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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

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video last august the pentagon set up the uap task 
force to collect and analyze evidence gathered by

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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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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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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