More than two years after they were leaked online, the Pentagon has officially released three short clips from the encounters of US pilots with what they called ‘unidentified aerial phenomena.’

The infrared videos, filmed from US Navy planes in 2004 and 2015, showed ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ (UAPs), better known to the general public by their old name, unidentified flying object (UFO). The objects can be seen traversing the skies in an unexplained manner and at extremely high speeds. Two of the videos contain the recordings of the communications by the pilots, who were clearly blown away by the velocity of the unknown aircraft.

The Department of Defense said it was making an official release “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.”

The move was greenlit after “a thorough review,” which established that their release “does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems… and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said.

The DoD has already confirmed that the clips were authentic, when Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher said last September that they really featured UAPs. However, he pointed out that the videos were never authorized to be released to the public.

The Pentagon was opening up on the sightings of the unidentified aerial phenomena in order to destigmatize the issue and encourage pilots to report encounters with them – which turn out to be quite “frequent” – more willingly, Gradisher said.

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The three UFO videos were leaked online between December 2017 and March 2018 by a company co-founded by Tom DeLonge, a member of the punk band Blink-182, who is obsessed with finding signs of alien life.

The Pentagon ran a classified program to study UFO encounters between 2007 and 2012, which was pushed through by now-retired Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada).

I’m glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available. The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be informed. https://t.co/1XNduvmP0u — Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) April 27, 2020

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