Are these UFOs on the videos released by the Pentagon still unidentified?

Question

The Pentagon recently released videos of UFOs taken by Navy pilots. According to this Guardian article,

The Pentagon on Monday [27 April 2020] released three declassified videos that show US Navy pilots encountering what appear to be unidentified flying objects.

(...)

The videos had been “circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017”, the statement [from the Pentagon] said, adding that “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified’”.

The video has been circulating since a little bit more than 10 years, and there are active groups of people whose hobby or job is to analyze this kind of video and try to identify the object. For example, the GEIPAN is an organization depending on the French National Agency that collects and analyzes testimonies of UFOs.

After 10 years, is the object in the video still unidentified?

@WeatherVane: actually, when I saw the news on social medias, I thought some people would come to this conclusion (UFOs=aliens) so I decided to ask this question to be able to have something to answer to these people. I know a bit the work of GEIPAN in France, and number of UFOs they have been able to identify as a plane in the night or the laser of a night club is impressive. — Taladris, Apr 29 '20 at 09:47
@Taladris There's more to this story. Numerous witnesses have come forward. Both radar operators and jet fighter pilots regarding two separate incidents. They were clearly not airplanes nor lasers. Even the DOD has admitted they do not know what it is. — dan-klasson, Apr 30 '20 at 17:57
@CGCampbell: The US military are free to control the word usage of its staff, but it doesn't control the English language. The term "Unidentified Flying Object" was first published in a book in 1953. (The Air Force then defined the term UFOB (sic) in 1954.) UFO has become an English word. If someone (who doesn't work for the US Navy) says "This is a UFO", the Navy doesn't get to tell them "No, you can't use that word." Language doesn't work that way. — Oddthinking, May 01 '20 at 14:07
@CGCampbell Pedantically means to do something with an over emphasis on rules/small details. If I were giving a general description of the Earth and called it a sphere and you were to point out it's actually an oblate spheroid - you would be being pedantic. In that situation you are technically more correct and I would, technically, be wrong. I think all OddThinking is trying to say is UFO vs UAP doesn't have one more correct than the other. The US military doesn't have control over which terms are 'correct'. — Lio Elbammalf, May 04 '20 at 07:25

score 98 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

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The difficulty with the question is "What does it mean to be identified?"

These video were declassified in 2017 (they were already public), and explanations for them were quickly identified.

The FLIR video is most likely a distant plane. [...]

The GIMBAL video is also probably of a plane. [...]

The GO-FAST video probably shows a balloon. [...]

But that doesn't mean that the Navy will publish an official finding on the objects.

These three videos are not as interesting as they seem and they have quite plausible explanations. The Navy probably arrived at similar conclusions - that these are simply unidentified aircraft, drones, or balloons - but because of the default operational secrecy regulations nobody can talk about it. And that opened the door to all this speculation.

That is, even if reasonable explanations are found doesn't mean that such explanations will be published by the Navy and/or that they will be accepted by the adherents to the belief that aliens visit the Earth in spaceships.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

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answered Apr 28 '20 at 12:56

Oddthinking

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Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/107501/discussion-on-answer-by-oddthinking-are-these-ufos-on-the-videos-released-by-the). – Oddthinking May 02 '20 at 11:05
The chat is not availble anymore. My comment was deleted nonetheless (why?). Adding this extensive 3h interview for anyone who needs more detailled information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E Tell me if you still think it was a balloon or plane after watching the interview ;) Also, you DO know that the *pentagon itself* has not identified these objects, right? – Adrenaxus Dec 15 '20 at 08:31
@Adrenaxus: I unfroze the chat room for you, but I think your points are already covered extensively by the chat and don't add anything new. – Oddthinking Dec 15 '20 at 13:18
Thank you for reopening the chat room. I understand that my points have been covered already. Yet apparently there hasn't been mutual consent on what's going on so it might still be interesting to have a conversation about the whole thing. – Adrenaxus Dec 16 '20 at 08:46
None of these videos have been identified as such as you claim. Someone YouTuber has speculated what they may be, however. – Dec 01 '21 at 02:18
@coreyman317: You make it sound like there is some evidentiary hurdle that needs jumping, but there isn't one. There is no overarching authority that will determine what these are. A YouTuber identified plausible, prosaic explanations. That is all there can ever be. – Oddthinking Dec 01 '21 at 03:24
I mean sure. But there is a government report on the matter released in June that purports to cover 140 cases from the time period in which those videos were taken. Since the government also released those 3 videos and said they were unidentified, I'm pretty sure 3 of 140 cases analyzed in the report were the 3 videos released in 2020. The report concluded only 1/140 could be identified, and it was identified as a balloon. So that leaves 2... https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf – Dec 01 '21 at 03:25
@coreyman317: I can't see what this new report added. The Navy says "Hey here are some anomalies. Here are some reasons we can't work them out. Who knows - maybe they are Chinese or Russian. You should definitely give us more money for machine learning." Meanwhile, non-Navy people say "Meh. Look at it. It is probably a plane; who cares whose?" And UFO-proponents jump to the silly conclusion "it must be alien craft." Which leads to this answer: depends on what you mean. – Oddthinking Dec 01 '21 at 12:16
@Oddthinking you just need more evidence something is identified sufficiently via a YouTuber when we have evidence via a government report that they’re not identified – Dec 01 '21 at 13:24
@coreyman317: As this answer directly addresses that in my 1st, 3rd and 4th sentences of an answer that only has 4 of my sentences, I think it is time for me to disengage. – Oddthinking Dec 01 '21 at 14:14

score 15 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '20 at 09:16

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No, these objects and others like it have not been identified.

Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for office of the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare said

We want to get to the bottom of this. We need to determine who’s doing it, where it’s coming from and what their intent is. We need to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again.

...

Luis Elizondo, who ran the [Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a government operation launched in 2007 to collect and analyze “anomalous aerospace threats.”], said the newly drafted guidelines were a culmination of many things, most notably that the Navy had enough credible evidence — including eyewitness accounts and corroborating radar information — to “know this is occurring.”

Elizando, who has worked in counterintelligence and helped coordinate information sharing and partnership engagement being run by the Secretary of Defense’s Office was tasked with checking different parts of the US government to find out if the unidentified objects were the work of secret government programs.

Sources say this is key to understanding how Elizondo entered the picture.

“If they [BAASS] wanted access to info that I’m not saying does exist, but it might have been highly classified, you need someone who had the tickets to make sure the contractors weren’t actually looking at Special Access Program (SAP) stuff thinking it was UFOs,” says an intelligence official who is not authorized to speak on the record.

To that end,

Elizondo confirms his position allowed him access to the most highly secretive and reclusive programs being run by the U.S. “The stuff we were seeing was truly unidentified. It wasn’t related to anything we were doing,” he says.

More recently, former Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who helped spearhead the government investigation said on April 27, 2020:

I’m glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available. The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications.

answered May 01 '20 at 09:16

Aleksandr Dubinsky

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Not part of the answer so I'll leave it as a comment, the video footage is *not* much evidence. It's merely something that the Navy can release. Real evidence is in the form of radar, which the Navy is loath to release because it would reveal capabilities. [It is suspected](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-pilots-disclose-recent-ufos-encounters-new-radar-tech-key-in-detection) that recent advances in radar have made detections much more frequent. Pilots have been sent to where radar was detecting these objects, and they saw them visually and recorded these videos. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 09:25
Here is an interview with the pilot who recorded the oldest video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ He describes being sent to the location on account of weeks-long radar sightings. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 09:25
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@Nat There is no evidence of contact with non-human intelligence. There is only evidence of unidentified flying objects with advanced capabilities. There is no cover-up. The sources I linked explain that the investigations were not classified, which is why officials are able to talk about them. The best evidence is, however, classified because the systems used to gather it are classified. Instead of a cover-up there is a lot of self-censorship due to stigma. This is something that the Navy and others have officially taken a position on, saying that self-censorship should be done away with. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 10:15
@Nat The question was, specifically, whether the Navy/government considers these objects unidentified (and, as implied, mysterious and defying explanation). The answer is yes, despite actively trying to identify and/or explain them. It's a good question and I think I've written a good, supported answer. Let's not twist the question into whether aliens/space-Nazis/Atlanteans are plausible. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 10:26
@Nat Well, non-classified is not the same as publicly available. The latter often requires an FOIA request. This is because even something that is not classified might inadvertently reveal information about something which is, and the material must be reviewed. There are many FOIA requests in progress, and these videos were (re-)released under FOIA. The request took nearly a year to process, helped by the fact that the request was specific. This is to say, a statement from a government spokesperson or employee is easier to produce. I'm not aware of official releases of recent reports, yet. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 11:30
Elizondo did not start releasing information until he left the DoD and started working for a multi-media company that makes money off of UFO stories. Basing any part of your argument on his credibility seems unwise. – Harabeck May 01 '20 at 15:54
@Harabeck Elizondo's CV in the DoD, leadership in the UFO research program, or essential credibility is not under question. For example, Senator Reid [has said](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/harry-reid-on-what-the-government-knows-about-ufos.html), "As you’ve heard ... Luis Elizondo [quit] because they wouldn’t do anything seriously. He was terribly interested in this. They’re all mad because the federal government has done nothing. The guy that came to me, his job was in jeopardy because he tried to do something he felt was appropriate." Where he works now hardly matters. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 01 '20 at 16:36
That he makes money off of publicizing UFO stories absolutely matters. That is a clear conflict of interest. As for Reid, the project Elizondo was head of was Reid's pet project, so again, not exactly an uninterested observer. Elizondo has clear motive to obfuscate obvious explanations for the released materials. I don't trust him for one inch when he talks about all of the as-yet unseen evidence he claims. – Harabeck May 01 '20 at 18:19
@Harabeck That can't be any more a conflict of interest than anyone else who makes money in their industry. Are journalists in a conflict of interest because they're paid to write the stories that their readers expect from them? In an extremely strict definition, yes seems true, but to insist on that definition to discredit a source is cynical. If you want to discredit this particular source (and I know nothing about him nor actually care), instances of dishonest reporting would go much further. – May 01 '20 at 21:41
@fredsbend If a reporter writes an article that paints a company that pays them in a favorable light, I think it's fair to suspect that the article might be biased. I'd want further evidence that the article's claims are true. Elizondo is paid to help create media that promotes the UFO culture. It should come as no surprise that he claims that these UFO's are not identified, but the only evidence he has presented has been debunked. – Harabeck May 01 '20 at 22:15
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@AleksandrDubinsky What kind of capabilities? Is there evidence to suggest an object can go from 0 to Mach-30 in under 5 seconds? You show me that, I would be convinced that its aliens or new top-secret energy-source were harnessed. The second one is more unlikely. – Travis Wells May 02 '20 at 00:43
@TravisWells The capabilities of their radar, not the capabilities of the things the radar was recording. They wouldn't want Russia or China to know the range of their radar, for instance, because that'd give them tactically-important information if a war between America and one of those nations were to occur. – nick012000 May 18 '20 at 07:00
@Aleksandr Dubinsky I gurantee you that they've been spying on America's radar systems for decades. – Travis Wells May 18 '20 at 21:10

Are these UFOs on the videos released by the Pentagon still unidentified?

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