Navy pilots have reported objects they could not identify. The Pentagon has released videos, witnesses have made sworn allegations, and Congress has pushed for disclosure. In 2026, the government began releasing UAP files, the House voted to revive an independent review board, and the president reportedly waived prior UAP nondisclosure agreements. This guide follows the evidence, then asks what might interest another intelligence about us.
A documented event, a witness’s allegation, and a possible explanation carry different weight.
1. Is anyone out there?
The Drake equation organizes estimates of how many communicating civilizations might exist. Key terms—such as how often life develops intelligence—remain uncertain (SETI).
The Fermi paradox asks why we have no verified detection. Perhaps intelligence is rare, civilizations are short-lived, or their activity is difficult to recognize (SETI).
Radio searches have sampled only a tiny fraction of the possibilities (study).
UFO enthusiasts raise another possibility: perhaps some evidence is already here, but remains ambiguous, disputed, or inaccessible.
2. How UFOs went mainstream
Three abbreviations recur:
- UFO: unidentified flying object.
- UAP: unidentified anomalous phenomena.
- NHI: non-human intelligence.
In 2017, the New York Times reported on the Pentagon’s UFO program, AATIP, and published Navy footage (report). In 2020, the Pentagon released three videos—FLIR1, Gimbal, and GoFast—and said the phenomena shown remained unidentified (statement).
The videos tell different stories:
- Gimbal (2015) shows an apparently rotating infrared shape. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) lists the case as unresolved (catalogue).
- GoFast (2015) looks strikingly fast, but AARO attributes that appearance to motion parallax: the viewing aircraft’s movement makes the object seem to race across the ocean. Its analysis found no anomalous performance, although the object remains unidentified (analysis).
At a sworn 2023 House hearing, former Navy pilot Ryan Graves described frequent encounters reported by his squadron in 2014–2015 (transcript).
Following Trump’s February 2026 declassification directive, the PURSUE program began releasing UAP files on May 8. Six releases had appeared by October 12, 2026 (official portal).
3. The 2004 Nimitz encounter
For me, Nimitz is the strongest starting point. It brings together aircrew testimony, reported radar contacts, and a later infrared recording.
On November 14, 2004, off Southern California, USS Princeton diverted David Fravor’s flight to investigate unusual radar contacts. Four aircrew saw disturbed water and a white, oblong object. Fravor described no visible wings, rotors, or propulsion. He said the object responded to his approach, then accelerated away.
According to Fravor, controllers then reported a contact at his flight’s patrol point, roughly sixty miles away. He did not watch the object travel that distance (congressional statement). Alex Dietrich, the other pilot, has also described her sighting (interview).
On a later flight, Chad Underwood recorded FLIR1, tracking an object with his aircraft’s sensor without seeing it with his own eyes (interview). The video is therefore not a recording of Fravor’s close encounter. It cannot verify every maneuver he described.
Shipboard technician Gary Voorhis says men in civilian clothes arrived and he was ordered to surrender AEGIS radar recordings and erase copies. Patrick “PJ” Hughes says his commander and men in apparent Air Force uniforms collected data drives from an E-2 Hawkeye aircraft (report). If accurate, this suggests the data were considered sensitive. I suspect military or intelligence collection, possibly AFOSI or CIA, but who collected them remains unestablished, and Fravor disputes parts of these accounts.
4. What Congress wants released
In 2023, Senators Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds proposed the bipartisan UAP Disclosure Act, modeled on the law governing JFK assassination records. It called for an independent review board and included provisions for privately held recovered technologies and biological evidence associated with NHI.
Lawmakers were writing rules for the kinds of evidence that crash-retrieval witnesses say exist. The law retained records requirements and a UAP collection, but omitted the board and eminent-domain provisions (senators’ account; National Archives).
On July 22, 2026, the House adopted Eric Burlison’s defense-bill framework to revive the board, with subpoena authority and requirements for contractors. House adoption alone does not make it law (announcement).
5. Elizondo and Grusch: what they allege
Former Pentagon official Lue Elizondo testified in 2024 that technologies made by neither the U.S. nor foreign governments had monitored sensitive sites. He also alleged possession of UAP technology, an arms race, and failures of oversight (testimony).
David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer whose NRO duties included coordinating the President’s Daily Brief, testified in 2023 that he had learned of a crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program, had been denied access, and had used whistleblower channels. He cited information from other officials, including photographs, documents, and classified testimony (statement).
Grusch also alleged the recovery of nonhuman biological material, citing people he said had direct knowledge of the program. He presented no craft or biological sample publicly (hearing transcript). These are serious allegations on the record; public corroboration remains essential.
AARO’s 2024 review found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity or government or contractor possession of extraterrestrial technology. Witnesses and disclosure advocates dispute that assessment (briefing).
6. What presidents have said and done
In a July 29, 2026 statement, Burlison reported that Trump had ordered prior UAP nondisclosure agreements waived for government employees and contractors (statement).
In February 2026, Barack Obama said “They’re real,” then clarified that he considered life elsewhere plausible and had seen no evidence of extraterrestrial contact while president (account).
In 2021, he also described records and footage of objects whose identity and movement remain unexplained (interview).
7. Roswell: start with the debris
On July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field announced that it had recovered a “flying disc.” The military then identified the material as balloon-related. That reversal and the debris photographs are part of the contemporary record (GAO investigation).
A July 8 FBI teletype described balloon-like material but said Wright Field had not confirmed that identification. It also said the material was sent there for examination, without showing what arrived or what was found (FBI reproduction).
Decades later, Major Jesse Marcel described unusually light, resistant debris and unfamiliar markings. His account concerned debris, not bodies or an intact craft. The passage of time and disputes about his biography complicate those recollections.
The Air Force’s 1994 explanation traced the debris to Project MOGUL, which used balloons to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Its components match contemporary descriptions and photographs, and the project’s secrecy could explain secrecy surrounding the debris (report).
I examine the narrower custody dispute in The Strongest Roswell Case Is the Narrowest One.
8. UFOs and nuclear weapons
Roswell’s 509th Bomb Group was then the world’s only atomic-bomb delivery unit (Air Force report). Could nuclear weapons have attracted observers already nearby?
Robert Hastings collects testimony and records about nuclear sites in UFOs and Nukes. Robert Salas says guards at Malmstrom reported a glowing object in 1967, followed by missiles going off alert. His account concerns Oscar Flight, not the documented shutdown at Echo Flight (case discussion).
Military messages from 1975 recorded unidentified aircraft near the nuclear weapons storage area at Loring Air Force Base, with descriptions of helicopters (records and account). Such incursions matter even if the intruders were conventional aircraft.
A light-speed signal from Earth in 1945 could not prompt arrival from hundreds of light-years away by 1947. That requires observers already nearby or additional assumptions.
9. Italy, 1933: an earlier recovery claim
Grusch alleges that a vehicle recovered near Magenta in 1933 was held under Mussolini and later acquired by the U.S. with Vatican assistance. He made this claim in interviews outside his written congressional statement (NewsNation segment).
Roberto Pinotti and Alfredo Lissoni’s case rests on anonymous mailings from the 1990s onward. Purported telegrams order secrecy about aircraft reports, but their provenance is incomplete. Even authentic telegrams would not establish an alien recovery or U.S. transfer; forensic work on one manuscript cannot authenticate the collection.
I examine those limits in Italy, 1933. The claim should be neither treated as history nor dismissed for sounding extraordinary.
10. Could older traditions preserve encounters?
From here, the guide moves into speculation.
Ezekiel 1 describes creatures, fire, wheels, and a throne as part of a divine vision (text). Iliad 5 depicts divine chariots (text), and the Ramayana describes the aerial vehicle Pushpaka (text).
Could a tradition preserve an unusual encounter, reshaped by generations of theology and storytelling? Perhaps. But reading these passages as spacecraft accounts adds a modern interpretation. Borrowing between cultures, celestial events, dreams, and visions can also explain shared imagery.
11. If anyone is here, what might they want?
Three speculative motives beyond conquest or minerals:
Earth’s biology. Our organisms, ecosystems, and evolutionary history could be harder to replace than raw materials. An observer might value the biosphere without protecting every individual within it.
Our biology. Human physiology, cognition, genetics, and technology could interest an observer. That is a possible motive, not corroboration of any particular abduction report.
Our information. Language, art, institutions, and digital records reveal how a society develops. Even a machine intelligence might value biological cultures—and recognize that contact would change what it was studying.
12. They might be very different from us
The 11.2-billion-year-old Kepler-444 system has small planets too close to their star to be habitable as we know it. Still, they predate Earth by billions of years (NASA). Older planets do not guarantee civilizations, but vast differences in age and capability are conceivable.
A visitor might be a machine, an autonomous probe, a hybrid, or an artificial descendant. Our own development of AI makes these possibilities easier to imagine.
13. Where this leaves us
If a nonhuman explanation survived serious examination, it could change our understanding of intelligence, humanity’s place in nature, and our own history.
Begin with Nimitz. Read the testimony alongside the footage, keep the gaps in view, and watch what disclosure produces. Curiosity can take us into extraordinary possibilities; confidence should depend on the evidence.
If you liked this post, you can read the full length post here.
