“It looked like something from aliens.” Downed US pilot saw Iranian drones in never-before-seen formation

The pilot was rescued after ejecting, but another soldier was trapped 320 kilometers behind enemy lines.

The American fighter pilot who was shot down by Iran in April described how, before ejecting from the plane, Iranian drones surrounded him in a formation that looked like a “jellyfish”.

Iranian forces against the F-15E Strike Eaglevalued at 31 million dollars, on April 3, triggering a huge search operation by the missing weapons systems officer, who held out for hours in the mountains before being dramatically rescued.

During an information meeting with secret service officials, the pilot described seeing a unified and overwhelming drone formationsimilar to a jellyfish, sources familiar with the case told sources in a report published this Tuesday.

“Several drones interconnected and moving as if they were oneOh, with smaller drones underneath the larger ones, like legs,” one of the sources familiar with the pilot’s testimony told the channel. “It really looked like something from aliens“.

The maneuver suggests a surprising advance in Iran’s capabilities to use drones en masse on the battlefield, says . The cause of the F-15 crash, which was first time that a US aircraft was shot down over Iran during the conflict remains under investigation.

Two of the sources told CNN it was possible the drone training in “medusa” had allowed Iran to shoot down the fighterdesigned to operate in all weather conditions.

The joint military command Khatam al-Anbiyafrom Iran, stated on the day of the incident that he had used a new air defense system qwhich hit a US fighter, three drones and two cruise missiles.

“The enemy must know thatwe rely on new air defense systems built by young, educated and proud of this country, which reveal them one after another on the ground”, said a spokesperson at the time.

The pilot ejected safely and was rescued that day by two military helicopters, although one of them was the target of small arms fire, CBS reported, citing North American officials.

According to CNN, intelligence officials who later heard the pilot differed as to the clarity with which he could remember the incident after suffering a concussion in the fall.

Following the pilot’s recovery, the U.S. military launched a multi-pronged rescue operation to recover the missing officerwho, according to North American officials, was trapped in Iran and only had a pistol to defend himself.

The CIA will have launched a cover-up operationspreading false information that the soldier had already been located and recovered.

US President Donald Trump announced two days later that the second soldier had been recovered and was “safe and sound”. He also said that he had suffered injuries, but that he was “fine”.