probability is it's a threat observation program. 45 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:03,000 Could it be Russian or Chinese technology? 46 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:05,000 I don't see why not. 47 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:06,000 Are you alarmed? 48 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:13,000 I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue. 49 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,000 But because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. 50 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:23,000 We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there watching us every day. 51 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:30,000 The government has ignored it, at least publicly, since closing its Project Blue Book investigation in 1969. 52 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:40,000 But that began to change after an incident off Southern California in 2004, which was documented by radar, by camera, and four naval aviators. 53 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:42,000 We spoke to two of them. 54 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:50,000 David Fravor, a graduate of the Top Gun Naval Flight School and commander of the F-18 squadron on the USS Nimitz, 55 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:57,000 and flying at his wing, Lieutenant Alex Dietrich, who has never spoken publicly about the encounter. 56 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:01,000 I never wanted to be on national TV. No offense. 57 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:03,000 So why are you doing this? 58 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,000 Because I was in a government aircraft, because I was on the clock. 59 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:12,000 And so I feel a responsibility to share what I can, and it is unclassified. 60 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:23,000 It was November 2004, and the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was training about 100 miles southwest of San Diego. 61 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:34,000 For a week, the advanced new radar on a nearby ship, the USS Princeton, had detected what operators called multiple anomalous aerial vehicles over the horizon, 62 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,000 descending 80,000 feet in less than a second. 63 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:46,000 On November 14, Fravor and Dietrich, each with a weapons system officer in the backseat, were diverted to investigate. 64 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:55,000 They found an area of roiling whitewater the size of a 737 in an otherwise calm blue sea. 65 00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:01,000 So as we're looking at this, her backseater says, hey, Skipper, do you? 66 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:05,000 And about that got out, I said, dude, do you see that thing down there? 67 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:11,000 And we saw this little white, tic-tac-looking object, and it's just kind of moving above the whitewater area. 68 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:16,000 As Dietrich circled above, Fravor went in for a closer look. 69 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:17,000 So you're sort of spiraling down? 70 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:18,000 Yep. 71 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:24,000 The tic-tac still pointing north-south, it goes, and just turns abruptly and starts mirroring me. 72 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,000 So as I'm coming down, it starts coming up. 73 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,000 So it's mimicking your moves. 74 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:30,000 Yeah, it was aware we were there. 75 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:36,000 He said it was about the size of his F-18, with no markings, no wings, no exhaust plumes. 76 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,000 I'll see how close I can get. 77 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,000 So I go like this, and it's climbing still. 78 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000 And when it gets right in front of me, it just disappears. 79 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:45,000 Disappears? 80 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:46,000 Disappears. 81 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:47,000 Like, gone. 82 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,000 It had sped off. 83 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:50,000 What are you thinking? 84 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,000 So your mind tries to make sense of it. 85 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:58,000 I'm going to categorize this as maybe a helicopter or maybe a drone. 86 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,000 And when it disappeared, I mean, it was just... 87 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,000 Did your backseaters see this too? 88 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:04,000 Yeah. 89 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:09,000 There was four of us in the airplanes literally watching this thing for roughly about five minutes. 90 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:14,000 Seconds later, the Princeton reacquired the target, 60 miles away. 91 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:21,000 Another crew managed to briefly lock onto it with a targeting camera before it zipped off again. 92 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,000 You know, I think that over beers, we've sort of said, 93 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:28,000 Hey man, if I saw this solo, I don't know that I would have come back and said anything, 94 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,000 because it sounds so crazy when I say it. 95 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:33,000 You understand that reaction? 96 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:34,000 I do. 97 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,000 I've had some people tell me, you know, when you say that, you can sound crazy. 98 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,000 And I'll be honest, I'm not a UFO guy. 99 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:44,000 But from what I hear you guys saying, there's something. 100 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:45,000 Yes. 101 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:50,000 There's definitely something that, I don't know who's building it, who's got the technology, 102 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:56,000 who's got the brains, but there's something out there that was better than our airplane. 103 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000 The air crew filed reports. 104 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:04,000 Then, like the mysterious flying object, the Nimitz encounter disappeared. 105 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:12,000 Nothing was said or done officially for five years until Lou Elizondo came across the story and investigated. 106 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:19,000 We spend millions of dollars in training these pilots and they are seeing something that they can't explain. 107 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:25,000 Furthermore, that information is being backed up on electro-optical data, like gun camera footage, and by radar data. 108 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,000 Now, to me, that's compelling. 109 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,000 Inside the Pentagon, his findings were met with skepticism. 110 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,000 ATIP's funding was eliminated in 2012. 111 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:44,000 But Elizondo says he and a handful of others kept the mission alive until finally, frustrated, he quit the Pentagon in 2017. 112 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:48,000 But not before getting these three videos declassified. 113 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,000 And then things took a stranger turn. 114 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:57,000 I tried to help my colleague, Lou Elizondo, elevate the issue in the department and actually get it to the Secretary of Defense. 115 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:04,000 Christopher Mellon served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, 116 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:08,000 and had access to top secret government programs. 117 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:09,000 So it's not us. 118 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:10,000 That's one thing we know. 119 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:11,000 We know that. 120 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:16,000 I could say that with a very high degree of confidence, in part because of the positions I held in the department. 121 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:18,000 And I know the process. 122 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:23,000 Mellon says he grew concerned nothing was being done about UAPs. 123 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:26,000 So he decided to do something. 124 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:37,000 In 2017, as a private citizen, he surreptitiously acquired the three Navy videos Elizondo had declassified and leaked them to the New York Times. 125 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:45,000 It's bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda. 126 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:53,000 He joined forces with now civilian Lou Elizondo, and they started to tell their story to anybody who would listen. 127 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:57,000 To newspapers, the History Channel, to members of Congress. 128 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,000 We knew and understood that you had to go to the public, get the public interested to get Congress interested, 129 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:07,000 to then circle back to the Defense Department and get them to start taking a look at it. 130 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:09,000 And now it is. 131 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:12,000 This past August, the Pentagon resurrected AATIP. 132 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,000 It's now called the UAP Task Force. 133 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,000 Service members now are encouraged to report strange encounters. 134 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:22,000 And the Senate wants answers. 135 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:26,000 Anything that enters an airspace that's not supposed to be there is a threat. 136 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:33,000 After receiving classified briefings on UAPs, Senator Marco Rubio called for a detailed analysis. 137 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:46,000 This past December, while he was still head of the Intelligence Committee, he asked the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon to present Congress an unclassified report by next month. 138 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,000 This is a bizarre issue. 139 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:54,000 The Pentagon and other branches of the military have a long history of sort of dismissing this. 140 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,000 What makes you think that this time is going to be different? 141 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,000 I mean, we're going to find out when we get that report. 142 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,000 You know, there's a stigma on Capitol Hill. 143 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:07,000 I mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kind of, you know, giggle when you bring it up. 144 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:12,000 But I don't think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question. 145 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,000 What do you want us to do about this? 146 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:17,000 I want us to take it seriously and have a process to take it seriously. 147 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:26,000 I want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in, that there be a place where this is catalogued and constantly analyzed until we get some answers. 148 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,000 Maybe it has a very simple answer. 149 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,000 Maybe it doesn't. 150 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:37,000 For more on the Nimitz encounter, 151 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:41,000 I felt the vulnerability of not having anything to defend ourselves. 152 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,000 Go to 60MinutesOvertime.com. 153 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:45,000 Sponsored by Cologuard.