I’ve spoken to a lot of people as I try to figure out what everyday Americans should make of the UFO phenomenon. Most of them try to hedge a little bit and say we need to wait for hard evidence before we make any firm conclusions. But retired rear admiral Timothy Gallaudet is not one of those people.
Gallaudet is a man with serious credentials. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he is the former head of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, has worked on anti-submarine warfare, ran the Naval Observatory, and eventually became the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He’s also one of the most outspoken proponents of the idea that not only are UFOs real, but the government is hiding the truth about them. “We’re being visited by some kind of higher-order intelligence that we don’t understand,” Gallaudet told me. “And it’s happening often, frequently, in our airspace and in our water and in space.”
Gallaudet recalls participating in a naval exercise off the East Coast in 2015 and finding that pilots flying off the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, were not only seeing UFOs but getting so close that officers like him became worried about a midair collision. These sightings produced the famous GoFast video of a UFO, which the Pentagon later said was an object that appeared out of the ordinary due to an effect called motion parallax.
Gallaudet, who says his correspondence about the object was mysteriously wiped from his computer, is far from convinced by that explanation. And he’s particularly curious as to why so many UFOs appear to be flying over water and in some videos, appear to be disappearing beneath the waves. “If they want to remain unseen,” he told me, “that’s the place they would be.”
As you’ll see, Gallaudet is sincere in his beliefs. He’s testified before Congress about what he’s seen. He and his wife, a fellow oceanographer, are still on the lookout for more proof that UFOs are real. They are true believers, and Gallaudet is not at all shy about expressing his convictions. He says what the government has disclosed so far is “a fraction of the tip of the iceberg of what we’re really seeing day to day.”
In this episode, we also talk about former Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who told Congress he regularly encountered UFOs while flying his F-18 fighter jet, as well as the accounts of other military whistleblowers like former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, former Army Colonel Karl Nell, and former Department of Defense officials Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo.
Now, this episode does get a bit freaky. We do discuss, for example, the possibility that Atlantis is not just real but findable. If you want to hear from someone who is a good deal more incredulous about this phenomenon than Admiral Gallaudet, be sure to check out my interview last week with professional skeptic Michael Shermer. You can also watch my interviews with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and independent journalist Michael Shellenberger.
But, again, Gallaudet is a serious man and a former flag officer in the U.S. Navy. And he’s coming out with a new memoir about his experiences, Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership for Turbulent Times. He is worth listening to as we try to get to the bottom of all this ahead of President Donald Trump’s promised disclosure of UFO documents. Watch the video above, or check out a condensed and edited partial transcript of the interview below.