A former intelligence official says an upcoming government report will detail 'difficult to explain' UFO sightings

• A former intelligence official said the government is preparing to release a report on UFOs.
• The report will detail UFO sightings, former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said.
• Many of the sightings are "difficult to explain," he said, speaking to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.

A top intelligence official under former President Donald Trump said on Friday that the government plans to release a report declassifying numerous UFO sightings.

"There are a lot more sightings than have been made public," former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.

"Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain," he continued. "Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."

-Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) March 19, 2021

Ratcliffe's remarks come months after the Pentagon released three videos of "unidentified aerial phenomena" - more commonly referred to as UFOs - after years of speculation about them.

The videos, captured on Navy aircraft cameras with infrared targeting systems, show black shapes floating and sometimes accelerating at incredible speeds against the wind as baffled pilots watch.

Former Sen. Harry Reid, who funneled $22 million into the government's UFO investigations, said in a tweet that the Pentagon's release of the videos "only scratches the surface" of what the government has on file.

"The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications," Reid said. "The American people deserve to be informed."

Ratcliffe said Friday there have been reports of sightings "all over the world."

"When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it's not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection," Ratcliffe continued. "Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things, and so again some of these are just unexplained phenomenon, and there is actually quite a few more than have been made public."

Ratcliffe also added that intelligence officials try to look for a "plausible explanation" behind all unidentified flying aircraft. But sometimes, he said, officials aren't able to justify their presence.

"Weather can cause disturbances, visual disturbances," he said. "Sometimes we wonder whether or not our adversaries have technologies that are a little bit further down the road than we thought or that we realized. But there are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things that we have seen."

The Pentagon is expected to release the report by June 1, Bartiromo said during the interview.

The Department of Defense did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.

Additional reporting by Mia Jankowicz