Did a Fighter Jet Really Crash Into a UFO?
- Cristina Gomez
- May 27
- 5 min read
On January 19th, 2023, F-16 Viper collided with an unidentified orange-white object at Arizona’s Barry Goldwater Range during what should have been a routine combat exercise. The impact wasn’t a glancing blow — it fractured the fighter’s reinforced canopy with enough force to compromise the entire aircraft’s structural integrity. Faced with uncertain damage and potential system failures, the pilot immediately aborted the mission and carefully navigated the compromised jet back to base, transforming a multimillion dollar piece of military hardware into an expensive reminder that our skies harbor mysteries beyond our control.
According to The War Zone, this wasn’t merely another distant sighting or sensor anomaly that could be dismissed as Venus or atmospheric phenomena. The collision marked a disturbing escalation from observation to direct physical contact, creating an unmeasurable cost to US military readiness. The damaged F-16 required extensive repairs and forensic analysis before returning to service, though the results of that investigation remain classified — a detail that speaks volumes about what military officials discovered in the wreckage.
Arizona: America’s UFO Battleground
The Barry Goldwater Range sits within an extensive network of restricted airspace that blankets much of southern Arizona, creating one of the most tightly controlled aerial environments in the entire country. These special use airspace zones are entirely closed to civilian aircraft and designed specifically for the most advanced military exercises. Arizona serves as the heart of American combat training, hosting Luke Air Force Base — a major training hub for US and foreign F-35 and F-16 pilots — along with Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Yuma Air Station with its multiple F-35 squadrons, and the Arizona Air National Guard’s significant presence at Morris Air National Guard Base.
This concentrated military infrastructure should create an impenetrable barrier to any unauthorized entity. Yet the orange-white object that struck the F-16 somehow penetrated through the military’s defenses, flying undetected until the moment of impact. This raises disturbing questions about gaps in radar coverage, potential electronic countermeasures, or technology that simply outclasses our current detection capabilities.
A Pattern of Escalating Encounters
The 2023 collision represents just the tip of an iceberg that’s been growing since January 2020. Arizona’s restricted airspace has faced a disturbing series of breaches involving small UFOs, sometimes appearing in swarms of up to eight. These incidents mirror the concerning pattern reported at Langley Air Force Base, suggesting a coordinated phenomenon rather than isolated occurrences.
FAA records and Air Force Safety Reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal a startling wave of incidents — dozens within just the last three to four years. Between May 2023 and June 2024 alone, the US government filed 757 related reports, including 78 aerial incidents. The most telling detail: only 49 of these hundreds of reports have been marked as case closed, meaning the vast majority remain unexplained mysteries.
The small unidentified objects documented over Arizona tend to fly in groups of up to eight during incidents at high altitudes, specifically targeting military combat training sites. Data shows a marked increase in these encounters, with southwestern Arizona alone generating nine hazard reports in a short timeframe — many involving F-35s and C-130 variants, with several categorized as dangerous near collisions.
Impossible Performance Characteristics
On January 20th, 2023, an F-35 encountered three small UFO displaying remarkable capabilities: one detected at 22,000 feet traveling at 100 knots, another at 26,000 feet also at 100 knots, and a third at 33,000 feet traveling at Mach 0.75.
For perspective, the military’s sophisticated RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone — costing approximately $131 million and roughly the size of a small aircraft — tops out at 391 mph with a ceiling of 60,000 feet. Yet the Arizona objects, estimated at just two to three feet in diameter, maintain comparable or superior speeds at high altitudes where air density is less than half that at sea level. Aerospace engineers consulted about these incidents calculate that such performance would require propulsion systems far beyond current battery or small jet turbine capabilities.
A Global Security Crisis
These incidents aren’t limited to fighter jets. In 2021, a C-130 variant experienced a near collision with mysterious objects at under 6,000 feet, while Tucson police and Customs and Border Protection helicopters have reported similar encounters. The phenomenon extends beyond military aircraft — in 2019, a mysterious drone swarm hovered over the Palo Verde nuclear power plant for multiple nights, and in 2018, both an American Airlines flight and an Arizona air charter jet reported unidentified aerial phenomena near the Arizona-Mexico border.
Arizona’s history with unexplained aerial phenomena stretches back decades, most famously with the 1997 Phoenix Lights mass sighting. However, the current wave represents something far more serious than historical curiosities — these are active security breaches with real operational consequences.
The escalation continued through 2021 and 2022 with multiple F-35 encounters. On March 29th, 2021, two F-35 pilots near Buckeye, Arizona, reported seeing three or four silver objects at 17,000 feet with no confirmation of their identity. On April 22nd, 2022, another F-35 pilot encountered eight metallic objects at almost 20,000 feet near Glendale, Arizona, all flying in formation with no explanation for their origin.
December 2022 proved particularly active. On the 13th, an F-35 operating over the Barry Goldwater Range detected four small objects at 20,000 feet. Air Force safety reports noted uncertainty about their nature but strangely concluded there was no need for evasive action — a decision that raises questions about what officials knew that they’re not sharing publicly. That same day, another F-35 in the area encountered a single object at 21,000 feet, followed minutes later by eight more at 14,500 feet. The following day, a pilot visually identified a small black metallic object at 21,000 feet that radar initially detected but that no one could identify despite advanced sensors and visual confirmation.
Government Response and Unanswered Questions
The collision and subsequent incidents have forced immediate protocol changes within the Department of Defense. Since the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident — which China has never officially acknowledged — reporting procedures for UFO encounters have intensified, with incidents clearly being passed through multiple US military reporting streams.
In May 2022, Congress held its first public hearing on UAP in over 50 years, where Deputy Director of National Intelligence Scott Bray confirmed 11 near misses between military aircraft and unidentified objects. These revelations parallel the famous USS Nimitz “tic-tac” encounter from 2004, where Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets documented objects performing seemingly impossible maneuvers off the California coast.
As retired Director of National Intelligence John Radcliffe noted in a CNN interview, “We’re well beyond questioning if these objects exist. The question now is whose are they and why is it that our most restricted airspace seems to be their primary target?”
An International Phenomenon
This crisis extends far beyond American borders. Over the last 8 to 12 months, similar mysterious objects — dubbed by media as “military drones” — have been reported over Denmark, Germany, and parts of England. The international scope suggests either a coordinated foreign intelligence operation or something even more extraordinary.
The threat these objects represent is both immediate and growing. Whether they’re advanced foreign surveillance systems, unknown military technologies, or something else entirely, they’re not only violating the most sensitive airspace in America but directly endangering pilots and multi-million-dollar aircraft. Each new encounter deepens the mystery while the world’s most advanced sensors and pilots confront an unknown adversary operating with apparent impunity in restricted military zones.
The January 2023 collision over Arizona represents a turning point — the moment when UFOs moved from the realm of speculation into concrete reality, leaving behind damaged aircraft and classified forensic reports as proof that whatever is sharing our skies possesses capabilities that challenge our understanding of physics and pose serious questions about national security. The only remaining question is what it will take to finally get the answers the public deserves, and whether those answers will come through transparency or through an even more dramatic revelation that forces the truth into the open.
Sources
https://www.twz.com/pilots-are-seeing-some-very-strange-things-in-arizonas-military-training-ranges
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/01/05/fbi-and-danish-police-investigate-mysterious-ufo-incidents-amid-baltic-tensions-is-there-a-link/ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/08/29/drone-sightings-near-bases-infrastructure-unnerve-german-officials/
Comments