US military pilots and satellites recorded “much more” sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, than were released, said former Donald Trump intelligence director John Ratcliffe.
Asked on Fox News about a future government report on “unidentified aerial phenomena”, Ratcliffe said the report would document sightings hitherto unknown to “the whole world”.
“Frankly, there are far more sightings than have been released,” he said.
“Some of them have been disqualified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that were seen by navy or air force pilots, or were captured by satellite images, which frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are difficult to replicate, for which we don’t have the technology.
“Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”
The UFO report is due to be published in early June, according to a clause in a Covid relief and spending package signed by Trump before leaving office.
Ratcliffe served for about eight months as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s term. Previously, Trump moved to nominate Ratcliffe for the role, but Ratcliffe withdrew from concerns that he had exaggerated and lied about his experience as a prosecutor in Texas.
“In fact, I wanted to release this information and declassify it before I left office,” said Ratcliffe, “but we were unable to put it in an unclassified format that we were able to talk about quickly”
The next report will be issued by the defense department and intelligence agencies. When an unidentified aerial phenomenon is identified, said Ratcliffe, analysts try to explain it as a potential weather disturbance or other routine spectacle.
Daniel Chaitin
(@ danielchaitin7)Wow. Maria Bartiromo gets former DNI John Ratcliffe to talk about UFOs before the deadline for the government to disclose what it knows about them …
“We usually have several sensors that capture these things … in fact, there is much more than what has been made public” pic.twitter.com/qu4VlzrZw1
“We are always looking for a plausible application,” he said. “Sometimes we wonder if our opponents have technologies that are a little more advanced than we thought or imagined.
“But there are cases where we don’t have a good explanation.
“In short, the things we are looking at are difficult to explain – and there are some of them, and I think that information has been gathered and will be disseminated in a way that the American people can see.”
Asked by Bartiromo where unidentified phenomena were spotted, Ratcliffe replied, “in fact, all over the world, there have been sightings all over the world.
“Several sensors that are capturing these things. They are inexplicable phenomena and, in fact, there are some more than the ones that were divulged ”.