Former Military Pilot: "Every Pilot Says You Won't Believe This"

Cristina Gomez
Aug 12
3 min read

A commercial flight crew encountered something extraordinary in December 2024: a black cube-shaped object passing 500 feet beneath their aircraft at 16,000 feet. This wasn’t an isolated incident. According to newly released Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request published by The Black Vault, this sighting occurred during the same week that multiple radar targets swarmed Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, one of America’s most sensitive military installations.

Wright-Patterson isn’t just any military facility. The base houses the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and has historically served as the location where recovered aerospace technology gets analyzed. When unauthorized objects begin operating in this airspace, it demands attention from both military officials and aviation safety experts.

The FAA Skywatch documents reveal that five major incidents occurred between December 14–19, 2024. Beyond the black cube sighting, radar operators at the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center detected between seven and seventeen targets within 40 miles of Wright-Patterson on December 17th alone. Security forces on the ground confirmed these were drones, prompting airfield closures and emergency Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) that alert pilots to potential hazards.

These incidents gain additional significance when viewed through the lens of data collected by Ryan Graves, a former Navy Lieutenant and F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot who spoke about the phenomenon on the Vertical Space Podcast. Graves, who was the first active-duty pilot to publicly discuss regular UAP sightings, leads Americans for Safe Aerospace, an organization that has quietly collected nearly 900 similar reports from pilots worldwide.

According to Graves’ analysis of the reports his organization has gathered, clear patterns are emerging in pilot observations. “Metallic spheres, about 10 feet of diameter or so is very commonly reported,” Graves explained during the podcast interview. These spheres are often observed operating in groups “in a playful manner,” moving around aircraft wings and shifting positions. The reports describe objects in various colors — amber, red, white, and blue — that appear to have substantial mass rather than being simple point lights.

Another consistent pattern involves what Graves describes as “black triangles, all almost exactly described the same as far as three lights on the bottom at the apex.” These triangular objects have been reported across multiple continents, from South America and military bases in the United States to the Pacific Northwest, Australia, and Europe. In one particularly concerning incident, such an object came within 500 feet of a fully loaded commercial Boeing 737.

The Wright-Patterson incidents fit into a broader trend of increased drone activity around military installations. According to reporting by Defense Scoop, there has been a significant uptick in drone incursions at military installations nationwide, with over 340 reported incursions in 2024 alone. The Pentagon has acknowledged this as a growing security concern, particularly around sensitive nuclear facilities.

What makes Graves’ work unprecedented is the impending public release of these collected reports. “My organization is going to start publishing the reports that we’ve gathered and that we’ve assessed,” Graves announced during the podcast. This represents a fundamental shift from relying on government disclosure to a grassroots documentation effort led by the pilots experiencing these phenomena firsthand.

According to Graves, “The biggest threat I perceive from UAP to aviation safety is twofold. First, it’s the pilot’s reaction to what they’re seeing when there’s uncertainty in their airspace.” He explains how pilots might dismiss legitimate aircraft as anomalous objects, or conversely, have violent reactions when encountering something unexpected, potentially causing dangerous aircraft movements.

The frequency of these encounters appears to be increasing significantly. “Every time I talk to a pilot, it just, I feel like you would not believe how common this is,” Graves noted during the interview. “And everyone’s talking about it now. It’s not this dirty secret anymore. And it’s not just military, it’s commercial pilots.”

The question now facing aviation safety experts, military officials, and the public is not whether these incidents are occurring — the documentation makes that clear — but rather what they represent and how the aviation system should adapt to address this emerging challenge to airspace safety and security.