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The Pentagon declassified the videos in an effort "to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos," a spokesperson says.
The videos, previously acknowledged by the Navy as being real, captured what Navy fighter pilots saw on their video sensors during training flights in 2004 and 2015. They were published by the New York Times in 2017.
"The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017," said Susan Gough, a Defense Department spokesperson in a statement released Monday.