Greetings!
I'm a 50-something-year-old IT professional (programmer/analyst), a USN vet and former MUFON investigator.
My interest in Ufology began in the late 70's after a daylight disc sighting with several other people present.
This picture is a RECREATION, a Photoshopped mock-up of what I and five others saw hovering over Camelback Mountain in Paradise Valley/ Scottsdale Arizona in the fall of 1979.
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We watched this for over 10 minutes until two fighter-jets came roaring after it (low altitude with afterburners over residential areas) and it simply vanished before our eyes.
Needless to say it was troubling. My father had told me there was no such thing as 'flying saucers' (and my father knew everything and was ALWAYS right), so this caused me a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
Unfortunately my experiences were not over. About six years later, while on active duty, (Communications), I personally saw (and read) an official report on an JASDF (Japanese Air Self Defense Force) encounter over Kansai. This report detailed an encounter between a UFO and two JASDF F-4's.
The report included (written) recorded radar returns, with confirmed (air) visual contacts making a right-angle turn at 24,000 KPH. It was the one and only time in my military career that I thought of taking a classified document. Instead, I showed it to my opposite (the post-Walker scandal two man integrity policy was in place), who turned white as he read it. This caused me even further mental distress - in truth I was very afraid. There was obviously a real phenomenon associated with this but it was being kept (far more than) secret.
My (thankfully) final encounter happened about two years later while still on active duty, while 'underway' in the South China Sea. I had just finished a watch shift and had gone topside, late at night to an outer (O-4) deck to exercise. After I had finished, I looked up to admire the incredible view of stars (USN ships run dark at night and the view of the stars, from the middle of the ocean, with no distracting light is spectacular) when I noticed one of the "stars" was moving.
I watched this "star" streak across the sky, from (nearly) horizon to horizon at speeds that where beyond anything I had ever seen. Almost as fast as the 'warp speed' special effects in Star Trek/Star Wars. It did loops, infinity patterns and blazed across the sky (silently). It traversed over 100 degrees on the horizon then back again in less than two seconds then again and again.
I (almost) could not take it. I felt like crying and screaming WTF is going on?!? I wondered how this could be happening - with no one ever saying a word about it. I knew that if I went to my C.O. and reported it my clearance would be pulled and I'd be sent to the deck force. So instead, I kept my mouth shut and waited. My 30 year "Oath of Secrecy" is over, I am free to say what I saw.
I am deeply troubled by my experiences not just because of what I saw but of what the obvious implications are.