The PentagonUFO videos are selected visual recordings of cockpit instrumentation displays from United States Navy fighter jets based aboard aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015. The three videos, widely characterized as officially documenting UFOs, were the subject of extensive coverage in mainstream media in 2017, and later declassified by the Pentagon in 2020. Publicity surrounding the videos has prompted a number of explanations, including drones or unidentified terrestrial aircraft, anomalous or artefactual instrument readings, physical observational phenomena, human observational and interpretive error, and speculations of alien spacecraft.
Background
In 2004, F/A-18 Super Hornetfighter pilots and sensor instrumentation associated with the USS NimitzCarrier Strike Group reported instrument detection of unknown aerial objects. According to Navy pilot David Fravor, a radar operator aboard the USS Princeton told him to investigate radar indications of a target at 80,000 ft. that had apparently moved rapidly down to the sea before stopping at 20,000 ft. Fravor said the operator told him he had been tracking similar radar indications for the pasttwo weeks. During 2014–2015, fighter pilots associated with the carrier strike group reported instrument detections of unknown and to them unidentifiable aerial objects. These detections, along with pilot observations, were later reported in the mainstream media. Some of the involved pilots subsequently gave interviews about their experiences. The resulting three videos, termed “GIMBAL.wmv,” “GOFAST.wmv,” and “FLIR.mp4,” purporting to show encounters by jets from Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt with unusually shaped, fast-moving aircraft, became subject to "fevered speculation by UFO investigators." Stories published by the New York Times that featured the videos have been criticized by journalism professor Keith Kloor as "a curious narrative that appears to be driven by thinly-sourced and slanted reporting." According to Kloor, "Cursory attention has been given to the most likely, prosaic explanations. Instead, the coverage has, for the most part, taken a quizzical, mysterious frame that plays off the catchy “UFO” tag in the headline." The videos, featuring cockpit display data and infrared imagery, were initially provided to the press by Luis Elizondo, a former employee of the Department of Defense working with To the Stars on UFO-related matters. The videos were later declassified and publicly released in 2020 by the Pentagon. A Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed that the released videos were made by naval aviators and that they are "part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years." The US Navy confirmed that, in response to inquiries, congressional hearings presented by aviators and senior naval intelligence officials have been provided to members of Congress.
Potential explanations
As of 2020, the aerial phenomena recorded from the Nimitz and Roosevelt events are characterized by the US Department of Defense as "unidentified". Widespread media attention to these events has motivated theories and speculations from private individuals and groups about the underlying explanation, including those focused upon pseudoscience topics such as Ufology. Regarding the pseudoscientific explanations, writer Matthew Gault stated that these events "reflect the same pattern that's played out dozens of times before. Someone sees something strange in the sky...and the public jumps to an illogical conclusion." Mundane, non-pseudoscientific explanations include instrument or software malfunction/anomaly/artifact, human observational illusion or interpretive error, or common aircraft or aerial device, with the science writerMick West stating that the reported objects in these incidents are "most likely...a relatively slow-moving object like a bird or a balloon," and that "the jet filming it is moving fast, so this creates an illusion of speed against the ocean." West stated that the GIMBAL video can be explained as footage of a distant plane with the apparent rotation actually being the glare in the IR camera rotating. Following the congressional hearings and in order to encourage pilots to flag disturbances that "have been occurring regularly since 2014," the US Navy announced it had updated the way pilots were to formally report unexplained aerial observations. Commenting on these updated guidelines, a spokesman for the deputy Chief of Naval Operations said, "The intent of the message to the fleet is to provide updated guidance on reporting procedures for suspected intrusions into our airspace." Regarding the new guidelines, the spokesman said that one possible explanation for the increase in reported intrusions could be the rise in availability of unmanned aerial systems such as quadrocopters. The acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio says that he fears the UFOs in the videos may be Chinese or Russian technology.
