News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

It is the breathless shock and amazement of the fighter pilots that makes the incredible footage they are filming - apparently showing UFOs whizzing through the air - even more spine-tingling.

The experienced airmen watched in disbelief as infrared cockpit cameras tracked fast-flying objects doing things no human aircraft could.

The 40ft long, oval-shaped UFOs had no wings, rotors, or any discernible means of propulsion.

Yet they were seen to hover in the sky, halt suddenly, change direction as if bouncing off a wall and instantly accelerate to hypersonic speeds of a mile a second.

Objects were filmed moving at an incredible 5,000 miles per hour showing “no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes”.

As one craft is seen spinning in mid-air as it moves against a 120-knot wind, one aghast pilot exclaims: “Look at that thing, it’s rotating”.

Although the footage features only one of the objects, he is heard to say “there’s a whole fleet of them” showing up on his monitors.

And as another is seen moving at incredible speeds above the ocean waves, a crew can be heard screaming in exhilaration as one pilot shouts: “Wow, what is that, man? Look at it fly!”

The amazing images were revealed this week after the Pentagon declassified the sightings by US Navy pilots between the summer of 2014 and March 2015.

During that time, the highly-experienced crews who were flying from American aircrafts carriers were spotting UFOs almost every day over the skies of the US East Coast.

Radar showed the crafts could fly as high as 80,000ft, and change direction so quickly one pilot compared it to “a ping-pong bouncing off a wall”.

(Image: Reuters)

The resulting G-force of such a manoeuvre would crush any humans inside.

Across several interviews, pilots described objects moving at hypersonic speeds and performing acts “beyond the physical limits of a human crew.”

Although they reported their sightings to the Pentagon and to Congress at the time, they have only now spoken out publicly.

Lieutenant Ryan Graves said he saw “strange objects” with no visible engine or exhaust plumes reaching at least 30,000 feet and flying at hypersonic speeds almost daily while training off the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Graves, a Super Hornet pilot who has been with the Navy for 10 years, said the UFOs were able to tear around the sky for 12 hours at a time, while a Navy jet could only manage an hour before having to refuel.

He said: “These things would be out there all day.

“Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy.

“With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

As well as the sightings on cockpit cameras and radars, in late 2014 a near collision was recorded in an official mishap report after the pilot of a Super Hornet fighter jet almost hit one of them.

The pilot, who perhaps got closer to the UFOs than any other human, said it looked like a sphere encasing a cube.

Another pilot, Lt Danny Accoin, said he encountered the objects twice.

The first time he picked one up on his radar, he set his plane to head towards it, while flying 1,000ft below.

While while though it was clearly visible on his radar, missile system and infrared camera, he claimed couldn't see it through his helmet camera - leading to suggestions the UFOs has developed invisibility cloaking.

Ten years before the 2014 sightings, another Navy pilot described an almost identical craft during a training mission over the Pacific.

Commander David Fravor described how he and his colleagues saw a large object just below the surface of the water, and another, 50ft above, hovering erratically.

They described it as 40ft long, white, wingless and shaped like an oblong pill.

As Cmdr Fravor flew towards it the second object rose to meet him at a fast speed and acceleration.

He said: “The hair on the back of my neck was standing up.

“I was thinking: ‘I’m going to be watching a disaster here.’ You’re wondering: ‘How can I possibly fight this?’”

Instead, the object suddenly peeled away at a speed that Cmdr Fravor admits left him feeling “pretty weirded out.”

And his radar showed the object had reappeared under a minute later, 60 miles away at the planes’ precise rendezvous point.

Meanwhile, Kevin Day, senior radar operator on the USS Princeton at the time, says his screen showed well over 100 UFOs over the course of that week.

He said: “Watching them on the display was like watching snow fall from the sky.”

Amid amazement at the extraordinary footage and first-hand witness accounts, the US Navy announced it has introduced a formal, yet secret, procedure for military personnel to report sightings of UFOs.

Until now, crews have been told to ignore unexplained sightings in the air rather than report them.

In a statement, it said the Navy and Air Force would “investigate each and every report” of unauthorised and unidentified aircraft and take such incidents “very seriously”.

For that reason, the Navy is “updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities,” the statement said.

Among those who welcomed the move US defence secretary Christopher Mellon, who told Fox News the fact that UFOs exist is “no secret” among defence bosses.

But he said no-one knows anything else about them, or what tech is behind the objects.

He said: “We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue.

“The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devises that we are observing?

“Pilots observing these craft after absolutely mystified and that comes through clearly in their public statements.”