Glowing orbs, mysterious lights and objects which appear to defy our known laws of physics.
Hundreds of secret UAP videos, photos and witness testimony held for decades by the US government have been released.
Hundreds of secret UAP videos, photos and witness testimony held for decades by the US government have been released. A Current Affair
But now that the files are in the open, is the truth also out there?
A UFO or as they’re now called a UAP – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – hovering, then in a flash, gone.
A video from Syria in 2021 is labelled apparent instantaneous acceleration.
In waters off Iran, another video shows what looks like a UAP fly by, in formation.
Witness testimony includes a current serving senior officer who just last year reported a “super hot” object that “split in two” and changed direction in an undisclosed location.
According to US President Donald Trump, it’s all an effort to be more transparent.
“President Trump has finally said, “Look we’re just gonna put it out there’, which I think is the right answer because this has been something that has been denied for far too long,” retired US military operative Tony Shaffer said.
Retired US military operative Tony Shaffer has spent his career dealing in secrets. A Current Affair
Shaffer has spent his career dealing in secrets.
“I think we’re much better off with more transparency than trying to deny the reality of which we we all know exists,” he told A Current Affair.
But when asked why the files have been kept secret by multiple administrations, his answer was simple.
“Because they could. These people had the means. They had the ability to do it,” he said.
“We’re talking about objects, which appear to defy what we know about flying.
“I’ve seen them too and one in particular when I was in the Philippines and no doubt it was something we did not make.
“This thing was probably about a half a kilometre long. It was massive and it was moving through the air with impunity, and with no sound, just absolute silence.
“And I called the base operations after … they never saw it on the radar. This thing was huge.”
While the US has been spending millions tracking this stuff, in Australia it’s not so much the case.
However, back in the ’80s and ’90s Australia did and Former Air Force Senior Intelligence Officer Dr Brett Biddington was part of the team investigating.
“Somebody would ring in and say, I’ve seen some strange lights,” he said.
Former Air Force Senior Intelligence Officer Dr Brett Biddington was part of the team investigating UFOs in the ’80s and ’90s in Australia. A Current Affair
“My starting assumption always is that if a person is interested enough to report something, they’ve actually seen something that doesn’t make sense to them.”
The RAAF wound up its investigation of these strange happenings in 1996.
“But once you started to look at many of these reports and I over the years, I guess, looked at hundreds of them, they were vague, imprecise, very rarely were two or three or more people reporting the same event,” Biddington said.
“I could see no threat to our national security from any of the reports that had been put onto my desk. So I proposed to the Chief of Air Force that that would be a function that we would stop doing.”
UAP researcher Grant Lavac says Australia is leaving itself open.
“The Australian Department of Defence has buried its head in the sand on this topic for more than 30 years. Its current long-held position is, move along folks, there’s nothing to see here,” he told A Current Affair.
Grant pointed out sightings in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Now, that’s incredibly close to Australian shores. So it makes me wonder, well, if there are incidents of UAP close to Australia, is the Australian Department of Defence taking notice?” he said.
A Current Affair sent the Defence Minister Richard Marles a list of questions on the topic, but they went unanswered.
The release of the files by Trump could be seen as a pretty good way of distracting the world from other things going on in his administration.
And some of these sightings can be easily explained away: balloons or birds, a glitch in sensors, or just effects in the atmosphere.
But others are truly unexplained.
If the believers are looking for concrete evidence of extra terrestrials, it’s not in these files. They’ll have to keep looking.
“That’s one of the great old age questions is ‘Are we alone?’” Lavac said.
Biddington agreed: “That’s the multimillion-dollar question. My answer is, I don’t know.”