In the 1960s, secret test flights of advanced government spy planes generated UFO sightings. More recently, government and commercial drones, new types of satellites and errant weather balloons have led to a renaissance in unusual observations.
But, according to a new reportnone of these sightings are of alien spacecraft.
A new Pentagon report mandated by congress found no evidence that the government is covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and said there is no evidence that any UFO sightings represent alien visits to Earth.
The 63-page document is the most stunning rebuttal the Pentagon has issued in years to counter claims it has information on extraterrestrial visits or technology. But amid widespread mistrust of the government, the report is unlikely to quell a growing fascination with foreigners.
Maj said. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, that the Pentagon approached the report with an open mind and no preconceived ideas, but found no evidence to back up the claims of secret programs, hidden aliens technology or anything extraterrestrial.
“All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, have determined that most sightings are ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” General Ryder said in a statement.
While many reports of what the government now calls Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena remain unsolved, the new document clearly states that nothing is to be seen. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office concluded that if better quality data were available, “many of these cases could also be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.”
Because of that missing data, Pentagon officials in the past have often been reluctant to speak publicly about various incidents, saying they lacked information to draw conclusions. But in the absence of conclusions, conspiracy theories flourish, even as scientists and independent investigators make the case that optical illusions, weather phenomena, scientific balloons or drones are plausible causes of nearly all unexplained occurrences. incident.
The report also challenges the accounts of whistle-blowers and former government officials who say the United States is hiding evidence of alien or extraterrestrial material from the public.
The Pentagon has, over time, tried to chip away at such claims. Officials have testified to Congress that the government has no extraterrestrial materials – much less a spaceship – in its possession. The Pentagon and NASA used basic trigonometry to show why the released military videos did not show anything unusual or alien.
The report is not the final word. Congress ordered a second Pentagon report and passed a measure last year ordering the National Archives to declassify more records. NASA and US intelligence agencies are looking for ways to collect more complete data about the unexplained sightings.
But none of those efforts are likely to deviate from the broad conclusions stated Friday.
Progress in debunking false information about UFOs has been slowed by various changes in the task force looking into the matter. Congress has charged an existing Pentagon group, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, with historical evidence analysis.
The office found “no empirical evidence” that the reported sightings represented “off world technology” or any classified program that had not been reported to Congress, the report concludes.
However, the public is unlikely to sympathize. Many people dismiss the government’s claims that nothing interesting is going on in the Pentagon videos that appear to show strange objects, citing accounts by Navy pilots that they observed objects whose movements were not easily explained.
The new report notes that in the past, especially in the 1950s, there was interest in UFOs, but now the attention to unexplained sightings is greater than ever.
The Pentagon, treading lightly and writing with precise language, has concluded that declining public trust in government and the speed with which misinformation spreads has made it harder to deny claims of extraterrestrial visits.
Mentioned a 2021 Gallup poll, The Pentagon said exposure to the topic through “traditional and social media has increased the number of Americans who believe UFO sightings are extraterrestrial in origin.”
“In addition to fraud and forgery, misinformation and disinformation are more prevalent and easier to spread today than ever before, especially with today’s advanced photo, video and computer-generated imagery tools,” the report found. “Internet and content recommendation algorithms serve to reinforce individuals’ preconceptions and confirmation biases as much as to aid in teaching and informing.”
The report notes that in the 1950s, many UFO reports were driven by public sightings or classified government programs. The report lists government programs including the Manhattan Project and the Air Force’s secretive stealth drone development, the RQ-170, that may have contributed to higher reports of unidentified objects or phenomena.
There are former government officials who firmly believe that the United States has information about aliens or have heard reports about secret programs to study extraterrestrial technology. Those former officials became star witnesses in congressional hearings.
As part of the investigation, the Pentagon interviewed people who claimed to Congress that they had direct knowledge of the government cover-up and others who claimed to have corroborating information.
An overview of their accounts makes it clear that most reports of foreign technology are, at best, secondhand. And none of the initial reports were corroborated by other witnesses.
However, the Pentagon has investigated the claims and, so far, has found nothing to substantiate them. Instead, it collected on-the-record rebuttals from other witnesses. The report said the office would continue to investigate and report additional claims in a second volume.
The Pentagon is also looking into classified and sensitive government programs suggested by whistle-blowers involved in the analysis of captured alien spacecraft.
The Pentagon concluded that while “many of these programs represent genuine, current and former sensitive, national security programs,” none of them involved the acquisition or reverse engineering of extraterrestrial technology.
