Trump Says Pilots Told Him a Round Object Passed an F-22 at Triple Speed

CASE FILE: RW-DAILY-2026-1110-EXTRA

Subject: President Trump, on 60 Minutes, repeating an Air Force pilot account of a round object passing an F-22 at three times the jet’s speed

Dates: Interview aired Sunday 8 Nov 2026; Fox News write-up 9 Nov 2026, 10:57 a.m. EST

Location: Oval Office meetings alleged; encounter location not given

Status: Remarks CONFIRMED (on tape) · Encounter UNVERIFIED (secondhand; no date, place or data)

The claim

On Sunday 8 November 2026, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired an interview in which correspondent Ross Douthat asked President Donald Trump whether anything he had seen, heard or been told led him to think there was “something more” behind unidentified objects in the sky than “having a good time looking at things in the sky.”

Trump said he is “not too much of a believer,” then described meetings in the Oval Office, in his first term and “a little bit second term,” with Air Force pilots. He said those pilots told him “things that are very strange,” including an account of a round object that “goes by them at three times their speed” while they were flying an F-22.

He did not name the pilots, the unit, the date or the place. He pointed to no radar track, gun-camera clip or flight-data file.

Greg Wehner’s Fox News article, published 9 November 2026 at 10:57 a.m. EST, is the piece that brought the exchange to wider notice. The wording below is taken from CBS’s own published transcripts, not from Fox’s paraphrase.

The video evidence first

Two official 60 Minutes uploads carry the interview. What follows is taken from CBS’s published transcripts and from the English caption track on the official YouTube upload of the extended cut, not from a viewing of the picture.

Broadcast cut

• Video: President Donald Trump: The 2026 60 Minutes post-midterms interview
• Uploader: 60 Minutes (official YouTube channel)
• YouTube upload date: 9 Nov 2026
• CBS News page: same title, with structured uploadDate of 8 Nov 2026, 7:00 p.m. ET, and duration PT0H27M12S (27 minutes 12 seconds)
• Length: 27:12 (1,632 seconds), matching the YouTube metadata

Extended cut (complete conversation; used for timestamps below)

• Video: Extended Interview: President Trump on 60 Minutes
• Uploader: 60 Minutes (official YouTube channel)
• YouTube upload date: 9 Nov 2026
• CBS News page: same title, with structured uploadDate of 8 Nov 2026, 7:05 p.m. ET, and duration PT0H51M47S (51 minutes 47 seconds)
• Length: 51:47 (3,107 seconds), matching the YouTube metadata

CBS also published a full transcript of the extended interview and a broadcast-edit transcript, both dated 8 November 2026, 7:00 p.m. EST. Those transcripts are not time-coded.

On the official YouTube caption track for the extended cut, Douthat turns to UFO footage at 37:36–37:46. The F-22 / “three times their speed” / “it’s round” passage begins at 39:15 and lands at 39:23–39:29. The “find out about it right after this interview” line is at 39:49–39:53. The UFO exchange ends as Douthat moves to Ukraine at 40:33. Those times are caption-file readings, not a shot-by-shot description of the picture.

Timeline

• First term, and “a little bit second term” (dates not given): Trump says he met Air Force pilots in the Oval Office who described “very strange” things, including the F-22 pass (CBS full transcript)
• 2026-10-23: Department of War posts PURSUE Release 07, including AARO memo DOW-UAP-D176 and FBI statement FBI-UAP-D043 on a 2026 western U.S. triangle sighting (war.gov/ufo; prior coverage: Release 7 triangle, Release 07 index)
• 2026-11-08, 7:00 p.m. ET: 60 Minutes airs the Douthat interview; CBS posts the broadcast and extended video pages and the transcripts (CBS broadcast video; full transcript)
• 2026-11-09: Official 60 Minutes YouTube channel dated both the 27:12 and 51:47 uploads this day (Broadcast; extended)
• 2026-11-09, 7:42 a.m. IST (8 Nov, 9:12 p.m. ET): Hindustan Times reports the same remarks (Hindustan Times)
• 2026-11-09, 10:57 a.m. EST: Fox News publishes Wehner’s article, adding context from the October AARO / FBI triangle file (Fox News)
• 2026-11-09: Hannity.com and other outlets repeat the same quotes from the CBS interview (Hannity.com)

What the president said

In the full CBS transcript, Trump answered Douthat this way:

“So here’s the story. I’m not too much of a believer, but I sat in the Oval Office, first term and a little bit second term, meeting with Air Force pilots that are really good, solid people. These are not people that you would say are conspiracy theorists. They don’t even know what it means. But they’re great, great pilots. Young, handsome. They have cr– beautiful, nice flat tops. I’d like to have a haircut just like ’em. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise.”

He called the pilots “the real deal” and said they had “told me things that are very strange.” Then:

“They said yes, there’s something going on out there. Because they’re flying an F-22, which is the best there is, the fastest, the best plane that anyone’s ever seen. And something goes by them at three times their speed and it’s round. It’s not aerodynamic, it’s round.”

In the same full transcript, Trump then offers his own guess: “And then I say— ‘Well, maybe it was a comet.'” The official YouTube English captions at 39:29 render that line as “And they said well maybe it was a comet.” This article follows the CBS transcript on the speaker. The caption file is used only for the clock times listed above.

Douthat asked next about self-described whistleblowers who say a secret UFO program exists that “even presidents don’t know about.” Trump’s answer, in the same transcript: “No. And I haven’t heard that. But if there is I’m gonna find out about it right after this interview.”

He later pointed to tourists at “a very, very common chain link fence” in Nevada, said he did not think “that’s where they say it all happens” was true, and added: “I would like to find out whether or not it’s true. I will tell you, you have a lot of very solid people that believe it’s true.”

What the research found

Here are the hook findings from the record, in order of how much weight they carry.