UFO sighting: US Air Force officer recalls 'gigantic floating red square' almost 20 years ago

A former US Air Force security officer has spoken publicly on two close encounters with a UFO for the first time since spotting it in California 20 years ago, in October 2003 but recently came to light during sworn testimony given before Congress by Lt Ryan Graves in July.

Ex-USAF senior patrolman Jeff Nuccetelli said military contractors police working for Boeing and Air Force at a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base witnessed the UFO described as a “gigantic floating red square” flying over an air base in California and said it was more than 100 yards (91.44 meters) long.  

Mr Nuccetelli told the Merged podcast on Tuesday: “This is not a joke. These are contractors with top-secret clearances. These guys are trained observers. They’re posted out there, you know, 24/7. They know what aircraft look like. They know what fishing boats look like.”

Mr Nuccetelli also revealed a second reported encounter with the “red square,” where two of his fellow USAF police patrol officers “got buzzed by the UFO." He recalled the events of the day in 2003, saying he was getting ready to jump in the car when “all hell breaks loose and they start screaming over the radio, ‘It’s coming right at us. It’s coming right for us. Now it’s right here'. It was hard to hear because they were screaming and they were scared,” the former USAF patrol officer said.

“This is all playing out on the radio and the dispatchers are communicating with them trying to get more information,’ Mr Nuccetelli said. “It’s just chaos, you know? The dispatchers are basically advising everybody to go on alert trying to get information. When I showed up, it’s just mayhem. Everybody’s excited. They’re scared. Everyone’s freaked out,” he added but said things calmed down at the scene when “the object flew off.”

He told the Merged podcast, which is hosted by Lt Ryan Graves, that he interviewed “about six people” who witnessed the event following the alleged sighting. He said: “Basically what they described was this object came in, was moving strangely, erratically. It got bigger and brighter as it came in. Then it came at a high rate of speed and flew right up to the entry control point, and stopped. And they all stared at it. And it just shot off.”

According to Mr Nuccetelli, this was the second sighting that day and three Boeing contractors signed sworn statements that they saw the UFO. It was described as “basically just a big square object, the size of a football field, silently floating over the launchpad, red in color, glowing.”

He said: “As far as I know, it wasn’t a cube. It was like a flattened square" and believes at least 80 people are aware of the alleged sighting. This occurred on October 14, 2003 at 8:45am over Vandenberg's Launch Facility 21 and at the time, a 'Minuteman' missile site was being repurposed for a new missile defence system.

Mr Nuccetelli delivered what he knows to the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and assisted AARO in locating more witnesses to the two 14 October 2003 sightings.

“What I’m trying to do now is track down all the people because my recollection of who was there, and all the particulars, and the details are flawed, right? Because I wasn’t there when these things happen. It’s all secondhand.”

Mr Nuccetelli added that he thinks investigators have taken great interest in the alleged sighting. He said: “The investigator that contacted me spent a tremendous amount of time talking to me, over an hour for sure. I felt that they were genuinely, genuinely, interested in the case. And genuinely interested in looking into it.”