And then the sky exploded: Incident at Joshua Tree, January 1996 [r/UFOs]

The January 1996 Joshua Tree incident, chronicled in a r/UFOs thread, involves a reported mid-air explosion and a subsequent military response. The Federation of American Scientists' file links the event to F-14 operations, though the specific aircraft and pilot remain unidentified. The claim of a non-terrestrial craft is unverified, but the radar data from the incident has never been released.