Former F15E fighter pilot :“It really was defying any type of aeronautical law that I have ever learned.”

In a video posted on 8 June 2025 on the Max Afterburner YouTube channel, Ryan Bodenheimer, a former US Air Force F-15E pilot, said he had observed two unusual objects.

An experienced pilot who flew more than 70 combat missions, Bodenheimer was also an F-16 aerobatic pilot. He explains that he encountered two advanced platforms during his flights, which he still remembers very clearly to this day.

The first incident took place during an exercise with the Thunderbirds, a military aerobatic team. As the team was returning from training near Area 51 and preparing to land in tight formation at their base, an object passed him by in an instant.

It looked to me like a many advanced futuristic fighter jet that was like a 3D triangle with kind of the front of it looking like an A-frame, but then being sleek and smooth in the front.

It had wings underneath the triangle and then a tail that went straight up.

It was silver that maybe made it look like it was machine welded together, but it was so futuristic looking that it also didn't make sense that it had welding on it, but it looked like it was unpainted. That's the best way I could put it. Silver, unpainted, shiny, reflective.

It wasn't fighter jet size, it was definitely smaller.

I don't remember seeing anything on my radar, no static or anything over the radio.

The pilot then asked his superior if he had seen anything, but he replied that he had not.

The second sighting occurred at 30,000 feet, when Ryan scanned the area around his jet. He saw a rectangular object slowly approaching from the front left as if it were travelling slower than his jet and catching up with it on the same trajectory.

This was like an essentially perfect rectangle shape. Maybe I would assume, probably like 30 to 50 feet high. It was bright white along the outside edges, and it was like the outside edges were glowing and then on the inside it kind of got a little bit lighter colored, and it went all the way down to like a cream and then a clear center.

He then checks for a tether connecting it to a balloon, but sees none.

The edges were so bright that they were pulsing. I didn't have to deal with how bright it was outside, but it came close enough that I could really see all the details.

In the center, it was clear, as if I could see the sky through a small hole in the air. But again, we were at 30,000 feet and travelling at 400 knots.

We flew past it and checked all the aircraft's sensors; nothing was off and everything looked good. It didn't distort any of our electronics or anything like that.

Bodenheimer then explains that he contacted air traffic control and reported his observation, which was recorded and communicated to other aircraft in the area.

These testimonies from an experienced fighter pilot show that the taboo surrounding this subject is disappearing:

There has been a bit of a stigma for fighter pilots that have come forward and talked about these things. But obviously, recently, over the last few years, I feel like that stigma has been removed, and now I'm ready to talk about it.

If you find yourself in a similar situation and wish to share your experience, you can reach out to Ryan Graves' association of former fighter pilots, Americans for Safe Aerospace, in the United States. In Europe, you can contact the Technical Commission on UAP “Sigma 2” of the French Aeronautical and Astronautical Association, as well as the UAP Coalition Netherlands.

These two observations of advanced platforms clearly demonstrate the range of phenomena that can be observed in the air and on the ground. To seriously shed light on the subject, an open scientific study is needed to distinguish between platforms resulting from technological breakthroughs and those of non-human origin.

A recent Wall Street Journal article demonstrated that the US Defense Department has disseminated disinformation about UFOs to its own personnel. It is time for scientists to address these discoveries head-on. This is all the more important given the reality and significance of these discoveries, which are likely to result in one or more Nobel Prizes.

Indeed, while one case can indeed be explained by a wreckless test of a semi-autonomous US drone prototype, in which the US Department of Defense has invested huge sums of money for many years, the second case, as Ryan Bodenheimer points out, is more intriguing:

It really defied any aeronautical laws I've ever learned about.

Source: Max Afterburner, Thunderbird Fighter Pilot Shares Wild UAP Encounters!, 8-6-2025