Reports are coming in that a US fighter jet was struck by a UFO mid-air near the Air Force training ranges in Arizona. However, this is not an isolated incident, as a swarm of mystery objects has been buzzing around the region lately.
In January 2023, one of these unidentified flying objects damaged a $63 million F-16 Viper Jet. The UFO hit the clear bubble “canopy” over the head of a pilot. The incident was first reported by The War Zone. The Federal Aviation Administration documents said that the plane was heavily damaged and was grounded later.
The FAA documents said that the fighter jet was struck by “an orange-white UAS,” or Uncrewed Aerial System, generally known as drones. Only a day later, three more UAS encounters were identified, sparking many questions. “What I can tell you is that there has been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border [with Mexico],” said Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon investigator.
The Federal Aviation Administration told The Post that the agency “documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility.”
FAA added, “If supporting information such as radar data corroborates the report, the FAA shares it with the UAP Task Force. The Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office serves as the centralized clearing house for UAP reporting impacting national security or safety.”
According to the latest report issued by the Anomaly Resolution Office, at least 757 such encounters have been documented by the government from May 2023 to June 2024. Seven hundred eight of such reports happened in the air, while only 49 have been marked as “case closed.”
The UAP Transparency Act (H.R. 1187) demands full disclosure of all records on unidentified phenomena within 270 days, yet we’re still seeing bureaucratic foot-dragging. The Pentagon’s own 2023 report admitted to 650+ UAP cases they can’t explain, including objects moving at…
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The War Zone claims that the small mystery objects that have been spotted in the near Arizona ranges mostly fly in groups of eight or fewer. They have been characterized as drones sometimes. The outlet added that these flying objects are “clearly being passed through multiple U.S. military reporting streams.” As an example, The War Zone provided the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident.
Notably, since January 2020, most of these encounters have been taking place at high altitudes in or around the air combat training ranges. Some US officials think that they could be used by foreign cartels for smuggling drugs or for spying. News Nation reports that the cartel has used such technology to move up to at least 10 kilograms of drugs at a time, and these could be very difficult to track.
Ron Vitiello, a senior adviser for US Customs and Border Protection, also believes in this theory. Speaking with News Nation Prime earlier this month, he said that “unlimited funding” from cartels could explain the “cutting-edge technology”.
“Maybe they’ve got technology that we’re not used to seeing in the drone space,” he said. “That’s part of their business model, to always be able to iterate and innovate, so that they can continue to sell their poison into the United States,” Ron added.
