Air Force Jet GROUNDED After Collision With "Orange-White" UFO

Show Transcript

When the United States Air Force trains over Arizona's deserts, pilots are preparing for nearly anything. But nothing could have readied them for what has been evading the most restricted skies in the country. Today we're investigating classified encounters, evasive maneuvers, and the shocking moment when an American fighter jet was grounded after a direct collision with a UFO. I'm Christina Gomez and welcome to this episode of UFO Case Studies.

Hello and welcome to everyone catching this live episode. This is a very interesting one. On January 19th, 2023, the boundary between military preparedness and the unknown collapsed in Arizona's skies. Who here is from Arizona? Let me know in the live chat. Let me know in the comments below as well. And during a standard combat exercise over the Barry Goldwater Range, which we're seeing an image right here, an F-16 Viper struck an orange-white object at high speed. An object that they initially logged as a drone, as they do, yet it was never actually identified. And according to The War Zone, here's a screenshot of the article, this impact fractured the fighter's reinforced canopy with enough force to compromise the aircraft's integrity. And faced with uncertain damage and potential system failures, the pilot immediately aborted the mission and navigated the compromised jet back to base.

How often do we hear of a case like that where an unknown object hits a jet and fractures it? Maybe I can count that on one hand and only a few of those fingers are going to be up. Now the aftermath transformed abstract intelligence reports into a concrete reality - a $200 million fighter jet rendered unusable, requiring extensive repairs before returning to service, which we'll get into in just a little bit. But this wasn't merely just another sensor anomaly or a distant visual sighting like Venus. It marked the moment when these mysterious intrusions created this unmeasurable cost on US military readiness. And this wasn't just an isolated account by no means. It represented the moment when these encounters crossed from observation to physical contact.

And what makes this collision particularly baffling is the location. Because the Barry Goldwater Range is part of an extensive network of restricted airspace and blankets much of southern Arizona, creating one of the most tightly controlled aerial environments in the entire country. Now these areas are designated as special use airspace zones, entirely closed to civilian aircraft, designed specifically for the most advanced and high-stakes military exercises. That's what that place is for.

So to see a mysterious drone or any kind of object that shouldn't be there is classified as a threat. And Arizona serves as the heart of American combat training, hosting Luke Air Force Base, a major training hub for the US and foreign F-35s and F-16 pilots. Then you have Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. And then just 140 miles southwest of Luke sits Air Station Yuma, hosting multiple F-35 squadrons. Now that's just naming a few. But the Arizona Air National Guard also maintains significant presence at the Morris Air National Guard Base, and then which is right next to the Tucson International Airport. So there's, even though Arizona is kind of like this desolate area, there's a lot going on.

And this concentrated military infrastructure creates what should be this impenetrable barrier to any unauthorized entity, right? You would think so. Yet the orange-white object that hit the F-16 somehow penetrated through the military's defenses, flying undetected until the moment of impact. And this raises very disturbing questions about the gaps in radar coverage, potential electronic countermeasures, or a technology that simply outclasses our detection capabilities.

And the conclusion forced immediate protocol changes. And since the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident, which fun fact for you because you know how much I love fun facts, to this day China never confessed to that. And they have even claimed that China has had similar incidents happen over their airspace as well. But these were reporting procedures that have been intensified with UFO encounters that quote "clearly being passed through multiple US military report streams."

According to The War Zone, and the physical evidence from the F-16's damaged canopy underwent, listen to this, according to The War Zone article, the damaged jet underwent forensic analysis. But I feel like this next sentence is very telling because the results remain classified. Shocking, not shocking. Sorry not sorry. That's kind of how it's feeling. But that's like saying "no comment" to a question. That tells you everything you need to know, or "I can neither confirm nor deny the incident," right? Kind of deal.

And while the F-16 was eventually returned to service after extensive repairs and inspection, its grounding represented a tangible operational impact. One aircraft removed from America's defense capabilities due to an encounter with something that shouldn't have been there in the first place. But like I said, this is not an isolated incident. A lot has happened. And since January of 2020, that airspace in Arizona has faced a disturbing breach. Encounters with small unidentified flying objects, sometimes in swarms of as many as eight, have been reported and have been repeatedly logged as well.

Now this instantly reminded me of the Langley Air Force Base incident that was reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2023. This is kind of giving a similar vibe but listen to this: the FAA records and the Air Force Safety Reports obtained through FOIA, which is as you know Freedom of Information Act requests, reveal a startling wave of incidents - dozens within just the last three to four years. And thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we actually have some screenshots. Here is one of them and I had it up for a while so that gave you enough time to go ahead and read it. There is another one I will show you in just a little bit but I'll put this one up for now because the US government has filed 757 related reports between May of 2023 and June of 2024, which includes 78 aerial incidents.

And here's the kicker: only 49 were marked as being case closed. So out of all of those reports, hundreds of reports, only 49 have been like "Okay yeah no, we actually have the answer to this." That's telling, is it not? And this was according to the latest DoD All-Domain Anomaly Resolution report.

Now the small unidentified objects found in Arizona tend to fly in groups of up to eight during incidents at high altitudes in or near military combat training sites. And data from the FAA and the Air Force Safety Center shows a marked increase in these incidents. For example, in 2020, The War Zone received 25 separate incident reports from the Air Force Safety Center covering worldwide encounters with these unidentified aircraft between 2013 and 2019. Yet just in southwestern Arizona, nine hazard reports were filed in such a short time frame, many involving F-35s and C-130 variants. And several of these were categorized as dangerous near collisions, highlighting not only a national security concern but a critical flight safety issue.

And this is a big reason to why people such as pilot Ryan Graves is addressing this as a national security issue, because people that he has spoken to, including those in his squadron, have had encounters with near misses with these types of unknown craft. That's dangerous. That puts someone's life at risk. Is that not a threat?

The Arizona encounters exist within a wider pattern of military UAP incidents that have forced sweeping policy changes within the DoD. In May of 2022, Congress held their first public hearing on UAPs in over 50 years. You might have remembered that, where the deputy director of national intelligence Scott Bray confirmed 11 near misses between military aircraft and unidentified objects. And we covered that hearing on this show, we did a review right after this in 2022. And while I will say it was humiliating, it was not a good hearing, it set the foundation for all the other ones that came soon after with Grusch, with Tim Gallaudet, the new ones that we should be getting in the near future.

Well this hearing wasn't good and they said "I don't know what you're talking about. The Malmstrom Air Force Base? Never heard of it." And they couldn't even pause the video. That was bad. That was bad. But that was the first hearing in 50-plus years on the topic of UFOs. And these revelations paralleled with now famous USS Nimitz, the tic-tac encounter from 2004, where Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets documented objects performing impossible maneuvers off the coast of California.

The Arizona incidents represent a significant escalation, more every single year, moving from observation again to direct physical contact. And as retired director of national intelligence John Radcliffe noted in a CNN interview, states quote: "We're well beyond questioning if these objects exist. The question now is whose are they and why is it that our most restricted airspace seems to be their primary target?"

Now is that true? Are we just seeing this high level of UFOs in and around military bases, or are people seeing UFOs everywhere - over the big city, over their home, over their farmland, over military bases? Is it equally distributed everywhere or is it truly just highly focused on in and around military bases?

Internationally, this is not only happening in the United States. Over the last 8 to 12 months we have heard cases of people seeing strange objects in the sky that have been dubbed by the media as mysterious drones, which we still haven't gotten a full answer on if that is actually true. But we've seen them over Denmark, over Germany, over parts of England over the last 12 months. So this is not just a United States issue.

And yet what's even more concerning are the reported performances and characteristics of these objects. On January 20th, 2023, an F-35 encountered three small unidentified objects. One was detected at about 220,000 feet traveling at about 100 knots. Another at 26,000 feet also at 100 knots. And the third was at 33,000 feet traveling at about Mach 0.75.

Now for comparison, because those are just numbers to a lot of us, the military's own RQ-4 Global Hawk, which is a very sophisticated reconnaissance drone the size of a small aircraft, costing about - take a guess actually on how much you think that'll cost. Give you a second. It costs about $131 million. That's crazy. That's like paying $20,000 for a golden toilet. Like that's just insane. Anyways, I digress. Now that drone tops out at about 391 mph with a ceiling of about 60,000 feet.

And what's more puzzling is the reported ability of smaller objects estimated at just about 2 to 3 feet in diameter to maintain these speeds at high altitudes where air density is less than half of that at sea level. For reference on this picture, this is a Hercules - is a strange object in the sky that was reported by Robert Powell. So I wanted to show you an actual image of something strange hovering over a plane. And also airspace engineers consulted for this investigation calculate that such performances would require powerful systems far beyond current battery or even small jet turbine capabilities.

But you know what I love about this topic is that these incidents aren't limited to jets. In 2021, a C-130 variant had a near collision with mysterious drones at under 6,000 feet. And the Tucson police and the Customs and Border Protection helicopters have even reported similar encounters. So today we're obviously heavily focusing on Arizona but I cannot stress this enough: This is happening on an international level.

And then in 2019, a mysterious drone swarm, like it just swarms over the Palo Verde nuclear power plant for multiple nights. And then in 2018, an American Airlines flight and an Arizona air charter jet both reported UAPs near the Arizona-Mexican border. So Arizona is also the site of the very infamous 1997 Phoenix Lights mass sighting, a reminder that these skies have a long, long history of unidentified aerial phenomena.

And when we're looking at all of this, I still have more for you because it wouldn't be a show if we didn't have more cases. And I got them all for you. On March 29th, 2021, two F-35 pilots flying near Buckeye, Arizona reported seeing three or four silver objects at about 17,000 feet with no confirmation of their identity. And so they were just described as UFOs for years, for years after the incident.

Now what we need to remember when it comes to military pilots, even civilian pilots, when they're flying up in the sky and they see an object in the sky, it's already scary number one. But number two, they're immediately trying to contact with it. And then also the same goes for air traffic control. If they see something on their radar and it doesn't have any kind of tracking number, they immediately try and contact it. And if that plane or object doesn't respond, military is quick to follow up on that because then it becomes a threat if you can't track it and if that pilot or whoever is operating it is not communicating with the pilot or with air traffic control.

Then on April 22nd, 2022, another F-35 pilot encountered eight metallic objects at almost 20,000 feet near Glendale, Arizona. All flying in formation and again with no explanation as to their origin. The escalation continued into December of 2022. And on the 13th of December, another F-35 - we're hearing a lot of cases about F-35s, aren't we? Yeah, that's a pretty noticeable pattern. But this was also operating over the Barry Goldwater Range. And it detected four small objects all at about 20,000 feet, and Air Force safety reports had mentioned that "we don't know what it is and there's no need to take any evasive action," which is kind of strange. So they have an answer but we don't. What's going on with that?

There have been a handful of reports that have been released through FOIA. I will show you those images for you. Here is one of them. And yet whoever's in charge of giving the final answer says "Oh no, no, no need to give any evasive action. Just let them go. Give them a good time. Maybe drop off some snacks while you're there." With no explanation. That's a little sketch. And yet there was no definitive explanation as to what those pilots saw. It wasn't a drone. It wasn't another plane. It wasn't a weather balloon. It was categorized as unknown. But hey, no, they're chill. There are bros. There's a lot of flaws in that.

And then that same day, another F-35 in the area encountered a single object at 21,000 feet. And then minutes later, eight more at 14,500 feet just show up. And the following day - a lot's happening in December of 2022 - a pilot visually identified a small black metallic object at 21,000 feet. Now here's the best part: Radar picked it up at first. Yet even with advanced sensors and visual, no one, not a single person, could identify what it was.

The threat is real and it is growing. These objects, whether advanced foreign drones, unknown military systems, or something else entirely, they are not only violating sensitive airspace but directly endangering pilots and multi-million dollar aircraft like the encounter that took place in 2023.

With all of this going on, with more reports coming out, the media finally covering it, congressional hearings have intensified. We're getting about one a year or so, and they've been calling for transparency, for whistleblowers to come forward. Yet in these last few years, we haven't really gotten a lot of answers. And these incidents just keep on coming. With each new encounter, this phenomenon, this mystery, whatever the heck is going on, it only gets more intense. It's only deepening even more. And the most advanced sensors and pilots in the world are confronting an unknown adversary in American airspace.

The question is: what will it take to finally, finally get answers? Is it going to be catastrophic disclosure? Is it going to be a nuclear war? Is it going to just be like "Hey, I think you guys are ready. Let's go for it." What is it going to take in your opinion? What is it going to take for us to finally get the full-blown answers that we deserve? Let me know in the comments. Let me know in the live chat. I'd like to hear it from you.

That is it for today's show. I want to spend these last few minutes with you to read your comments on this because while this incident, the one where this full-on collision with a UFO and a military jet took place in 2023 and has been kind of in the internet archive since then, it is now once again making its cycles across the media and people are talking about this. I came across this information on my website at ufonewe.co. It's an aggregate. So anytime UFOs show up in the news, it will show up on my website immediately. No need to refresh the page. It just does it for you. And that's how I came across this information. And I'm kind of surprised. I thought to myself, why am I just hearing about this now, right? And I know I'm not the only one here.

So I want to hear it from you. What did you think about the things that were mentioned here, very specifically over Arizona airspace, which has a lot of military bases? I can show you that image again of how many bases are in Arizona. Just give me a second. There it is. Take a look at this. Oh, the colors tell you what kind of bases they are - Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. I can zoom in on this. There are a lot of bases in Arizona. And I'll leave that up just for a little bit because it is very interesting. Very, very strange.

And I'll also put up this image for you of some of the FOIA responses that were given and also some of the FAA reports that were given on some of these UFOs that were seen in Arizona, and how in this case in 2022, in December, that there were four UFOs that were seen and there was no evasive action taken, which I think is very strange. I would like to have an explanation as to why there was no evasive action that took place, wouldn't you? But when it comes to the FAA, we get very limited answers from them or even explanations. They're like "you know what, you don't really deserve an explanation." Yeah, that hurts. Hurts a little bit.

Now Charles had mentioned likely black projects is a possibility, but for them to be flying over restricted military air base, they could do that anywhere. They could do it over just barren land. But to do it over an air base, it seems a little unnecessary. That same idea was also thrown during the tic-tac encounter where they were told, the team, the squadron was told, "probably just a black project." But the thing is that that object followed them to their CAP point. They were unarmed. They didn't have any weapons even though they were doing a drill. And why would you do a military test right there? Why would you do it over a military air base, get them all worked up over nothing, right? They should be in the know, in my opinion, they should be in the know.

And I want to say thank you to everyone that's enjoying the show here. All of your comments are so sweet. And if you enjoyed it, hit that like button right down below and subscribe if you haven't already, as I do several shows right here every single week about UFO news updates, case studies, interviews, and more. Like this is the all-in-one channel with UFO everything where you followed your, here where you followed your fanatics. That's what we cover several times a week right here. And that is going to end today's show. I want to say thank you to everyone catching this live. Be safe and remember, keep your eyes on the skies.

If you enjoy the strange and the mysterious - UFOs, the paranormal, and cryptids - this channel is for you. So make sure to subscribe as I do three videos right here every single week and hit that notification bell so you do not miss any of the bonus content I post right here.