Trump calls newly released UFO footage ‘a hell of a video’
(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday called footage from the Pentagon showing “unidentified aerial phenomena” a “hell of a video” and told Reuters he wonders “if it’s real.”
Earlier this week, the Pentagon officially released three videos that show what appear to be unidentified flying objects rapidly moving while recorded by infrared cameras. Two of the videos contain service members reacting in awe at how quickly the objects are moving. One voice speculates that it could be a drone.
“I just wonder if it’s real,” Trump said of the videos. “That’s a hell of a video.”
The Navy had acknowledged the veracity of the videos — which had been previously released by a private company — in September. They officially released them this week “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,” according to Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough.
In 2017, one of the pilots who saw one of the unidentified objects in 2004 told CNN that it moved in ways he couldn’t explain.
“As I got close to it … it rapidly accelerated to the south, and disappeared in less than two seconds,” said retired US Navy pilot David Fravor.
Trump, who has often spread conspiracy theories, is skeptical of UFOs. In an interview with ABC News last year, the President said he’d had a meeting on the subject, but that he’s skeptical the fast-moving objects are anything extraterrestrial.
“I did have one very brief meeting on it,” he said in the interview. “But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”
The government has been quietly studying the possibility of UFOs for decades, with the Pentagon previously studying recordings of aerial encounters with unknown objects as part of a since-shuttered classified program that was launched at the behest of former Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. The program was launched in 2007 and ended in 2012, according to the Pentagon, because they assessed that there were higher priorities that needed funding.