A UFO that struck and damaged a US fighter jet is just one of a swarm of mystery objects buzzing around Air Force training ranges in Arizona, according to multiple reports.
Nicole Rosenthal
New York Post
Mon, 19 May 2025
One of the unidentified flying objects hit the clear bubble “canopy” over the head of a pilot in a $63 million F-16 Viper jet in January 2023, damaging it and temporarily grounding the plane, according to Federal Aviation Administration documents first reported by the War Zone.
The military jet was struck midair by “an orange-white UAS,” or “uncrewed aerial system,” the FAA documents said. The term refers to drones.
Three more UAS encounters were flagged a day later, the outlet reported.
© DOD Map of Arizona and neighboring states, showing designated restricted airspace outlined in red and MOAs outlined in purple for military training. 3
A map shows designated restricted airspace (outlined in red) and military operation areas (outlined in purple) used for military training in Arizona and neighboring states.
“What I can tell you is that there has been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border” with Mexico, former Pentagon investigator Luis Elizondo told News Nation this month.
The FAA told The Post in a statement that the agency “documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility.
“If supporting information such as radar data corroborates the report, the FAA shares it with the UAP Task Force. The Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office serves as the centralized clearing house for UAP reporting impacting national security or safety.”
The government filed 757 such reports between May 2023 and June 2024 — 708 of which took place in the air — with only 49 marked “Case closed” in the latest report issued by the Anomaly Resolution Office.
The small unidentified objects spotted in Arizona are known to fly in groups of up to eight and are sometimes characterized as drones, according to the War Zone, which noted the incidents took place at high altitudes in or near military air combat training sites since January 2020.
Drones and other flying objects such as the Chinese spy balloon in 2023 are “clearly being passed through multiple U.S. military reporting streams,” the outlet added.
Some US officials, including Ron Vitiello, a senior adviser for US Customs and Border Protection, hypothesize that the mysterious flying objects could be drones used by foreign cartels for spying or smuggling drugs.
The cartel has used the technology — which is difficult to track — to move up to 10 kilograms of drugs at a time, News Nation reported.
Vitiello told News Nation Prime earlier this month that “unlimited funding” from cartels could explain the impressive “cutting-edge” technology never seen before.
“Maybe they’ve got technology that we’re not used to seeing in the drone space,” Vitello said.
“That’s part of their business model, to always be able to iterate and innovate, so that they can continue to sell their poison into the United States.”
Nicole Rosenthal is a City Life reporter for the New York Post. Nicole covers the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx for The Post. Nicole received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and psychology from New York University in 2020 and received a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Columbia University in 2023. Before The Post, Nicole was a reporter for Patch covering New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
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