The Most Important Photo You've Never Seen
"In decades with the Intelligence Community, I've never seen anything like this."
I’m often asked what I think is the most compelling photo of a UFO. The problem is that I haven’t seen it yet. When regular, every-day people share their photos, they’re often pulled apart and nitpicked for all the ways they could be fake. The results are usually inconclusive, and the public is rarely satisfied with something that might be, could be, sort of.
The best UFO photos come from the military. Just by the nature of their work, you can usually get an accurately attributed image, that is witnessed by multiple people, and that is virtually impossible to edit. But that’s where your problems begin because the very things that make those images so credible also add layers of classification around time, location, and the capability of U.S. technology. This dovetails with some good ol’ bureaucratic discomfort, when, for example, a photo clearly demonstrates you failing at your defense mandate. Long before an entry into conspiratorial thinking, the very human emotion of “not wanting to look bad at your job” will take you a long way to understanding how these images are handled internally.
One of the more prominent examples of this problem can be found in a recent image called the “F-18 Triangle Photo.” Taken in late 2019, the F-18 Triangle Photo purportedly shows a clear, triangular shaped vehicle emerging from the Atlantic Ocean and flying past a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet. The craft is described as a “massive” equilateral triangle with rounded edges and perfectly spherical white lights in each corner. Based on the description of the pilots, it flew perpendicularly out of the water before rapidly accelerating out of sight on a vertical axis. This occurred in close proximity to one of the United States’ most well-protected military assets (a Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier) and it appears, based on description, to have been a total surprise.12
Is this just another ghost story? Some pilot who took a blurry photo on their iPhone mid-flight? Nope. This photo was taken with “a U.S. [defense] platform sensor system”3 and it has been seen and distributed widely inside the government. Three defense officials have gone on the record confirming the details of this photo, but no copy has ever been released to the public.4 Why?
Well, the fact that you haven’t heard of it is probably one. The story detailing the photo only broke in December 2020, just as the national media was focusing on another wave of COVID-19 and a “record number of deaths” that month.5 While the initial coverage offered by Tim McMillan (The Debrief) and Tom Rogan (The Washington Examiner) was admirable, the story ultimately ended up trapped inside the UFO bubble and was not widely picked up by the mainstream press.
And that’s a shame because any journalist would have plenty to go on if they wanted to chase it. The photo was first distributed in a position paper offered on “Unidentified Submersible Phenomena” by the Navy’s fledgling UAP Task Force. And rather than limiting its distribution to the relatively small Office of Naval Intelligence, the paper was circulated widely for comment on SIPRnet (DoD), NSAnet (NSA), and CIA Intelink (CIA). All sources noted their shock that it had been shared so freely, with one saying “in decades with the [Intelligence Community], I’ve never seen anything like this.”6
But why focus on this one photo? Aren’t there plenty of other developments in the UFO space and more images coming to the fore every day? Sure, but they don’t quite represent the “smoking gun” that an image of this caliber would offer to the public. Advancing an adult conversation about UFOs can’t just lean on the volume of reported cases, it also needs precision and detail when that’s available. Rarely has there been such an opportunity to provide that detail and galvanize public attention with an image that everyone agrees exists.
But the main thing holding up the release is a simple matter of classification. While some other Navy photos have made their way into the public eye, they’ve generally been taken by personal cell phones and ultimately marked as unclassified. This photo, taken with a sophisticated camera system mounted to the F-18, would require formal declassification to get out there. Most of the attempts to do this have run into bureaucratic stonewalling or suffered from the leadership challenges inside the Navy (between 2018 and 2020 there were four different Secretaries of the Navy and five different Secretaries of Defense).78
At the time the story was first coming out, one former intelligence official (and active member of the UFO community), Christopher Mellon, captured some of this frustration by noting that:
In the last 48 hours, the public has learned of two stunning incidents captured on film by U.S. Navy carrier pilots earlier this year. One of the cases features a photo of a bizarre flying sphere with a black cube inside that is identical to dozens of other reports by Navy pilots. These strange objects have been shadowing East Coast naval ops since 2015. They sometimes maneuver in formation and have occasionally been reported achieving supersonic speeds.
The other incident produced a stunning, detailed photograph of a massive triangular shaped vehicle that emerged from the ocean and flew vertically, straight up and out of sight, just past a Navy F-18 operating off a U.S. aircraft carrier. These [photos] taken by the pilots should be released to the public as there are no sources and methods to protect and the national security benefits of raising awareness regarding this issue vastly outweigh any conceivable benefit from concealing the information.
It is hard to believe that in the face of such radical and incredible technology, in our vast defense department, we only have a so-called task force consisting of two individuals with no budget who are still being stiff-armed for access to relevant and timely information by the Air Force and other security organizations. By comparison, 60 years ago, in response to Sputnik, America led the space race which led to landing on the moon. Our government needs to wake up and address the far greater technology gap that these and many other incidents are revealing. There is obviously a glaring strategic mismatch between the current task force and the technology that has been identified.
December 4, 2020 – Statement Read on the Joe Rogan Experience at 37:15
The historical parallel that Mellon draws to Sputnik shouldn’t get lost in the conversation about what this photo could be. Sometimes it takes a very clear public reaction to kick the government into gear. I agree with Mellon’s assertion that the clarity represented by this photo could prompt a similar call to action.
For too long, questions from the public have swirled around what the government does or does not know about UFOs. They are general. They are about legacy events like Roswell. They are easily deflected by bureaucrats and elected officials that might not want to answer them. Here, we have an opportunity to get real specific about a piece of evidence everyone seems to agree is out there. It’s my hope that a new wave of journalists might shine a light on it with the sharp questions and political advocacy it deserves.
So, returning to the original premise, what’s the most compelling photo of a UFO? I haven’t seen it yet. But neither have you. And I think we should.
P.S. Do you want to see better coverage of the UFO Phenomenon? Help me raise awareness of the “F-18 Triangle Photo” and:
McMillan, Tim. “'Fast Movers' and Transmedium Vehicles - The Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.” The Debrief, December 2, 2020. https://thedebrief.org/fast-movers-and-transmedium-vehicles-the-pentagons-uap-task-force/.
Rogan, Tom. “Confirmed: Navy's Previously Unreported 2019 Triangle UFO Incident.” The Washington Examiner, December 2, 2020. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/confirmed-navys-previously-unreported-2019-triangle-ufo-incident.
Scott, Dave. Tim McMillan - What's up with UFOs? What's happening June 25th? Let's find out! Other. Spaced Out Radio, May 27, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtxhDhfpZ9A. At 1h 54min 50s.
McMillan, “Fast Movers and Transmedium Vehicles.”
Dall, Chris. “US Sees a Record Number of Covid-19 Deaths in December.” CIDRAP, December 28, 2020. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/us-sees-record-number-covid-19-deaths-december.
McMillan, “Fast Movers and Transmedium Vehicles.”
McMillan, Tim. “US Military Has 'a Lot More' on UFOs Ex-Intelligence Director Confirms.” The Debrief, March 20, 2021. https://thedebrief.org/us-military-has-a-lot-more-on-ufos-ex-intelligence-director-confirms/.
McMillan, “Fast Movers and Transmedium Vehicles.”