Former Defense Official Says UFOs Are "Massive Intelligence Failures"

The discussion of UFOs has never been as hot of a topic as it has been over the past year, with a slew of former government officials coming forward to publicly lobby for government transparency. Relatively recently, even the United States Department of Defense confirmed the authenticity of a handful of videos captured by the United States Armed Forces, showing technology the government has yet to classify. While most of the officials are split on whether UFOs — or UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), as the government calls them — are from this planet, former Department of Defense official Christopher Mellon says the increased sightings, at the very least, are "massive" intelligence failures.

Mellon took part in a lengthy 60 Minutes interview Sunday night and followed it up with an appearance on CNBC Monday. It was on CNBC Mellon made his comments about the United States intelligence community.

"First of all, we have a massive intelligence failure on our hands. This has been going on for years," Mellon says. "Even after hundreds of incidents, nobody in Congress was informed, senior officials in the Defense Department were not informed, and the intelligence community did not take action to support our military personnel in these [Naval] battle groups and other locations."

Mellon adds, "It's extremely disturbing to think that, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars for so many years, and believing our airspace to be secure, in fact, we've had vehicles operating restricted military airspace with impunity on a recurring and sustained basis for many years."

The former official served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

Nearly all of the UFO videotapes confirmed by the Pentagon come from the battle groups and ships Mellon mentions. In the aforementioned 60 Minutes interview, one former Naval pilot said the United States Navy spotted UFOs off the Atlantic Coast every day for "at least a couple years."

"I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue," Graves said in his interview on Sunday. "But because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day."