Navy Pilots Describe Stunning UFO Sightings – Hypersonic Speeds, No Exhaust Plume

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
Waking Times

Graves and Accoin spoke on the record to the Times, while three other pilots spoke on condition of anonymity.

It all began following an upgrade from their 1980s-era radars to  Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pods – one of the most advanced imaging devices in use by the military which can locate and designate targets at distances over 40 miles.

One fighter pilot after another began picking up the objects, initially ignoring what they thought were false radar tracks.

“People have seen strange stuff in military aircraft for decades,” said Graves. “We’re doing this very complex mission, to go from 30,000 feet, diving down. It would be a pretty big deal to have something up there.”

Graves added that the objects were an ongoing phenomenon – showing up at 30,000 feet, 20,000 feet and even at sea level. The craft could “accelerate, slow down and then hit hypersonic speeds,” according to the report.

Lieutenant Accoin said that he had two encounters with the objects – the first of which he tried to intercept the craft’s course by flying 1,000 feet below it. And while he couldn’t see it with his helmet camera, his radar told him it was there. In the second encounter, Accoin says a training missile on his jet locked onto the craft, which his infrared camera picked up as well.

“I knew I had it, I knew it was not a false hit,” he said, adding “I could not pick it up visually.”

The pilots chalked it up to some sort of classified and extremely advanced drone program. Then they began to see them with their own eyes.

In late 2014, Lieutenant Graves said he was back at base in Virginia Beach when he encountered a squadron mate just back from a mission “with a look of shock on his face.”

He said he was stunned to hear the pilot’s words. “I almost hit one of those things,” the pilot told Lieutenant Graves.

The pilot and his wingman were flying in tandem about 100 feet apart over the Atlantic east of Virginia Beach when something flew between them, right past the cockpit. It looked to the pilot, Lieutenant Graves said, like a sphere encasing a cube. –New York Times

After the near miss, Graves and the other interviewed pilots said the squadron were no longer convinced of the classified drone theory – as government officials would know fighter pilots were operating in the area and, they reasoned, would not operate them nearby.

“It turned from a potentially classified drone program to a safety issue,” said Graves, adding “It was going to be a matter of time before someone had a midair” collision.

What was strange, the pilots said, was that the video showed objects accelerating to hypersonic speed, making sudden stops and instantaneous turns — something beyond the physical limits of a human crew.

“Speed doesn’t kill you,” Lieutenant Graves said. “Stopping does. Or acceleration.”

Asked what they thought the objects were, the pilots refused to speculate.

“We have helicopters that can hover,” Lieutenant Graves said. “We have aircraft that can fly at 30,000 feet and right at the surface.” But “combine all that in one vehicle of some type with no jet engine, no exhaust plume.” –New York Times

In March of 2015, the Roosevelt departed the coast of Florida for the Persian Gulf to help fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, after which the incidents “tapered off,” according to the pilots.

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge

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