No more UFO videos: US Navy won't release additional footage, claims it could 'harm' national security
HILLCREST HEIGHTS, MARYLAND: In a response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the government transparency site, The Black Vault, a spokesperson for the US Navy confirmed that the military branch won't release additional footage of unidentified flying objects as it would harm national security.
The Black Vault is a government site that previously shared thousands of pages of UFO-related documents received from the CIA and other significant agencies. The request filed under the Freedom Of Information act happened in April 2020.
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According to DailyMail, the request came in soon after the Navy released some of the UFO videos shot by its pilots that depicted some type of unidentified high-tech aircraft moving in ways that were found impossible. These pictures even included the ones that are clicked by Robert J Salvo, a 13-year-old boy who was walking his dogs. He apparently had clicked pictures of a flying saucer, but no comment was made from the military. Meanwhile, The Black Vault had requested all other videos related to what the Navy prefers to call unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP).
The spokesperson of the Navy wrote, "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," Gregory Cason, deputy director of the Navy's FOIA office, wrote in a response letter shared by The Black Vault. "No portions of the videos can be segregated for release." Further, the letter read, "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."
The letter also suggested that the only reason the Navy released the earlier UFO videos to the public was that these videos had already been leaked to the media and were therefore "discussed extensively in the public domain." The threat of UFOs has been considered seriously by the Pentagon. However, during public hearings in May, the agency revealed 400 'unidentified aerial phenomenon' reports- which is significantly higher than the 144 incidents since 2004 that were reported the previous year.
Ronald Moultrie who is a top intelligence official of the Pentagon earlier claimed that the army has not ruled out the possibility of these being an indication of extraterrestrial life. In an early hearing on UFO videos, he said, "There are elements of our government engaged in ... looking for extraterrestrial life, our goal is not to potentially cover up something, it's to understand what's maybe out there."
Meanwhile, Scott Bray, the deputy director of Naval Intelligence, told lawmakers, "We are all curious and we seek to understand the unknown. And as a lifelong intelligence professional, I'm impatient. I want immediate explanations for this as much as anyone else. However, understanding can take significant time and effort. It's why we've endeavored to concentrate on this data driven process to derive fact based results."