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“LOOK at that thing, dude. My gosh. There’s a whole fleet of them. They’re all going against the wind … look at that thing. It’s rotating.” While this may sound like a scene from a sci-fi film, these were the voices of US Navy aviators reacting to an object detected by military sensors, in footage later known as Gimbal. The Pentagon formally released that video, along with two others, in 2020, confirming that they showed what it described as unidentified aerial phenomena.
In May 2026, the Pentagon began releasing more declassified UAP material in batches through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, known as PURSUE — hundreds of files and more than 50 videos, including historical records of “green orbs”, “discs” and “fireballs”, as well as newer military-linked footage. This, in its simplest form, is known as the unidentified anomalous phenomena.
‘UAP’ is the modern bureaucratic term for what the world once called Unidentified Flying Objects, UFOs. The shift in language is deliberate. UFO came carrying decades of cultural baggage: flying saucers, little green men, crashed discs, secret hangars, conspiracy radio and late-night documentaries. The term ‘UAP’ gives the state a way to talk about the mystery without surrendering to the mythology.
