A ‘floating red square the size of a football field’ hovered over a US military base not once, but twice, according to a new report – causing terror and chaos.
The 2003 incident was first made public during July’s congressional hearing into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), formerly known as UFOs.
Giving sworn testimony, former US Navy fighter pilot Lt Ryan Graves described the event second-hand, recounting the morning of October 14 in which a mysterious red square floated above Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Now, speaking on Lt Graves’s podcast Merged, a second military source has revealed the object returned later in the day.
Jeff Nuccetelli, a senior patrolman at the time, was not on location but heard ‘all hell break loose’ as screaming came in over radio.
‘They’re screaming “It’s coming right at us, it’s coming right for us. Now it’s right here”,’ he said.
At first he thought it was a joke, because ‘air force cops are well known for playing pretty elaborate pranks’.
However, it quickly became clear it was no hoax.
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‘It was hard to hear, because they were screaming and they were scared,’ he said.
‘This is all playing out on the radio and the dispatchers are communicating with them trying to get more information. It’s just chaos, you know? The dispatchers are basically advising everybody to go on alert trying to get information.’
By the time Mr Nuccetelli arrived at the base the object had disappeared and ‘things calmed down a bit’.
He said to the best of his recollection he interviewed about six people about the incident alongside his superior officer.
‘Basically what they described was this object came in, was moving strangely, erratically. It got bigger and brighter as it came in,’ he said.
‘Then it came at a high rate of speed and flew right up to the entry control point, and stopped. And they all stared at it. And it just shot off.’
Although he did not witness the UAP himself, he said he had no qualms in believing the testimony given to him at the time.
‘These guys are trained observers, they’re posted out there 24/7,’ he said. ‘They know what aircraft look like. They know what fishing boats look like.
‘I didn’t feel like they were just jumping the gun, because there had been a UFO.’
He also interviewed Boeing contractors ‘with top-secret clearances’ who had witnessed the first appearance at around 8.45am that morning – and said weren’t playing a prank.
‘If they did, they’re going to get an armed response from people with M4s,’ he said.
Mr Nuccetelli added that they described ‘basically just a big square object, a flattened square, the size of a football field, silently floating over the launchpad, glowing red’ above the base’s Launch Facility 21 as a ‘Minuteman’ missile site was being repurposed.
Asked by Lt Graves if it could have been a military test, he said: ‘I don’t know, it could have been [a test]. But the military typically doesn’t test technology on an active base, because the potential for disaster to happen is so high.
‘Had there been cops on the scene they might have shot at it, so for them to test something over an air force base, it would just be a disaster.’
The base, north of LA, is now leased by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Mr Nuccetelli added he had already provided testimony to the Pentagon’s UFO desk, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and that they were ‘genuinely interested in looking into it’.
He said he believes at least 80 people must have seen the floating red square that day, and he is now trying to track down more witnesses.
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