US military has been observing ‘metallic orbs’ making extraordinary ‘maneuvers’

At a historic NASA briefing on UFOs — “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) in government parlance — a key Defense Department official made a striking disclosure. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of a new UAP analysis office, stated that U.S. military personnel are observing “metallic orbs” “all over the world.”

An image, along with two brief videos of such objects are now publicly available. 

According to Kirkpatrick, spherical objects account for the largest proportion — nearly half — of all UAP reports received by his office. Critically, some of these objects are capable of “very interesting apparent maneuvers.” 

To be sure, rigorous scientific analysis may ultimately identify a prosaic explanation for such observations. In the meantime, however, such “metallic orbs” are prima facie evidence of extraordinary technology. After all, how would spheres, lacking wings or apparent forms of propulsion, execute “maneuvers” of any kind? 

In his presentation, Kirkpatrick also described the UAP characteristics most frequently received by his office. This range of attributes, in short, amounts to a UAP profile that Kirkpatrick’s staff is “out hunting for.”

Intriguingly, this profile includes small (3 to 13 feet in diameter) “spherical” objects capable of flight at a range of velocities, from “stationary” to twice the speed of sound, despite a perplexing absence of “thermal exhaust” such as heat from an engine. Of particular note, as Kirkpatrick made clear, some of these highly anomalous characteristics are observed via multiple sensors. 

Former U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Ryan Graves has described daily encounters with unidentified objects exhibiting characteristics strikingly similar to those described by Kirkpatrick. While training off the U.S. east coast in 2014-15, Graves and at least 50-60 fellow naval aviators observed unknown objects, frequently via multiple sensors, that remained stationary over the ground even in hurricane-force winds, or traveled at speeds faster than sound.

Although the aircrew rarely observed the objects visually, a harrowing near-midair collision marked the first time a naval aviator in Graves’s squadron had observed one of the objects at close range. According to the pilot, the object appeared as a dark-colored cube inside of a clear sphere. As if to confirm, Kirkpatrick noted at the NASA event that “translucent” spheres are among the most commonly reported UAP characteristics. 

Contemporaneous U.S. Navy “hazard reports” memorialize the exasperation of naval aviators and their commanders following the April 2014 near-collision. According to one such document, Graves’s squadron considered the spheres, which flew with impunity in tightly-controlled training airspace, a “critical risk” and “a severe threat to Naval Aviation.” A few days earlier, a separate hazard report described an unknown object, observed via both radar and infrared sensors, hovering motionless at “0.0 Mach,” much like the “stationary” spherical objects frequently reported to Kirkpatrick’s office. 

Similarly, a hazard report from the previous day describes two objects — both confirmed via radar and infrared sensors — hovering in place. However, in this incident, two other UAP fly past the stationary objects “at a high speed.” Graves’s exasperated squadron commander punctuates the report by stating that “it is only a matter of time before this results in a midair” collision.

Less than a month earlier, a hazard report filed in the same area by a different squadron describes an aircrew encountering “a small metallic object” “approximately the size of a suitcase,” matching, once again, the commonly-reported characteristics described by Kirkpatrick.

The squadron commander, similarly incensed by the dire flight safety risk posed by the frequent UAP encounters, wrote that “it may only be a matter of time before one of our F/A-18 aircraft has a mid-air collision.” 

While he had less flexibility to investigate after he deployed, Graves recalls observing similar anomalous radar contacts as his squadron moved to the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. This is consistent with Kirkpatrick’s statement that such UAP are observed “all over the world.” 

A few years later, a test pilot flying in a nearby evaluation range told Graves of an encounter with one of the commonly reported objects. According to Graves, a spherical UAP was “just riding along with him,” about 30 feet from the aircraft, before it “zipped off.” A declassified report matching the general details of the incident describes a test pilot’s encounter with a “sphere.”

More recently, one of Graves’s former student pilots, along with a senior officer, observed one of the spheres. As Graves’s former student told him, “[The object] looked exactly like what you said, [a] cube in a sphere. They’re still here.” 

Importantly, the spheres are associated with one of the best-known UAP encounters.

The 2015 “Gimbal” video is arguably the most recognizable publicly available UAP footage. Recorded at the end of a complex pre-deployment training mission, Graves recalls that the “Gimbal” UAP flew in a loose formation with a “fleet” of four to six objects which, based on their perplexing radar signatures, resembled the objects observed daily by aviators off the East Coast. 

During the post-mission debrief, a thorough review of the sensor data from the “Gimbal” incident “left a crowd of fascinated intelligence officers and aircrew” perplexed enough to summon the highest ranking officer aboard the aircraft carrier. The admiral, exasperated by the frequent UAP incursions into the carrier’s airspace, and the “Gimbal” incident in particular, reported the incident to the Office of Naval Intelligence. 

Moreover, during the recent briefing by NASA’s Independent Study Team, a panel member mathematically analyzed the “GoFast” UAP video. Such open, transparent academic engagement with noteworthy UAP incidents is a much-welcome development.

Importantly, by virtue of its connection to the “Gimbal” incident, the “GoFast” video has a plausible link to the anomalous spherical UAP observed frequently by naval aviators. 

“GoFast” was recorded hundreds of miles offshore, just 10 minutes prior to the “Gimbal” incident, and by the same aircrew. While the NASA study team member who analyzed the video employed basic trigonometry to conclude that the cold, sphere-like “GoFast” object was traveling relatively slowly (about 40 miles per hour), citizen scientists — UFO skeptics and “agnostics” alike — have created three-dimensional models that recreate the effect of the strong winds that evening.

When accounting for wind, which can alter such geometrical reconstructions significantly, current analyses show that the “GoFast” object must travel far faster, at approximately 115 (versus 40) miles per hour. Moreover, the orb-like “GoFast” UAP would potentially move even more rapidly if a key figure pertaining to range is incorrect, as current and former aviators deem likely.

Hopefully, by drawing on NASA’s deep scientific expertise, the mystery of the “metallic orbs” observed globally can be resolved satisfactorily.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter @MvonRen.