Top 10 Most Shocking Declassified Photos and Videos

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When once-secret files are declassified, the truth can be more shocking than fiction. In this countdown, we reveal 10 of the most unbelievable photos and videos ever released to the public. From military operations and government cover-ups to mysterious events hidden from history, these rare visuals pull back the curtain on a hidden world. Some will fascinate you, others will disturb you—but all will make you question what else is still locked away.  📌 Perfect for history fans, conspiracy enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by real-life mysteries.

Transcript

00:00They were stunned by the size of the cloud. By the time it got up into the upper stratosphere,

00:05it spread out across 30 miles. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're going over documents

00:11declassified by governments that we find the most shocking. When the U.S. government finally

00:17revealed Mac was right, it was not a weather balloon. Number 10, the Avrocar. With rising

00:27tensions in the early Cold War, the United States Air Force was desperate to get the upper hand on

00:32their communist counterparts. Influenced by rumors of German flying saucers and created in an era

00:48obsessed with UFOs, the VZ9 Avrocar was designed by Avro Canada as a vertical takeoff and landing

00:56vehicle that could hover and reach unprecedented speeds. It was the Canadian contractor's attempt

01:13at creating a real flying saucer for the United States Air Force. Only it was awful. It could

01:19barely hover three feet compared to its projected 10,000, and it only reached speeds of 35 miles

01:26per hour compared to its projected 300. Even with its failure, it's a prototype that stunned us,

01:34and has us wondering where they're hiding the real ones.

01:37In its current configuration, the Avrocar was operating successfully in the ground cushion

01:42at a height of three feet and speeds up to 30 knots.

01:45Number 9, the Pigeon Camera. With espionage efforts ever so vital in the Cold War, the CIA was inventing

01:53spy gadgets so ahead of their time you would think they were science fiction. The Pigeon Camera is one

01:58of our older artifacts, where parts of the mission are actually still classified. But what I can tell

02:03you a little about is why we chose this animal and how it was deployed. Yet some were shockingly

02:07rudimentary. Like the Pigeon Camera. Part of a broader animal spy initiative codenamed Takana,

02:13the CIA equipped pigeons with tiny, lightweight cameras, capturing high-quality black-and-white

02:19photos of whatever they were flying over.

02:21With the camera attached to its breast, the pigeon would fly over a target area on its return home.

02:26With the pigeon being a common species, it was able to conceal itself as an intelligence collection

02:30platform among thousands of other birds. The problem was, they pretty much just did whatever

02:36they wanted when released, and were totally unreliable. The Pigeon Spy Program was unfortunately

02:41shut down before it could be fully operational. The CIA eventually declassified some images

02:47of the pigeons and their findings.

02:49The Pigeon Camera allowed the CIA to have a much more detailed view of what was going

02:52on in an area.

02:54Number 8. Corona Satellite Imagery. Working under the public cover name, Discoverer,

02:59the Corona was the United States' very first spy satellite.

03:03Corona was America's first successful photoreconnaissance satellite, and it captured imagery from 1960

03:08up until 1972. Operated by the Air Force and the CIA to gather intel on Soviet nuclear launch

03:15sites and production facilities, the reconnaissance platform captured hundreds of thousands of

03:20images. Many disproved a common theory that the Soviet nuclear arsenal had surpassed the

03:25United States by a wide margin, leading to a change in overall Cold War strategy moving forward.

03:31Corona was really important because it helped us better understand the buildup of Soviet military

03:36power in country. Many of the 800,000 images declassified in 1995 are now used in the environmental

03:43and archaeological fields, allowing scientists to study changes in the environment from the

03:4850s and 60s when the pictures were taken to the present day.

03:52Most importantly, Corona showed that the Soviet Union's bomber and missile buildup was not outpacing

03:57the Americans. Number 7. U-2 spy plane photos. With ties to the infamous Area 51, the Lockheed

04:06U-2 spy plane, or the Dragon Lady, has undoubtedly contributed to countless UFO sightings.

04:13By 1957, unacknowledged U-2 flights were the source of half of all reported UFO sightings. Its ability

04:22to achieve altitudes twice as high as conventional aircraft and fly nearly on the edge of space made

04:28the U-2 seem like something out of this world. It was also virtually untouchable by most missiles

04:34and aircraft of its era. As the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union intensified, the U-2 was

04:40America's best hope for tracking their rival's growing nuclear arsenal. The spy plane was used

04:47throughout the 1950s and 60s to gather intel on the Soviets and others around the globe. In 1997,

04:54thousands of photos gathered by the CIA were declassified. This included the Dragon Lady.

05:00The men were testing one of the most important tools of the Cold War…

05:07the U-2 spy plane. Number 6. The SR-71 photos and blueprints.

05:13Marking its legacy in aerospace history as one of the most iconic planes ever made, the SR-71 Blackbird

05:20is a marvel of its time. It still holds the flight airspeed record to this day. Cruising at Mach 3.3 and

05:27over 80,000 feet in the air, the legendary plane was unarmed, relying solely on its incredible speeds

05:33and altitudes to evade any threats on its reconnaissance missions. Since being decommissioned,

05:37information on the historic piece of aviation has been declassified. Among the declassifications are

05:43lots of pictures of the aircraft on its secret missions, original Blackbird blueprints, and even

05:48the actual flight manual. Number 5. Declassified Moon Landing Photos. Many Americans witnessed the

05:55moon landing live on television. It is the farthest anyone has ever gone. Yet humankind's greatest

06:04adventure was also its riskiest. Well, sort of. They were actually watching a feed that was filmed on a

06:11slow-cam television and optically converted from a different camera to NTSC. This alone means many

06:18to question the authenticity of the footage for some skeptics, and if NASA even got to the moon at all.

06:24Thankfully, NASA has declassified the Apollo moon landing photos, and they are nothing short of incredible.

06:32The lack of stars and waving of the flag with no atmosphere raised more suspicion, but most of these

06:37things can be explained. The scarcity of stars was due to the shutter speed of the camera used,

06:42and there was a quote-unquote wave in the flag from the inertia of the astronauts twisting it into

06:48the lunar surface. Number 4. Operation Crossroads Nuclear Test Footage. The Operation Crossroads

06:55nuclear test footage is something to behold. It's also some of the first drone footage ever showcased.

07:01Not since the discovery of gunpowder has the world wondered over the ability of man to create

07:06such an agent of destruction. The pure power behind the test is a force to be reckoned with.

07:11The more than 20 kiloton blast shocked the world when its declassified footage was revealed to the

07:17public, and most importantly, to the United States' adversaries. It showcased the sheer power that the

07:23United States had in its vast arsenal. The atomic spectacle was so widely acknowledged, it managed to find

07:29its way into pop culture, like the 1998 film Godzilla, and even in multiple Spongebob Squarepants episodes.

07:37It remains, to this day, one of the best examples of the dark reality of nuclear power and the

07:42destruction it wields.

07:43The expanding cloud of spray and fog several hundred feet high may be seen moving out from the center of the

07:50detonation. Number 3. Ivy Mike Nuclear Test Footage. With rumors and data suggesting the Soviets were

07:56successfully testing a nuclear device, the United States was fast at work creating the next big

08:02breakthrough in nuclear weaponry. The US military was developing a weapon so powerful it would make

08:07the atom bomb look like child's play. Unleashing 10.4 megatons of thermonuclear power, Ivy Mike was the

08:14world's first full-scale hydrogen bomb test. It yielded the power of 500 Fat Man atomic bombs and vaporized

08:22the Elugilab island in its entirety, leaving an underwater crater over 6,000 feet wide and over

08:28150 feet deep where the island once existed. The declassified footage shows the terrifying power of the

08:45hydrogen bomb, remaining a stark reminder of the looming threat of total annihilation.

08:51Number 2. Project Mogul Allegedly the actual source of the 1947 Roswell

08:56crash, Project Mogul was a Cold War sound detection spy program designed to detect nuclear explosions,

09:03observing Soviet bomb testing using microphones and radio arrays attached to high-altitude balloons.

09:10In New Mexico, a 48-year-old rancher named Mac Brazel had made a rather unusual discovery.

09:17A large area of wreckage including rubber strips, tin foil, a rather tough paper and sticks.

09:25This one shocks us because Major Jesse Marcel, the man photographed holding the remains of the

09:31Roswell wreckage, swore till his death that the Roswell crash was real and was indeed extraterrestrial.

09:37When the US government finally revealed Mac was right, it was not a weather balloon.

09:44It wasn't a Martian spaceship either. Even his son, Jesse Marcel Jr.,

09:48recounts the time in 1947 when his father showed him the pieces of the craft himself.

09:54So, was Major Marcel a confused military man, who simply wasn't read in on what he was seeing,

09:59or was Mogul just an elaborate cover story?

10:03The Roswell debris was part of a different kind of balloon, one used in the top secret

10:08Project Mogul, essentially an airborne bugging device to listen out for possible Soviet nuclear

10:15tests and missile launches.

10:32Number 1. The Pentagon UFO Videos.

10:36The world was taken by storm in 2017, when the New York Times wrote about three videos showcasing possible

10:42UFOs documented by the United States military.

10:46The public has been able to see several astounding images of what certainly qualify as UFOs during

10:52encounters with the US Navy. Documented using high-end surveillance equipment

10:57and multi-million dollar fighter jets, the Go Fast, the FLIR, and the Gimbal were all

11:03officially acknowledged by the Pentagon as authentic and declassified for public viewing in 2020.

11:09This thing would go instantaneous from one way to another, similar to if you threw a ping-pong

11:13ball against a wall. The combination of the New York Times breaking a massive story on the UFO

11:18phenomenon and the Department of Defense claiming the video is to be authentic UAP was a shocking

11:24revelation for the country, if not the world. The US government could not say for certain what is

11:30in this video, but it is something physically going by the window. Do you have any declassified photos

11:36or videos you would like to see featured next? Let us know in the comments. It's hard to imagine a world

11:42without GPS or satellite imagery, but in the 1950s when the CIA created its first photo reconnaissance

11:47satellite, codenamed Corona, the technology simply didn't exist.

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