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Pentagon Confirms Apollo 17 Blue Lights as Potentially Physical Object

Reality Check with Ross Coulthart · Inside lunar triangle, STS-48 anomaly: The footage the Pentagon has not explained | Reality Check · May 31, 2026
Pentagon Confirms Apollo 17 Blue Lights as Potentially Physical Object
Reality Check with Ross Coulthart
Reality Check with Ross Coulthart
Inside lunar triangle, STS-48 anomaly: The footage the Pentagon has not explained | Reality Check
"They didn't say it was 3 objects. They actually used the term potentially a physical object, singular. The implication of course is that what we're looking at is a triangular craft with 3 dot lights in each corner."
The Department of Defense's war.gov/ufo release officially classified the famous Apollo 17 triangular blue lights photograph as depicting a potentially physical object rather than three separate objects or camera artifacts. Dr. Manali Derekshani explained that multiple scans from different archives show identical configurations, ruling out scanning artifacts, and that NASA has higher-resolution versions it chose not to release publicly.

About this episode

On this episode of Reality Check, host Ross Coulthart interviews Dr. Manali Max Derekshani for the fourth time to examine NASA lunar and orbital anomalies in the wake of the Pentagon's war.gov/ufo document release. The episode centers on evidence the Pentagon and NASA have withheld or downplayed footage showing potentially non-human technology. Most explosive is Coulthart's revelation that Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell told a close friend he was warned it would be "treason" to discuss UFOs witnessed during lunar missions, suggesting official prohibition on astronaut disclosure. Dr. Derekshani presents detailed technical analysis contradicting NASA's prosaic explanations for multiple incidents: the Apollo 17 triangular blue lights now officially termed a "potentially physical object" by the Pentagon, the 1991 STS-48 shuttle footage showing an object making impossible maneuvers calculated at 18,000 G-forces and 430,000 mph, and the 1996 STS-80 mission capturing plasmatic objects moving at over 1 million mph. Coulthart reveals previously undisclosed information about a secret US facility at Australia's Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station that was bulldozed before being returned to Australian control in 1991, speculating it may have housed directed energy weapons tested during the STS-48 incident filmed overhead. The discussion examines how NASA administrator Bill Nelson's claims of no anomalous UAP evidence contradict the agency's own archives, and why NASA chose to release lower-resolution images when higher-quality scans exist. Both argue these shuttle and Apollo anomalies warrant congressional investigation and represent more compelling evidence of exotic technology than recently released Pentagon videos.

Key takeaways

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