UFOs are very real, 60 Minutes reports, they're still unidentified, and they aren't American

published 17 May 2021

"We have tackled many strange stories on 60 Minutes, but perhaps none like this," CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker said on Sunday night's show. "It's the story of the U.S. government's grudging acknowledgment of unidentified aerial phenomena, UAP, more commonly known as UFOs. After decades of public denial, the Pentagon now admits there's something out there, and the U.S. Senate wants to know what it is."

A declassified report from the directorate of national intelligence and the Pentagon is due to be handed over to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June. Whitaker offered a preview, speaking with some familiar voices in the UAP sphere — Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP); retired Navy Cmdr. Dave Fravor, whose F/A-18F squadron encountered a UPA off California in 2004; Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence — and some new ones, like Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich, who viewed the UAP with Fravor.

60 Minutes showed some declassified footage previously leaked to The New York Times by Mellon and Elizondo. "It's bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda," Mellon said. Everyone Whitaker spoke with underscored that unidentified means just that, not yet identified, there's no evidence these phenomena are extraterrestrial, and they are a potential national security risk no matter who created them because the technology seems far beyond what the U.S. can currently produce.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.