Why Are Military Pilots Seeing Unknown Objects?

Term: UAP: unidentified anomalous phenomena, the official term for objects and events that observers or sensors cannot immediately identify.

Term: Range fouler: a Navy term for an unidentified object that interrupts training or other military activity in a military operating area or restricted airspace.

Term: AESA radar: active electronically scanned array radar, a modern radar type that tracks many small targets at once.

Term: Parallax: an apparent change in an object’s position or speed caused by the observer’s own movement.

Why Are Military Pilots Seeing Unknown Objects?

Three things explain most of it. Pilots and sensors now detect more than they did a decade ago. Pilots now face less risk in reporting what they detect. And most of the objects, once investigated, turn out to be ordinary things such as balloons, drones, birds, and satellites. A smaller number of cases stay unexplained, mostly because the data is too limited to reach a conclusion.

Better sensors detect more

Ryan Graves, a former Navy F/A-18 pilot, told Congress in July 2023 that his squadron started detecting unknown objects in 2014 after a radar upgrade. The pilots first took the tracks for software glitches. Then infrared sensors confirmed them. Graves said the sightings became common, and that most of his colleagues saw them on radar and some up close.

The upgrade was to AESA radar, which generally tracks more small targets than older systems. That fits a simple reading: more capable radar detects more objects in the sky, including ordinary ones.

Encounters from the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s 2014 and 2015 deployment produced two of the three Navy videos the Pentagon released in April 2020, called Gimbal and GoFast. The third, called FLIR1 or Tic Tac, comes from 2004 off the California coast. Retired Navy Commander David Fravor testified in 2023 about his part in that encounter, in which he saw a white, oval object.

Reporting became safer

For decades, pilots who reported strange objects risked ridicule. A 2021 intelligence assessment said sociocultural stigma was an obstacle to collecting data. It also said no standard reporting system existed until the Navy created one in March 2019. The Air Force adopted the same system in November 2020.

The numbers rose once reporting was easier. The 2021 assessment reviewed 144 reports from 2004 to 2021. By August 2022 the government’s catalog held 510 reports. Investigators said the increase reflected a better understanding of possible threats and reduced stigma around reporting. AARO received 757 new reports between May 2023 and June 2024, and 319 between June 2024 and May 2025.

What most reports turn out to be

AARO closed a large share of these cases as ordinary objects. Among the cases it closed from May 2023 to June 2024, about 70 percent were balloons, 16 percent drones, 8 percent birds, 4 percent satellites, and 2 percent aircraft. In its 2025 report, AARO resolved 114 of 319 new reports, most of them balloons and satellites. It has also found no resolved case that showed advanced foreign technology.

Sensor effects explain some of the rest. AARO analyzed the GoFast video and concluded the object was near 13,000 feet, not skimming the water as it appears. It said the apparent speed came from parallax, because the jet was moving. Some Navy pilots dispute that analysis.

Military ranges are also crowded. Balloons, commercial drones, birds, and debris all show up in airspace where pilots and radar operators are trained to spot anything unusual. The 2021 assessment grouped explanations into five categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government or industry programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catch-all category.

What stays unexplained

The 2021 assessment could explain one of its 144 reports, a large deflating balloon. It said 18 incidents involved unusual flight characteristics, such as staying stationary in the wind, moving against it, or moving fast without a visible means of propulsion. It also said more analysis was needed to decide whether those data were valid.

The pattern has continued. In its 2025 report, AARO moved 191 of 319 new cases to an active archive pending new data. It wrote that a lack of timely and actionable sensor data limits its ability to resolve cases. In its 2024 report, AARO said 21 cases merited further analysis because of reported anomalous characteristics.

AARO has also stated that it has found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology. Its head, Dr. Jon Kosloski, told senators the same in November 2024. Unresolved does not mean a case shows anything exotic. It means the record cannot settle it.

What I make of the unexplained cases

I do not claim that most sightings are anything but ordinary. The official numbers show that most are. I do argue that the cases which resist ordinary explanation deserve a serious look, and that their pattern is older than aviation. Witnesses have described similar lights, effects, and encounters for centuries.

My book Disclosure: They Are Not Extraterrestrials sets those older reports beside the military ones and asks what they have in common. It is available on Amazon. You can find more of my work at ckqbooks.com.

Sources

Ryan Graves, written testimony, House Oversight Committee, July 26, 2023. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (June 25, 2021), and its 2022 annual report. AARO Fiscal Year 2024 and Fiscal Year 2025 annual reports (aaro.mil). AARO GoFast Case Resolution report (2025). DefenseScoop, November 19, 2024, on AARO’s Senate testimony.