A Deep Dive Into The Gulf of Mexico UFO Encounter

There have been reports of unusual Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) sighted and recorded by an F-22 pilot based at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle.

These reports were first made public by Matt Gaetz, U.S. representative for Florida's 1st congressional district.

During a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing last summer, Rep. Gaetz revealed details of a trip he took to Eglin Air Force Base in February 2023. Details of that visit can be found here. 

His group, including Reps. Tim Burchett (TN) and Anna Paulina Luna (FL), were initially denied access to the information, but after pressing on, they were finally granted access to one of the flight crew and one image. This is Rep. Gaetz’s description of the encounter:

“They were out on a test mission that day over the Gulf of Mexico and when you’re on a test mission, you’re supposed to have clear airspace, not supposed to be anything that shows up.

“And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the United States Congress.

“One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb, again, like I said, not of any human capability that I’m aware of.

“And when he approached, he said that his radar went down, he said that his FLIR system malfunctioned, and that he had to manually take this image from one of the lenses and it was not automatic, automated in collection as you would typically see in a test mission.”