The US navy has confirmed three videos published in 2017 showing unidentified fly objects were taken from US military jets.

The three videos that sparked a resurgence in UFO research and speculation after being published by the New York Times in an expose about the Pentagon's UFO research programme and by a public interest group co-founded by Tom DeLonge, the former lead singer of US rock group Blink 182.

Screenshot of infrared radar footage of the UFO captured from a Navy fighter jet. (Supplied)

The videos feature grainy footage taken from US military jets from 2004 to 2015.

In one clip from 2015, labelled GOFAST.wmv by the navy, an unidentified object is being tracked by an F-18 Super Hornet jet flying over the ocean as pilots exclaim their amazement.

Another video taken in 2004 from an F-18 jet shows an object moving rapidly out of the jet's tracker system.

After much controversy over the legitimacy and source of the videos , the US government declassified three videos of "unexplained aerial phenomena" on Monday, confirming the clips are real.

190528 US Fighter jet pilots air force UFO sightings News World (US Department of Defence)

The Department of Defence released the videos "in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos," Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokeswoman said in a statement.

"The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterised as 'unidentified,'" she said.