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6:45
Transcript
0:01
bill whitaker on unidentified aerial phenomena
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this week on 60 minutes we reported on
unidentified aerial phenomena uap more
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commonly known as ufos the pentagon says this
night vision video was taken by navy personnel
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and is being investigated unusual sightings like
this one continue to occur and be captured on
0:27
video last august the pentagon set up the uap task
force to collect and analyze evidence gathered by
0:34
service members who are now being encouraged to
report these strange encounters we met two former
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navy pilots lieutenant commander alex dietrich
and commander dave fraver in 2004 they witnessed
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something shocking inexplicable and seemingly out
of this world did the thought of ufo enter your
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0:58
mind it was unidentified and that's why it was so
unsettling to us because we weren't expecting it
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because we couldn't classify it but what i want to
be really careful of here is that we don't jump to
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conclusions right that we don't sensationalize
this or little green men yeah little green men
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or extraterrestrial you're seeing something
that defies explanation right very much yes
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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 the advanced
new radar on a nearby ship the uss princeton
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had detected what operators called multiple
anomalous aerial vehicles over the horizon
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descending 80 thousand feet in less than a second
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fraver and dietrich each with a weapon system
officer in the back seat were ordered to
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investigate and found an area of white water in
an otherwise calm blue sea it appeared to them
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2:05
that an object about the size of a 737 was just
under the water so as we're looking at this her
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backseater says hey skipper do you and about
that got out i said dude do you do you see that
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thing down there and we saw this little white
tic tac looking object and it's just kind of
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moving above the white water area do you ever
drop your phone and it sort of bounces off the
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counter top and then bounces off something else
and it's sort of like no no predictable movement
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no predictable trajectory i guess it was just it
was just like a ping pong ball no acceleration
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very very random acceleration as dietrich
circled above fravor went in for a closer look
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so you're sort of spiraling down the tic
tacs still pointing 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 so it's
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it's mimicking your moves yeah it wasn't where we
were there we want to see how close i can get so i
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go like this and it's climbing still when it gets
right in front of me it just disappears disappears
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disappears like gone and you saw no visible
propulsion no no wings or anything to make it
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fly in our atmosphere no actually when it turned
and started coming up it was kind of like okay
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because we have nothing that goes that
fast and just starts climbing it well
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seconds later the princeton reacquired the
target 60 miles away so in a matter of like that
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yeah it just appeared there in in seconds
it was 60 miles away later another flight
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crew encountered what they believed to be the
same object and briefly locked onto it with a
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targeting camera before it zipped off again
they didn't get a visual on it but they did
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get this flare footage the forward-looking
infrared so you've got the infrared image right
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yes and your eyesight yes and the princeton the
radar all saying there is something out there yes
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the princeton had been tracking the anomalous
objects for days dietrich says they were unarmed
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you know i felt the vulnerability of not
having anything to defend ourselves to not
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having any rounds anything on the rails if this
was in fact a hostile threat and we were engaged
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i felt vulnerable and then i felt confused
when it disappeared dietrich says she briefed
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superiors about what they all saw in no time
the story of their encounter spread quickly
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rumors like that spread within seconds
i would say with less than 30 minutes
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the entire ship made this happen and what was
the reception like i actually thought it was
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kind of funny and started giving us a lot
of grief ridicule yeah ridicule yeah yeah
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they made cartoons and on the ship's tv they
played men in black and independence day and signs
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they made fun of it oh yeah did anybody take it
seriously yeah i believe the admiral staff made
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a few phone calls but that was the extent
of it the story will continue after this
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christopher millen served as deputy assistant
secretary of defense for intelligence
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for presidents clinton and george w bush and was
on the staff of the senate intelligence committee
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he had access to top secret government programs
he says what dietrich and fravor witnessed
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demonstrated technological capabilities beyond
those of the u.s military's most advanced aircraft
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in the case of the nimitz they seem to these
vehicles seem to have unlimited loiter time
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which we don't have we're limited in terms
of of altitude it's hard to design something
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that functions well at ground level that can go
you know to 60 000 or 80 000 feet and then drop
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and then yeah and then drop down to the
deck or drop to 20 000 feet and you know
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it's like a straight vertical line in seconds
yeah in seconds and this has been captured on
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radar yeah i've talked to some of the radar
operators who observe that then the acceleration
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is beyond any far beyond anything that we that
we're capable of what's the fastest one of
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our jets can go probably for a very brief
period of time 1500 or 2000 miles an hour
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nothing near the degree of acceleration that
has been observed in some of these cases there's
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nothing we could build that would be strong enough
to endure that amount of force and acceleration
— end of transcript —
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