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The truth is out there, but the U.S. Navy doesn’t want to share. In fact, the Navy is arguing it can’t release any more footage of unidentified aerial phenomena (its term for what are generally called UFOs) because the videos are classified. 

The claim comes from an unlikely place. On April 28 2020, The Black Vault,  government transparency site dealing with UFOs and other paranormal activity, filed a very real Freedom of Information Act request with the Naval Air Systems Command for all videos designated UAPs. That was a day after the Naval Air Systems Command released three unclassified videos of UAPs recorded in 2004 and 2015. Eventually a second request was filed, which eventually received a response. And that’s where things get interesting, because in their response to The Black Vault, the Navy revealed it has more footage of unidentified aerial phenomena. 

The Office of Naval Intelligence’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force denied release of any videos, stating that they contained “sensitive information” and are in fact “exempt from disclosure in their entirety,” Gary Cason, deputy director for the Department of the Navy’s FOIA/PA Program Office, said in the response letter

“The release of this information will harm national security as it may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/Navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities. No portions of the videos can be segregated for release,” Cason wrote.

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Here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of refusing to confirm or deny that the sought video even exists, the Navy outright confirmed that an unspecified amount of other UAP videos are in its possession. 

The military has been more transparent about UFOs and UAPs in recent years. Following the release of the three Navy videos in 2020, this year the Navy showed Congress another of a spherical object flying through a training range, recorded in 2021. Speaking to Congress, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray admitted the military did not have an explanation for what was in the footage. However, he said, the evidence the Navy does have suggests nothing is extraterrestrial in origin. Bray said that the released UAP videos are among 400 reported incidents documented by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force at the time, although it was unclear if those were partly or all recorded. 

In the letter to The Black Vault, the Navy argued the three UAP videos are different because they had been leaked (the Navy didn’t specify to who, but the videos were shared with the New York Times and UFO researcher and former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge). 

“Those events were discussed extensively in the public domain; in fact, major news outlets conducted specials on these events. Given the amount of information in the public domain regarding these encounters, it was possible to release the files without further damage to national security,” Cason wrote.

In July, the Pentagon announced the formation of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, an expanded successor organization to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, to address instances not only in the air, but the sea and other media as well. The Black Vault stated it intends to appeal the FOIA denial.

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