Video footage taken by U.S. drones off the coast of Yemen last October seems to show a Hellfire missile bouncing off an unidentified flying object and the mysterious craft continuing on its path seemingly unaffected by the strike, according to Rep. Eric Burlison.
The Missouri Republican played the footage at a hearing Tuesday, held by the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. It’s the latest in a string of stunning videos in recent years showing purported encounters between American military jets and ships with UFOs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), as the Pentagon refers to them.
The latest footage appears similar to previous videos showing such incidents.
Mr. Burlison didn’t reveal how he obtained the video, which he said was shot by MQ-9 Reaper drones on Oct. 30.
The authenticity of the footage could not be independently verified. A Pentagon spokesperson told The Washington Times on Wednesday that “we have nothing for you on that.”
If it’s real, the video appears to show one of the more shocking interactions between the U.S. military and a UFO. The 50-second clip seems to show the Reaper drone tracking the object from overhead, while another drone fires a missile at the object. The missile appears to bounce off the object, which can be seen continuing to fly over the waters off Yemen.
The U.S. military was deeply engaged in the area at the time as part of a campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the West Asian country.
After Mr. Burlison played the video, he discussed it with George Knapp, a radio host known for his work on paranormal activity, who testified at Tuesday’s hearing.
“That’s a Hellfire missile smacking into that UFO, and it just bounced right off and it kept going,” Mr. Knapp said.
Mr. Burlison said such videos and other information related to UAPs are routinely hidden from members of Congress.
“I’m not going to speculate what it is, but the question is why are we being blocked from this information consistently?” Mr. Burlison said.
Amid growing interest in the subject and accusations of government cover-ups, the Pentagon in 2022 formed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, to investigate alleged UFO sightings by military personnel, commercial pilots and other witnesses.
The AARO’s most recent report, released in November, said the Pentagon received more than 700 reports of UFO sightings from May 2023 to June 1, 2024, with hundreds still unexplained, including at least three instances in which mysterious craft shadowed U.S. military aircraft.
The AARO said it received 757 reports of UAP encounters during the reporting period, with 485 taking place between May 2023 and June 1, and an additional 272 happening between 2021 and 2022 but not reported until recently.
The reports came from military personnel and other sources, such as the Federal Aviation Administration.
At least 118 of those cases have been resolved and were attributed to balloons, birds and drones. An additional 174 cases are “queued for closure,” meaning the AARO believes it knows what the objects in question are.
The rest of the sightings remain unexplained, and several presented apparent security hazards. At least 21 cases “merit further analysis based on reported anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors,” the AARO said in its report.
The incident in the video released by Mr. Burlison, if genuine, might be an instance of a UFO exhibiting unexplained behavior or characteristics.
