An Army veteran and former border patrol agent has revealed shocking and unexplained sightings taking place at the US southern border.

Bob Thompson, who spent 14 years with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is now showing the world a never-before-seen UFO spotted near Arizona.

An unidentified object, referred to as ‘The Cigar,’ was filmed by a CBP reconnaissance aircraft in early 2020, capturing the enigmatic craft traveling at a high speed.

Thompson informed NewsNation’s Ross Coulthart that the UFO featured a short, cylindrical shape without any visible wings or propellers. Additionally, CBP cameras failed to detect any heat trail from an engine, leaving its propulsion method unexplained.

Thompson said he has spoken to more than 100 CBP agents who have witnessed strange and unidentified objects flying along the US border.

While managing the airspace along the southern border, Thompson noted that he has observed numerous UFO designs breaching US airspace.

‘I’ve seen orbs that were off in the distance. I’ve seen crafts that were cigar-shaped, I’ve seen triangles,’ the whistleblower said.

Although many of these accounts are being dismissed as drones, likely flown by drug cartels trying to sneak into the US, Thompson claimed that there’s more going on that just illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

‘No one likes to talk about it freely. I think it’s just still a taboo subject,’ Thompson said on Reality Check with Ross Coulthart.

The never-before-seen video was taken just months after another UFO sighting involving a strange craft that had the shape of a rubber duck.

That November 2019 sighting took place as CBP was following a group who crossed the US border illegally in Arizona’s Buenos Aires National Wildlife Area.

Similar to the cigar UFO, which had no visible heat trail, the rubber duck UFO’s thermal signature did not match any known planes or drones.

The cigar video was taken near the same wildlife preserve and Thompson admitted that the US border patrol still has no idea what the object was.

The whistleblower added that the cigar-shaped object could have been a new missile being tested, but there’s simply no way to know for sure without a full investigation.

Despite the Office of the Director of National Intelligence mandating that incidents like this be collected and investigated, Coulthart noted that there’s been ‘a deafening silence’ about recent UFO cases.

Thompson noted that unexplained aircraft aren’t the only thing being seen along the border. CBP agents have also spotted terrifying ‘portals’ opening into the sky.

‘I got told that they witnessed a portal opening up in the sky and there were pictures of it on a camera that I was able to see,’ Thompson revealed.

The veteran CBP officer added that agents knew these weren’t glowing orbs or some other type of UFO and actually witnessed the portals as they were opening up out of thin air.

Thompson’s claims are just the latest unexplained accounts coming out of Arizona, where Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents show several Air Force pilots have encountered ‘swarms’ of UFOs in recent years.

On January 19, 2025, an unidentified object actually struck an F-16 Viper fighter jet, damaging the canopy and forcing the $63 million aircraft to land.

So far, the FAA hasn’t found any conclusive evidence that the object was extraterrestrial. 

Luis Elizondo, a former government intelligence officer who became a UFO whistleblower, recently led a congressional hearing on UFO sightings and government disclosure. He told NewsNation that Arizona has become a UFO hotspot.

‘A lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border,’ Elizondo disclosed.

Aside from Thompson’s report of portals opening up over Arizona, government authorities have been quick to dismiss the UFO claims as drone sightings.

Trump Administration border czar Tom Homan has said that many of these sightings are likely high-tech drones carrying drugs over the US border or spying on US military bases in the area.