According to an organization known as the National UFO Reporting Center, two military jets engaged an object referred to as an "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon" over Bad Axe early this month.
Witnesses reported watching a pair of F-16s engaged in a "dogfight" with an object they were unable to see as they moved a camper at the storage units across from the Bad Axe Meijer store on June 3.
One of the witnesses, Christopher Bilbrey of Ubly, said as the military jets circled the sky overhead, he spotted a white/metallic disc that was difficult to see because of sunlight reflecting off the object. Bilbrey said the object seemed to be hiding from the jets by flying in front of the sun.
"The UAP was extremely fast," Bilbrey said. "It was capable of overtaking and outmaneuvering the fighter jets with extreme ease. It would overtake a jet, stop suddenly and seemed to turn toward the incoming jet (sic) like spin in their direction without moving."
The jet fired anti-missile flares like it was under direct attack, Bilbrey stated in his witness account. According to the report, the second fighter jet also fired its flares as the object continued to spin.
The jets repeated their attack about three times before flying away from the area, Bilbrey said. The UAP sat in front of the sun for a brief period before taking "a victory lap" and flying north toward Lake Huron.
Bilbrey, who said he was a military veteran who had been stationed with the 304th Expeditionary Signal Battalion in South Korea, added he attempted to take cell phone video of the incident but glare and the altitude of the planes made it difficult.
Huron County Sheriff Kelly Hanson said his office has received no reports of the June 3 incident. Hanson, a licensed pilot, said if the fighter jets were, in fact, F-16s, they would have been scrambled from the 180th Fighter Wing in Toledo, Ohio, not Selfridge Air National Guard Base near Mount Clemens.
Christian Stepien, chief technical officer of the National UFO Reporting Center, said his organization often works with the Mutual UFO Network and is celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. The center takes about 20 to 30 reports of phenomena per day, often from pilots or members of the military, from across the U.S. and around the globe.
Stepien cited a recent government whistleblower's claim that the federal government is in possession of extraterrestrial spacecraft as evidence that reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are more than just wild stories born of overactive imaginations or those with bad intentions.
"Things are really (starting to heat up)," Stepien said. "(UAPs) are absolutely here. They're flying around with impunity."
Mark Birdsall can be reached by phone at 989-623-3188 or by email at mark.birdsall@hearstnp.com
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