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Since 2001, July 2 has marked World UFO Day — a day to consider the possibility that we’re not alone in the universe, and our interstellar neighbors may have stopped by for a visit.
(There’s a big emphasis on “may have.”)
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This year, there’s good reason to celebrate. On June 25, the Pentagon released a landmark report on UFOs (also known as UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena, in Pentagon parlance).
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The report found 143 UAPs that couldn’t be explained from 2004 to 2021. Many come from Navy aviators and some were even caught on video.
Videos captured around the USS Roosevelt spurred recent interest in UFOs when they leaked in 2017. One shows a UAP zipping past the camera before being briefly followed.
The Pentagon formally released the GIMBAL and GOFAST videos in 2020, confirming their authenticity. The second video shows what looks like a strange craft flying fantastically fast into the wind.
In 2019, Navy personnel captured a video of a triangular object in the sky. The Pentagon authenticated the video in 2021.
Between 1983 and 1986, hundreds of UFO sightings were reported across New York’s Hudson Valley. Witnesses say they saw massive, V-shaped crafts flying overhead.
Probably the most famous UFO claim ever, and one of the shakiest. The Air Force recovered what it says was a crashed weather balloon in 1947, giving rise to tales of captured aliens and government coverups that have persisted for decades.
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