Pilot ‘spotted star-like UFO flying near US nuclear powered warship at up to 23,000mph’…

A CARGO pilot spotted a star-like UFO which appeared to be flying near a US nuclear powered warship.

The unknown object appeared to be travelling at speeds of up to 23,000mph as the shape moved over the Mediterranean.

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Veteran pilot Christiaan van Heijst told The Sun Online about his encounter – saying he has no idea what the shape could have been.

He has some 9,500 flight hours experience, most of it behind the controls of one the world’s biggest planes, the Boeing 747.

And that night he was flying a Fokker 50 turboprop plane off the coast of Greece near the island of Mykonos.

The pilot explained that during take off they noticed a bright light appearing in the sky at an extremely high altitude.

US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt also happened to be passing by in the Mediterranean at the time, heading for the Persian Gulf.

It was preparing for a deployment for the Iraq War, and airspace around the warship and her strike group was closed with an official NOTAM.

Christiaan is unsure if the two events are connected – but it is the latest incident were a UFO has appeared in the vicinity of the US Navy.

Numerous servicemen and pilots have come forward to tell their stories about witnessing mysterious objects from the decks of their ships or cockpits of their planes.

And there continues to be a series of interesting coincidences surrounding the sightings of UFOs near US nuclear assets, ranging from warships to missile silos.

Christiaan continued to watch the object on that September evening in 2004.

He explained it repeatedly disappeared and reappeared, before “[shooting] off at ludicrous speed”.

It appeared to have “instant speed” as it vanished from sight, jetting off into the distance.

Christiaan explained the shape’s exact speed is impossible to judge – but if the altitude was around 30,000ft it would have been up to Mach 30, or near 23,00mph.

However, if the object was more than 30,000ft – it could have been “magnitudes faster”.

It is unknown if the object interacted with the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

“The moving light in the night sky over Greece exhibited some strange stop-disappear-move-stop-disappear motions before it shot away at truly incredible speed,” he told The Sun Online.

“It was not even accelerating, but just exhibited instant speed that defied any type of known  technology I can think of.

No known physics can describe what that light/thing did, for as far as I know

Christiaan van Heijst

“It was impossible to judge the altitude of the light/object, but it was clearly very high up in the sky.”

He added: “No known physics can describe what that light/thing did, for as far as I know.

“It left no trail or anything like it, just instant speed and poof… gone.

“If it was higher than 30,000 ft (which I suspect) the speed would be magnitudes faster than Mach 30.”

Christiaan told The Sun Online about his experience as the stigma around discussing UFOs breaks down.

The 39-year-old, from The Netherlands, is a respected airman and an an award-winning aerial photographer.

And yet he has seen things in the sky he cannot explain.

UFOs are traditionally a highly controversial topic – often being dismissed off hand as nothing beyond conspiracy theories or something for the world of cranks.

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But in recent years the conversation has moved, with even the US government confessing there are things in the sky which they as of yet cannot or will not publicly identify.

The topic even has a new name – UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon).

Former US military pilots have even come forward to share their own unexplained experiences, which piqued the interest of Christiaan.

“I realized that what they described sounded very much like some of the strange things I have seen years before,” the pilot told The Sun Online.

“I always thought it was some ‘military stuff’ I had seen, but now it was possibly something else entirely that even stunned some of the best US military pilots on record.”

Christiaan has been flying for 20 years – starting out as a champion aerobatics pilot before moving over to commercial planes.

And he while he says some 99 per cent of the weird stuff he sees in the sky can be dismissed, there are still a “handful” of sightings which for him defy explanation.

Christiaan emphasised that as a pilot, he is trained to spot things in the sky – with his main objective when he’s at the controls being to keep his plane safe.

“If I see something that catches my eye, I immediately want to know if it is another aeroplane, something weather-related, military or anything else that might jeopardise my flight. Anything else is secondary,” he told The Sun Online.

“That is also why airline pilots are credible ‘trained observers’: we don’t search for UAP, we evaluate everything we see based on our thorough knowledge of aerial observations, meteorological experience and wonder if anything has a direct influence on our flightpath or aeroplane.”

He urged aviation and security agencies around the world to continue collecting data on the phenomenon – and added he was pleased that discussion is opening up in the US.

“I doubt we will ever hear all the US military and intelligence agencies know about ‘it’ because of obvious national safety concerns,” Christiaan told The Sun Online.

“But I believe that a general acceptance of the subject will eventually create a snowball-effect that might result in some form of disclosure or understanding.”

Is it aliens or some sort of global conspiracy? Christiaan says that is a “tempting trap” to fall into – but he simply urged further investigation.

He added: “Only by collecting data can we start to analyse whatever is going on.

“We just have to stay open-minded to the ‘one percent’ that is genuinely unknown, whatever it is. I can’t wait to find out what I’ve seen.”

US lawmakers set up new Pentagon investigation after a stunning string of leaked videos which showed military encounters with UFOs such as the infamous “Tic Tac”.

It marked an incredible turnaround after the government dismissed UFOs at the conclusion of Project Blue Book in the 1960s.

The debate which was for decades considered a fringe and damaging topic is now being openly spoke about by very senior figures, including former President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Christiaan’s aerial photography can be viewed on his website and his Instagram – and he also recently gave an interview about his UAP sightings with Disclosure Team on YouTube.

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