Politico: Balloons aren’t the worst thing – the US Air Force regularly encounters UFOs

Ryan Graves, a former fighter pilot and naval engineer who now chairs the American Aerospace Institute’s UAP Integration Committee, writes in a politicalcolumn that he joined the US Army in 2009 – and encountered UFOs a few years later.

In 2014, after upgrading their radar system, pilots made the startling discovery that there were enough unknown objects in the airspace. At first they thought it was software bugs, according to Graves:

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“On a clear, sunny day in April 2014, two F/A-18s took off for dogfight training off the coast of Virginia. The jets belonging to my Navy fighter squadron climbed to an altitude of 12,000 and headed for the warning area W-72, an exclusive airspace block ten miles east of Virginia Beach All traffic to the exercise area is handled through a single GPS point at a given altitude—almost like a door to a vast space where military jets can operate without Just as the two jets crossed the threshold, one of the pilots saw a dark gray cube in a clear sphere – motionless downwind, aimed directly at the point of entry.The jets were only 100 feet apart were whizzing past the object on either side.The pilots were so dangerously close to the object that they could not identify that they stopped training aborted the mission immediately and returned to base.

‘I almost hit one of those damn things,’ said the flight director, still shaken by the incident, moments later in the pilots’ ready room. We all knew exactly what he meant. ‘These damn things’ had plagued us for the past eight months.

I joined the US Navy in 2009 and went through years of rigorous pilot training. We are primarily trained to identify aircraft with our sensors and our own eyes. It is our job to know what is in our area of ​​operations. Therefore, in 2014, after our radar system was upgraded, our squadron made a startling discovery: there were unidentified objects in our airspace.”

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They began correlating the radar traces with multiple surveillance systems, including infrared sensors that picked up heat signatures, Graves says. And continues: “Then came the hair-raising near misses that forced us to take evasive action.”

It was clear: these were not simple balloons, but UFOs. They accelerated at the speed of sound and were able to hold their position seemingly immobile despite a strong hurricane. “They had no visible lifting devices, control surfaces or engines – nothing that resembled a normal airplane with wings, flaps or engines,” explains the former fighter pilot. “And they outlasted our fighter jets and were in action all day. I’m an engineer by training, but the technology they demonstrated was beyond my comprehension.”

Graves reports that other aircrew who flew on the east coast also reported similar experiences. The US pilots reported the incidents to their superiors, but the Pentagon did not respond. Nearly a decade later, military personnel still don’t know what it was, Graves says.

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After his discharge from the army, he spoke publicly before the US Congress about what he had seen. But his words didn’t attract as much attention as the recent Chinese spy balloon, he notes with disappointment.

The expert points out that there are objects flying over US military bases, demonstrating advanced technology. At least 247 such objects have been sighted in the last 17 months.

“The American public needs to demand transparency. We need to understand what’s in our sky, and that’s that,” Graves concluded.

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