A former Navy pilot is speaking out about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and he says they are more common than people think.
Nick Graves, a former F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, said he previously encountered a UFO and reported his sightings to the Pentagon and Congress. When news broke that the U.S. military shot down three high-altitude objects over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron, he wasn’t all that surprised.
"We would fly our jets off the Eastern seaboard in our working areas with our F-18s. And once we upgraded our radars, we started noticing objects in our working areas that we weren't expecting to see," Graves said Monday on "Hannity."
"And we were all seeing these. We were seeing them on our radars. We were seeing them on our camera systems and our flare systems. And eventually, we even saw them with our eyeballs."
He explained that at one point, fellow pilots almost had a midair collision with one of these "objects" and had to file a hazard report, so the rest of the fleet was aware there was a safety issue. The aircrew that saw the object described it as a "dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere," said Graves.
The Navy veteran told host Sean Hannity that aircrew would usually see "objects" flying in a stationary manner.
"They would be stationary against the wind as if they weren't moving-- when we're fighting to keep our aircraft in the area. Other times, they would proceed in a straight line or in a holding pattern, often at speeds up to a supersonic 1.0 Mach," he explained.
"They would also be out there all day where our aircraft would typically only last for about an hour, hour and 15 minutes when we're flying tactically, these objects would be flying at high speeds for most of the day."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said there is "no indication" of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with the recent take-downs.
BIDEN STILL SILENT AFTER THREE MORE UFOS SHOT DOWN OVER NORTH AMERICA
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin relayed a similar message, saying while the U.S. doesn’t know what the objects are, they are "not a threat."
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"They do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground," he stated. "They do, however, present a risk to civil aviation and potentially an intelligence collection threat. And we'll get to the bottom of it."