Incursions at the Border: Homeland Security Agents Tell of Encounters With Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
Sightings and video footage of aerial objects that defied explanation led one Customs and Border Patrol Agent to push for the creation of a UAP Task Force within the DHS.
Newly released video and direct testimony from a former Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent reveal that, much like U.S. Navy pilots who say they have regularly encountered unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), law enforcement officials defending America’s borders are also encountering unusual aerial objects with surprising frequency. According to sources The Debrief has interviewed, these incidents include encounters with aerial objects that appear to perform maneuvers well beyond the capabilities of conventional aircraft. Some of these events, which were also captured on video, have left a number of veteran pilots and other personnel questioning the nature and origin of these objects. Now in an exclusive to The Debrief, a former CBP agent is breaking his silence, offering significant details about his own experience with UAPs while patrolling the Mexican-American border. This, along with experiences and videos shared with him by fellow CBP and Department of Homeland Security officials, and his efforts to set up a process within the CBP for pilots and agents to report their sightings. For much of the last century, people have reported seeing strange objects in America’s skies. Sometimes appearing to maneuver at considerable speeds and without discernible means of propulsion, these unidentified aerial phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, have remained an enduring mystery; one that ignores cultural and ideological boundaries with the same disregard they appear to show for territorial borders. In recent years, the dialogue surrounding this long-taboo topic has been significantly elevated, particularly among lawmakers and defense officials in Washington. Several incidents, a majority of them reported in recent years by U.S. Navy personnel, have prompted questions about whether drones and sophisticated surveillance platforms operated by foreign adversaries–or perhaps something else entirely–could be involved in these aerial incursions into U.S. airspace. Based on preliminary intelligence assessments, UAP-related legislation, official Pentagon investigative offices, and recent congressional hearings, one might get the impression that UAP incidents are entirely limited to America’s sprawling defense and intelligence apparatus. Yet people from virtually all walks of life have claimed to have bewildering sightings of these aerial interlopers. And as some former government officials have recently told The Debrief, when it comes to U.S. government and UAP, the Department of Defense is hardly the only show in town. “It’s not just the DoD encountering this stuff,” says Robert “Bob” Thompson, a recently retired Department of Homeland Security Agent. In an interview with The Debrief, Thompson recounted how one of the roles he took on as a federal agent with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector Special Operations Group involved establishing the reporting requirements for Unexplained Aerial Phenomena within the Tucson Sector. According to Thompson, just like the military, a number of these bizarre incidents involving UAP have been captured on sophisticated government systems, normally tasked with catching drug smugglers or staving off the flow of illegal immigration. “We have guys out there 24/7 with their eyes to the sky looking for smuggling, but they see other stuff,” said Thompson. “I talked to dozens and dozens of agents that all had similar stories of seeing bizarre stuff, of having encounters with UAP.” View of the Milky Way over Cathedral Rock, seen from the Cathedral Rock Trailhead on Back O’ Beyond Road, Sedona, Arizona. (Image Source: Deborah Lee Soltesz/ U.S. Forest Service Coconino National Forest) After serving for 11 years with the U.S. military and a stint with a Tucson area Fire Department as a Paramedic and Hazmat Technician, Thompson began his career with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in January 2008. As a federal law enforcement agent, Thompson would go on to spend the next 14 years guarding America’s southern borders, ultimately earning a spot on the Tucson Sectors Special Operations Detachment Mobile Response Team (MRT.) “I gravitated, you know, almost right off the bat to the special operations side,” Thompson told The Debrief. “As always, you just want to surround yourself with the best,” he said. “100% out for excellence all the time. I got on to what they call our mobile Response Team, which is one of the three tiers that make up the Border Patrol Special Operations Detachment.” Within the Special Operations Detachment the primary focus was counter terrorism, counter weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and drug interdiction. From 2020 to 2021, Thompson worked in the newly created Arizona Air Coordination Center, which was to become the brain for Air Operations within the Tucson Sector. While tasked in the center, Thompson worked on other projects including helping redesign the sector’s antiquated 911 system and redesigning reporting requirements for regular trac...