A photo of a mysterious airborne object has been leaked to US defense news outlet, The Debrief.
The image published by The Debrief on Thursday depicts what officials first described as a "cube-shaped" silver object "hovering" at an altitude of between 30,000 and 35,000 feet (9.1 to 10.6 kilometers).
The object in the (above) photo
appears to be more of an inverted bell-shaped one (far
below photo), however, with
what looks like ridges on its lateral edges.
Called UAPs by the military, the phenomena are better known to the broader public by their old name, unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The US defense department
only
officially acknowledged the existence of the UAPTF in August
this year, after the Senate 2021 intelligence authorization bill let
it slip in June.
The UAPTF's predecessor,
the UFO-hunting Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program
(AATIP), was run by the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2007 to
2012.
The image was taken from an F/A-18 fighter jet with a pilot's personal cell phone somewhere off the East Coast of the US.
Sources within the intelligence community contacted by The Debrief confirmed that it was taken at some point in 2018, but the exact time and location were not revealed to the media outlet.
According to the outlet,
the 2018 report that had been quite widely distributed through the
"non-public" military and intelligence information-sharing channels
"expressly stated" that an idea of some UAP to be the products of
"alien" or "non-human" technology was considered quite legitimate.
The paper reportedly
contained an "extremely clear" photo of the aircraft, described as a
large equilateral triangle with rounded or "blunted" edges and large
spherical white "lights" at the corners.
Sources familiar with the report told The Debrief that the image was taken,
The incident reportedly
took place off the eastern US coast as well.
The US military did release three videos showing pilots' encounters with what was called "unidentified aerial phenomena" in April, without providing many details about what was seen in the footage.
Further attempts,
including by the US Senate, to make the Pentagon and the US
intelligence agencies declassify additional information were
apparently to no avail.
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