The X-Files may have been right, "the truth is out there."
On Sunday, both “CBS Sunday Morning” and “60 Minutes” showcased stories about UFO sightings by U.S. Navy pilots, which has many in the public asking what is going on.
“It was a huge revelation to know that the government took it that seriously," journalist Leslie Kean told “CBS Sunday Morning.” "There's really been a sea change of attitude towards this topic. It's not to say that there's no more ridicule, but it's way less."
People have been claiming to spot UFOs for over 70 years. Most sightings have been debunked as weather balloons, optical effects or just plain fakes.
But Luiz Elizondo, a former member of a secret Pentagon task force on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, says the government has been covering up the truth until now.
Elizondo was asked on “60 Minutes,” “What you are telling me is that UFOs, unidentified flying objects, are real?”
“I'm not telling you that; the United States government is telling you that,” he said.
In 2004, U.S. Navy pilots were sent to pursue a UFO spotted on radar about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego. It was about the size of a fighter plane and traveling at many times the speed of sound. Two of those pilots, Cmdr. Dave Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich, spoke out for the first time about what they saw.
"We saw this little white Tic-Tac-looking object… and it's just kind of moving above the whitewater area," Fravor recounted.
"No predictable movement, no predictable trajectory," Dietrich added.
It was traveling so fast, radar could lock on to it for just seconds before it disappeared.
"It was unidentified. And that's why it was so unsettling to us. Because we weren't expecting it. We couldn't classify it," Dietrich said.
The theory that the UFOs could have been advanced technology from China or Russia was brought up on both "60 Minutes" and "CBS Sunday Morning."
The Pentagon said in a statement to “CBS Sunday Morning” that “The Department of Defense … take(s) any incursions by unauthorized aircraft … very seriously. and examine(s) each report. As we collect additional data, we expect to close the gap between the identified and unidentified to avoid possible strategic surprise."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told “60 Minutes” that he wants answers as to what these UFOs could be.
“We certainly want to make sure that it's not a foreign adversary capability, meaning…the Russians, or the Chinese…have developed some technology.... It's a huge counterintelligence threat if that's what it is. We want to take that seriously,” he said.
