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we have tackled many strange stories on 
60 minutes but perhaps none like this

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it's the story of the u.s government's grudging 
acknowledgment of unidentified aerial phenomena

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uap more commonly known as ufos after decades 
of public denial the pentagon now admits

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there's something out there and the 
u.s senate wants to know what it is

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the intelligence committee has ordered the 
director of national intelligence and the

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secretary of defense to deliver a report 
on the mysterious sightings by next month

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the story will continue in a moment so what 
you're telling me is that ufos unidentified flying

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objects are real bill i think we're beyond that 
already the government has already stated for the

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record that they're real i'm not telling you that 
the united states government is telling you that

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luis elizando spent 20 years running 
military intelligence operations worldwide

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in afghanistan the middle east and guantanamo 
he hadn't given ufos a second thought until 2008

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that's when he was asked to join something at 
the pentagon called the advanced aerospace threat

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identification program or atip the mission of 
atip was quite simple it was to collect and

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analyze information involving anomalous uh aerial 
vehicles uh what i guess in the vernacular you

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call them ufos we call them uaps you know 
how this sounds it sounds nutty wacky look

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bill i'm not i'm not telling you that that it 
doesn't sound wacky what i'm telling you it's real

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the question is what is it what are its 
intentions what are its capabilities

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buried away in the pentagon atip was part of a 22 
million dollar program sponsored by then senate

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majority leader harry reid to investigate ufos 
when elizondo took over in 2010 he focused on

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the national security implications of unidentified 
aerial phenomena documented by u.s service members

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imagine a technology that can do six to seven 
hundred g forces that can fly at thirteen thousand

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miles an hour that it can evade radar and that can 
fly through air and water and possibly space and

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oh by the way has no obvious signs of propulsion 
no wings no control surfaces and yet still can

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defy the natural effects of earth's gravity that's 
precisely what we're seeing elizondo tells us atip

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was a loose-knit mix of scientists electro-optical 
engineers avionics and intelligence experts

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often working part-time they comb through 
data and records and analyzed videos like this

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a navy air crew struggles to lock onto

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a fast-moving object off the 
u.s atlantic coast in 2015.

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recently released images may not convince ufo 
skeptics but the pentagon admits it doesn't know

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what in the world this is or this or this so what 
do you say to the skeptics it's refracted light

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weather balloons a rocket being launched 
venus in some cases there are are simple

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explanations for what people are witnessing but 
there are some that that are not we're not just

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simply jumping to a conclusion that's saying 
oh that's a uap out there we're going through

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our due diligence is it some sort of new type of 
cruise missile technology that china has developed

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is it some sort of high altitude balloon that's 
conducting reconnaissance ultimately when you

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have exhausted all those what-ifs and you're 
still left with with the fact that this is in

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our airspace and it's real that's when it becomes 
compelling and that's when it becomes problematic

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former navy pilot lieutenant ryan graves 
calls whatever is out there a security risk

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he told us his f-18 squadron began seeing uaps 
hovering over restricted airspace southeast of

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virginia beach in 2014 when they updated their 
jets radar making it possible to zero in with

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infrared targeting cameras so you're seeing it 
both with the radar and with the infrared and that

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tells you that there is something out there pretty 
hard to spoof that these photographs were taken

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in 2019 in the same area the pentagon confirms 
these are images of objects it can't identify

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lieutenant graves told us pilots training off the 
atlantic coast see things like that all the time

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every day every day for at least a couple years 
wait a minute every day for a couple of years

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you know i don't see an exhaust pool 
including this one off the coast of

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jacksonville florida in 2015 captured on a 
targeting camera by members of graves squadron

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it's rotating oh my gosh

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they're all going against the wind the wind's 120 
out of the west you can sort of hear a surprise

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in their voices you certainly can they seem to 
have broke character a bit uh and we're just kind

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of amazed at what they were seeing what do you 
think when you see something like this this is

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a difficult one to explain you have rotation you 
have high altitudes you have propulsion right i

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don't know i don't know what it is frankly he told 
us pilots speculate they are one of three things

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secret u.s technology an adversary spy vehicle 
or something otherworldly i'd say you know the

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highest probability is it's a threat observation 
program could it be russian or chinese technology

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i don't see why not are you alarmed i i 
am worried uh frankly you know if these

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were tactical jets from another country that were 
hanging out up there it would be a massive issue

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but because it looks slightly different we're 
not willing to actually look at the problem in

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the face uh we're we're happy to just ignore 
the fact that these are out there watching us

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every day the government has ignored it at 
least publicly since closing its project

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blue book investigation in 1969 but that began to 
change after an incident off southern california

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in 2004 which was documented by radar 
by camera and four naval aviators

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we spoke to two of them david fravor a graduate of 
the top gun naval flight school and commander of

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the f-18 squadron on the uss nimitz and flying 
at his wing lieutenant alex dietrich who has

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never spoken publicly about the encounter i 
never wanted to be on national tv no offense

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so why are you doing this because i was 
in a government aircraft because i was on

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the clock and so i feel a responsibility to 
to share what i can and it is unclassified

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it was november 2004 and the uss nimitz 
carrier strike group was training about

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100 miles southwest of san diego for a week 
the advanced new radar on a nearby ship

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the uss princeton had detected what operators 
called multiple anomalous aerial vehicles over

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the horizon descending 80 000 feet in less than 
a second on november 14 fravor and dietrich

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each with a weapon system officer in the back 
seat were diverted to investigate they found an

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area of roiling white water the size 
of a 737 in an otherwise calm blue sea

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so as we're looking at this her backseater says 
hey skipper do you and about that got out i said

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dude do you do you see that thing down there and 
we saw this little white tic-tac-looking object

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and it's just kind of moving above the 
white water area as dietrich circled above

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fravor went in for a closer look sort of spiraling 
down the tic-tacs don't point north-south it goes

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and just turns abruptly and starts mirroring 
me so as i'm coming down it starts coming up

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so it's it's mimicking your moves yeah it was 
aware we were there he said it was about the

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size of his f-18 with no markings no wings no 
exhaust plumes too i'll see how close i can get

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so i go like this and it's climbing still and when 
it gets right in front of me it just disappears

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disappears disappears like gone it had sped 
off what are you thinking so your mind tries

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to make sense of it i'm going to categorize 
this as maybe a helicopter or maybe a drone

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and when it disappeared i mean it was just 
did your backseaters see this too yeah oh yeah

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there was four of us in the airplanes literally 
watching this thing for roughly about five minutes

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seconds later the princeton reacquired the 
target 60 miles away another crew managed to

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briefly lock onto it with a targeting camera 
before it zipped off again you know i think

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that over beers we've sort of said hey man if 
i saw this solo i don't know that i would have

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come back and said anything because it sounds so 
crazy when i say it you understand that reaction

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i do you've had some people tell me you 
know when you say that you can sound crazy

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i'll be i'm not a ufo guy but from what 
i hear you guys saying there's something

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yes oh there's there's definitely something 
that i don't know who's building it

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who's got the technology who's got the brains 
but there's there's something out there that

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was better in our airplane the air crew filed 
reports then like the mysterious flying object

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the nimitz encounter disappeared nothing 
was said or done officially for five years

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until lou elizondo came across the story and 
investigated we spend millions of dollars in

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training these these pilots and they are seeing 
something that they can't explain furthermore

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that information is being backed up on electro 
optical data like gun camera footage and by

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radar data now to me that's compelling inside the 
pentagon his findings were met with skepticism

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atip's funding was eliminated in 2012 but elizondo 
says he and a handful of others kept the mission

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alive until finally frustrated he quit the 
pentagon in 2017 but not before getting these

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three videos declassified and then things took 
a stranger turn i tried to help my colleague

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lou elizondo elevate the issue in the department 
and actually get it to the secretary of defense

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christopher millen served as deputy assistant 
secretary of defense for intelligence for

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presidents clinton and george w bush and 
had access to top secret government programs

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so it's not us that's one thing we know we know 
that i could say that with very high degree of

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confidence in part because of the positions i held 
in the department and i know the process mellon

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says he grew concerned nothing was being done 
about uaps so he decided to do something in 2017

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as a private citizen he surreptitiously acquired 
the three navy videos elizondo had declassified

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and leaked them to the new york times it's bizarre 
and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do

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something like that to get a national security 
issue like this on the agenda he joined forces

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with now civilian lou elizondo and they started 
to tell their story to anybody who would listen

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to newspapers the history channel to members of 
congress we knew and understood that you had to

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go to the public get the public interested to 
get congress interested to then circle back

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to the defense department and get them to start 
taking a look at it and now it is this past august

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the pentagon resurrected atip it's now called the 
uap task force service members now are encouraged

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to report strange encounters and the senate 
wants answers anything that enters an airspace

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that's not supposed to be there is a threat 
after receiving classified briefings on uaps

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senator marco rubio called for a detailed analysis 
this past december while he was still head of the

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intelligence committee he asked the director of 
national intelligence and the pentagon to present

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congress an unclassified report by next month 
this is a bizarre issue the pentagon and other

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branches of the military have a long history of 
sort of dismissing this what makes you think that

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this time is going to be different i mean we're 
going to find out when we get that report you know

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there's a stigma on capitol hill i mean some of my 
colleagues are very interested in this topic and

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some kind of you know giggle when you when 
you bring it up but i i don't think we can

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allow the stigma to keep us from having an 
answer to a very fundamental question what do

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you want us to do about this i want us to take it 
seriously and have a process to take it seriously

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i want us to have a process to analyze the data 
every time it comes in that there be a place where

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this is cataloged and constantly analyzed until we 
get some answers maybe it has a very simple answer

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maybe it doesn't for more on the nimitz 
encounter i felt the vulnerability of

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not having anything to defend ourselves go to 
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