Two US Air Force pilots have detailed their encounter with a UFO over the Pacific Ocean near San Diego.
Former Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight told the New York Times they were on a training mission about 160km off the coast in 2004 when they received a transmission from the USS Princeton.
The Princeton wanted to know if they had any weapons onboard, which they replied negatively, because they had not anticipated any hostile contact just off the coast of the US.
The two pilots were then asked by the Princeton to investigate a mysterious aircraft nearby, which had been sighted several times over the past few weeks.
The aircraft reportedly was seen appearing at 80,000 feet and then dropping rapidly to 20,000 feet where it hovered before dropping lower out of radar range or shooting straight back upwards.
Fravor and Slaight set course for the object's reported position, but upon getting there they could not initially see anything or pick it up on radar.
Commandor Fravor then looked down towards the surface, and spotted a disturbance on the ocean's surface similar to boiling, churning water.
Hovering about 50 feet above the disturbance was a, white oval-shaped 40-foot-long aircraft of some kind, Fravor said, and it was jumping around erratically.
Fravor began a circular descent to get closer look, but the craft began moving towards his jet, as if it were meeting him half way, before accelerating away from him at an incredible speed.
"It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen," he told the Times, saying he was "pretty weirded out".
The pilots then called back to the Princeton, and they were told to rendevouz at a point about 60 miles (95km) away.
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On the way there, they were again called by the Princeton, who told them the object had appeared ahead of them, at their rendesvouz point.
"We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point," Commander Fravor said.
By the time the two jets arrived at the point, the unidentified craft was gone without a trace.
The account from the two pilots comes after the Times revealed that the US government funded a UFO investigation division within the Pentagon between 2007 and 2012.
The division - called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program - had funding removed in 2012, but has continued to investigate accounts since then.
Former director of the AATIP Luis Elizondo resigned from the division this year in October, writing in his resignation letter to Defence Secretary Jim Mattis that "more time and effort" needs to be devoted to investigating UFOs.
The revelation was accompanied by footage released by the Department of Defence of an unknown craft being chased by a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet at high speed.
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