An unidentified flying object that struck and damaged a U.S. military fighter jet was among several mysterious objects found near Air Force training ranges in Arizona, according to multiple reports.

The UFO hit the clear bubble "canopy" located above the head of a pilot flying an F-16 Viper jet, which caused damaged to the plane and left it temporarily grounded during an incident in January 2023, according to Federal Aviation Administration documents first obtained by the War Zone. The object was described as "an orange-white UAS" or "uncrewed aerial system," a term that often describes drones, according to the FAA documents.

Three additional UAS encounters were flagged the following day, according to the outlet.

“What I can tell you is that there has been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the [Mexico] border," former Pentagon investigator Luis Elizondo told News Nation earlier this month.

The FAA issued a statement to the New York Post claiming that it “documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility."

“If supporting information such as radar data corroborates the report, the FAA shares it with the UAP Task Force," the statement added. "The Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office serves as the centralized clearing house for UAP reporting impacting national security or safety.”

The U.S. government filed 757 related reports between May 2023 and June 2024, which includes 708 aerial incidents, and only 49 were marked as being "cased closed," according to the latest Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office report. The small unidentified objects found in Arizona tend to fly in groups of up to eight during incidents at high altitudes in or near military air combat training sites and have reoccurred since January 2020.

Vicki McKenna