A UFO collision with an F-16 fighter jet has raised serious questions about who — or what — is operating increasingly sophisticated unidentified objects over American military airspace.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents, an “orange-white uncrewed aerial system” slammed into the canopy of an F-16 Viper jet during a training mission over the Barry Goldwater Range in Arizona on January 19, 2023.
The impact damaged the transparent bubble protecting the pilot and forced the $63 million aircraft to be grounded for repairs.
The collision is far from an isolated incident. Within a day of the F-16 being struck, three more unidentified aircraft were spotted in the same restricted airspace along the Arizona-Mexico border, where the military regularly conducts air-to-air and air-to-ground combat training.
“What I can tell you is that there has been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border,” former Pentagon investigator Luis Elizondo told NewsNation.
These mysterious encounters represent just a fraction of a much larger pattern. Between October 2022 and June 2023, Air Force fighter pilots reported 22 incidents involving strange objects in the skies over Arizona. Most occurred within 100 miles of Luke Air Force Base, where many F-16 jets using the Barry Goldwater Range are stationed.
The objects display capabilities far beyond conventional drones. Military pilots have reported metallic spheres moving in groups, eight “silver UAS” flying in tight formation at 20,000 feet, and one object traveling at approximately 500 mph at 33,000 feet. For comparison, typical consumer drones rarely exceed 500 feet in altitude and top out around 45 knots.
On March 25, 2021, two F-35 pilots near Casa Grande, Arizona, encountered a “large white UAS” hovering motionless at 24,000 feet. Another F-35 crew spotted a glowing blue-green object while cruising at 36,000 feet – an altitude typically reserved for commercial airliners.
The Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which serves as the central clearinghouse for UFO reports, logged 757 sightings worldwide between May 2023 and June 2024. Of these, 708 occurred in the air, and only 49 cases have been closed with explanations.
Some U.S. officials suspect foreign-operated surveillance drones, particularly from Mexican drug cartels.
“Maybe they’ve got technology that we’re not used to seeing in the drone space,” Ron Vitiello, a senior adviser for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told NewsNation. “That’s part of their business model, to always be able to iterate and innovate, so that they can continue to sell their poison into the United States.”
Cartels have reportedly used drones to move up to 10 kilograms of drugs at a time, and their “unlimited funding” could explain the advanced technology being observed.
Bob Thompson, who spent 14 years with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, claims that over 100 border agents have spotted strange and unidentified objects flying along the U.S. border.
“I’ve seen orbs that were off in the distance. I’ve seen crafts that were cigar-shaped, I’ve seen triangles,” Thompson told NewsNation.
The FAA told The Post that the agency “documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility. If supporting information such as radar data corroborates the report, the FAA shares it with the UAP Task Force.”
Of the 49 closed cases investigated by AARO, the objects were determined to be conventional aircraft, balloons, birds, drones, or satellites that were mistaken for something more exotic. The agency has recommended that another 243 cases be closed for similar reasons.
But with hundreds of cases still under investigation and increasing reports of advanced objects operating in restricted military airspace, the question is no longer whether something unusual is happening in the skies over Arizona, but who is behind it and how dangerous these encounters might become.