The Pentagon's former UFO chief has revealed his conclusion to one of the most famous UFO cases of the modern era: the Navy's baffling'cube in a sphere' UFO was just a super high-tech drone. US Navy fighter pilots had reported seeing these other-worldly craft near the Atlantic coast between 2014 and 2015, which nearly tore the wing off an F/A-18 Super Hornet that was flying with the USS Roosevelt during one incident. Now Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Pentagon's recently retired UFO chief, says that the objects were likely'next generation,' 'spherical' drones that move'very accurately.' While not confirmed, his description matches a drone-prototype made public by Chinese researchers in 2022 -- a silver orb with eight thrusters configured at the tips of an internal cube, making it capable of unprecedented mid-air twists and turns. The case highlights why UFOs must be taken seriously and not be subject to ridicule, Kirkpatrick suggested.

Nearly two decades ago, a think-tank in Washington D.C. invited past and present government officials from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon and elsewhere to debate the risks of revealing the truth about UFOs. The 2004 event -- according to a former CIA scientist who went public with the shocking story Friday -- broke into working groups to weigh the positive and negative ramifications of declassifying America's top secret UFO programs. Every working group according to that scientist, Dr. Hal Puthoff, came back with the same conclusion: the societal risks of UFO'disclosure' were just too great. But now, a host of Washington insiders are calling for a strategic'campaign' to drag these alleged UFO reverse-engineering programs out into public view. The Sol Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to exploring the broad implications of what are now called'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' or UAP, convened its first ever symposium Friday, sponsored by Stanford University's School of Medicine Sol's lofty goal, as described by its chief operating officer - the now famous UFO whistleblower and US Air Force and intel veteran David Grusch - is to'open ourselves to a future where truth, unity, technological advancements and a deeper understanding of our existence converge' The pivot emerged this weekend at an invite-only conference of former government officials, tenured physicists and other academic researchers, activists and reporters, held at Stanford University and attended by DailyMail.com. The most explosive moments from the UFO event -- the first ever symposium of the new nonprofit Sol Foundation, which is dedicated to exploring the broad implications of what are now called'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' or UAP -- came from recently retired US Army Colonel Karl E. Nell.