President Donald Trump says Air Force pilots have told him about a mysterious round object that flew past an F-22 fighter jet at three times its speed, and he vowed to investigate claims that a secret government program studying UFOs could exist without a president's knowledge.
Trump made the remarks during an interview with correspondent Ross Douthat that aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes."
Asked whether anything he had seen, heard or been told led him to believe there was more behind unidentified objects spotted in the sky, Trump described himself as "not too much of a believer," but pointed to conversations with Air Force pilots in the Oval Office.
"These are not people that you would say are conspiracy theorists, they don't even know what it means, but they're great, great pilots," Trump said. He also joked about their appearance, saying: "Young, handsome, they have beautiful, nice flat tops. I'd like to have a haircut just like them. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise."
Trump called the pilots "the real deal" and said they had told him "things that are very strange."
Describing one of those encounters, Trump said: "They're flying an F-22, which is the best there is, the fastest, the best plane that anyone's ever seen. And something goes by them at three times their speed. And it's round. It's not aerodynamic." He did not identify the pilots or say when or where the encounter took place.
Douthat also pressed Trump on claims from alleged whistleblowers that the government operates a secret program studying UFOs that even presidents may not know about. "No, and I haven't heard that," Trump said. "But if there is, I'm going to find out about it right after this interview."
Trump later said there are "a lot of very solid people" who believe such claims are true, though he indicated he remains skeptical himself. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump's comments come just weeks after the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office released a batch of recently declassified records detailing UFO sightings spanning decades. Among them was a 2026 account from federal law enforcement agents who reported seeing a matte-black triangular object rise vertically above a mountain ridge, hover silently and then accelerate into a canyon at a speed they compared to a fighter jet.
The witnesses described no visible engines, rotors, exhaust or other conventional means of propulsion, and handheld thermal equipment showed a uniform heat signature across the object's surface rather than the concentrated heat typically associated with a propulsion system. The object was never identified, and the Pentagon report noted that its speed was estimated by witnesses rather than measured by instruments.
