UFOs exist that appear to display technology the United States does not possess and lacks the ability to defend against, according to a former intelligence chief.

John Ratcliffe, who served as former President Donald Trump’s final director of national intelligence and oversaw the nation’s 18 spy agencies, made the observation while offering insight into a declassified report on “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday.

The long-anticipated but very brief document discussed 144 reports of UFOs originating from U.S. government sources between 2004 and 2021. Eighty were observed with multiple different sensors, and most reports described the UFOs as objects that interrupted preplanned military training or other military operations. The ODNI reportsaid “a handful” of the UFOs “appear to demonstrate advanced technology” and “in 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics.” Parts of the assessment also remain classified.

In giving his first public reaction to the unclassified ODNI report since its release, Ratcliffe told Fox News host Dan Bongino for a Saturday episode of Unfiltered that UFOs are a matter of national security and stressed that the real number of UFOs that have been observed remains unknown to the public.

“That report started while I was the DNI. I was hoping to get it out, or some version of it out, before I left. Getting that information out to a declassified public level was difficult, but I’m actually glad that there’s a report out there,” Ratcliffe said. “Look, the bottom line is, unidentified aerial phenomena — many, many cases we’re able to explain it away for reasons like visual disturbances, or weather phenomenon, or foreign adversaries and their technologies, or even our own experimental technologies with certain aircraft and vehicles, but what this report really underscores … is that there are a number of instances — and the specific number remains classified — but a number of instances where we’ve ruled all of that out.”

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