(BALTIMORE – August 22, 2026) – I once sat across from the man who directed Project Blue Book—the United States Air Force’s official investigation into unidentified flying objects—and asked him a simple question: Had he ever seen anything in the sky that he could not explain? His answer was yes. Lt. Col. Robert J. “Bob” Friend did not give me some recycled story from a documentary. He was not repeating something another pilot had told him. He told me personally that he had seen something flying—something that was neither regular nor normal. Maybe it was a light. Maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, he could not explain it. That distinction matters. An unidentified flying object is not automatically an alien spacecraft. It is precisely what the name says: something observed in the sky that could not be immediately identified. But this was no ordinary witness. Bob Friend was a Tuskegee Airman who flew 142 combat missions during World War II. He was the primary wingman to Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., commander of the legendary 332nd Fighter Group. Friend later spent five years directing Project Blue Book, placing him at the center of the United States government’s investigation into one of the greatest mysteries of the modern era. And he told me he had seen something he could not explain. That is news. Debra’s Daddy Was Already on It Recent government disclosures have once again pushed UFOs—now more commonly called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs—into the national conversation. President Donald Trump added fuel to the fire in April when he promised that his administration would release more government information about the phenomenon. He spoke of military pilots who had reported seeing “things you wouldn’t believe.” Debra Carter, Bob Friend’s daughter, was watching the coverage. Her reaction was immediate. What in the hell is he talking about? That’s not even new. If Debra could deliver one message directly to the White House, it would be this: Excuse me, Mr. President—my daddy was on this decades ago. She is right. What television networks now present as a breaking discovery was her father’s official government assignment more than six decades ago. That is why this story belongs on BMORENews.com. We call ourselves “The News Before the News” because we have spent nearly a quarter-century documenting people and stories long before the rest of the world decides they matter. Bob Friend did the same thing. He was studying the phenomenon before today’s cable-news experts were born. Meet Bob Friend Robert Jones Friend was born on February 29, 1920, in Columbia, South Carolina. His father was from Quito, Ecuador, and his mother was from South Carolina. He was a leap-day baby who seemed destined for the sky. As a child, Friend devoured stories about World War I flying aces and built model airplanes that could actually fly. He wanted to become a military pilot, but America was not yet ready to give a Black man that opportunity. He studied at Howard University and…