While on a hike in Southern California, a family captured intriguing images of an enigmatic object in the sky during a solar eclipse.

As the family trekked near Ryan Mountain in Joshua Tree National Park on October 14, 2023, they observed a sizable UFO with a shape resembling a dumbbell or an H, moving slowly and erratically overhead.

According to the family, they tracked the UFO for approximately 45 minutes, noting how it appeared and disappeared multiple times before ultimately vanishing from sight.

The photographs, which were shared with safeaerospace.org—a nonprofit dedicated to aerospace safety and national security—show the UFO in clear detail, revealing its highly reflective silver surface.

Its form was likened to a ‘capital I’ or a ‘sideways H,’ with two large panels on each end, drawing comparisons to the iconic TIE fighters from the Star Wars saga.

However, some skeptics commenting on the sighting have speculated that the object might simply have been a box kite or a stray letter H party balloon.

However, the hikers estimated that the craft was the size of a car or small plane, which would make the object significantly larger than the typical kite and balloon.

While the Pentagon has maintained that physical evidence of UFOs or extraterrestrials has never been found, the sighting took place near several US military bases, including one that has tested experimental aircraft for decades.

A family of four captured images of an unidentified craft flying over California’s Joshua Tree National Park in 2023

The UFO appeared to have an I or H shaped frame and was said to be highly reflective or made of silver

The family of four noted in their report that the suspected UFO was within a few miles of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles east of Los Angeles.

However, the sighting also took place roughly 115 miles from Edwards Air Force Base, the world’s largest airfield – and a famous testing ground for experimental aircraft and prototypes since the 1940s.

In fact, the base is home to the 412th Test Wing and the Air Force Test Center, the service’s main location for developmental flight testing of new technology.

Those tests have included the X-1, which conducted the first supersonic flight in history, and more recently, the B-21 Raider, a sixth-generation stealth bomber unveiled in 2022.

The Daily Mail has reached out to the Pentagon for comment on the sighting and to learn if the military was conducting tests in the area during the 2023 eclipse.

While it remains unclear what the family actually saw over Joshua Tree National Park, the incident has been taken seriously and shared publicly by an expert in the field of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the modern name for UFOs. 

Safeaerospace.org was founded by Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot and one of the key witnesses on UAP incidents who has testified before Congress about what he saw during his decade-long career. 

Graves told Congress in 2023: ‘UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly under-reported. These sightings are not rare or isolated; they are routine. Military air crew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.’

Former Navy pilot Ryan Graves has started his own reporting site for UFO encounters

The witnesses said the UFO appeared during a solar eclipse on October 13, 2023. It stayed in the sky for approximately 45 minutes before vanishing

Skeptics have compared the UFO to a silver party balloon that may have floated away, or a box kite (Stock Image)

Graves added during the House Oversight hearing on UAP that sightings and close calls involving US fighter jets and these mysterious craft over American airspace had become so common that warnings about these encounters became standard in mission briefings.

‘The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue,’ the veteran pilot said.

Safeaerospace.org is the official site of Americans for Safe Aerospace, Graves’ nonprofit that has given civilians, commercial pilots and fellow veterans a secure and confidential channel to report UAP encounters.

On Wednesday, President Trump suggested that the long-awaited files on UFO disclosure could soon be made public.

‘I think we will be releasing as much as we can in the near future,’ the president told reporters during a meeting with the crew of NASA’s Artemis II moon mission.

‘For some reason, and I guess it’s just a reason, it’s been in the minds of people for a long time. They want to find out about the UFOs and anything having to do with UFOs or related material.’

Confirming Graves’ testimony, Trump added that he had spoken with military pilots who revealed incidents involving what they believed were non-human craft.

‘I interviewed some pilots. Very solid people, and they said they saw things that you wouldn’t believe,’ Trump said.