(ORDO NEWS) — A new report to Congress says a Pentagon task force investigating UFOs , currently known as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, has processed more reports in the last couple of years than in the previous 17 years. But this does not mean that we are in the midst of an alien invasion.
The unclassified report was released this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, in cooperation with the Department of Intelligence. Office of Anomaly Resolution Protection in All Areas, or AARO.
The office was created under a congressional mandate, and this week’s report serves as an update to a preliminary assessment of UAP Pentagon reports released in 2021.
This assessment states that there were 144 reports regarding air anomalies seen by the military. military personnel between 2004 and 2021.
“There were 247 new reports and another 119 that were either discovered or registered after the pre-evaluation period,” the recently released report said.
So the total is 510 UAP reports as of August 30 last year.
The report’s authors say the increase in reports is “partly due to a better understanding of the possible threats that UAP can pose, either as an air safety, hazard or data-gathering platform for potential adversaries, and partly due to a reduction in the stigma associated with reports UAP”.
Either way, US intelligence and military officials say they think it’s a good thing. “This enhanced reporting provides more opportunities for a thorough analysis and resolution of events,” the report says.
Air Force brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, called the air anomaly problem a national security issue.
“The safety of our service personnel, our bases and facilities, and the security of US operations on land, in the sky, at sea and in space are of paramount importance,” Ryder said in a statement.
“We take reports of incursions into our assigned space, land, sea or airspace seriously and are investigating each one.”
Members of Congress on both sides praised the report but called for more transparency. Sen. Marco Rubio, D.F., said “more needs to be done… to use existing sensors to collect and analyze more UAP data,” while Sen. Mark Warner, D.V., said he looks forward to continued collaboration. “as we work to focus resources on UAP reports that remain uncharacterized and unattributed.”
The unclassified version of the report does not provide details on any of the cases. Such details are given only in a secret report to Congress.
But the unclassified version gives a breakdown of 366 newly identified sightings. More than half of the messages were tentatively found to exhibit “unremarkable characteristics”:
- 26 have been characterized as caused by drones or drone-like devices
- 163 were characterized as caused by balloons or similar objects
- 6 were associated with interference such as birds, weather, plastic bags or other airborne debris
There are 171 messages left. which were “uncharacterized and unattributed”. Some of the phenomena described in these hitherto cryptic reports appear to be related to “unusual flight or operational characteristics and require further analysis,” the status report says.
But at least some of the anomalies could end up being related to sensor failures or other not-so-mysterious causes.
“Many of the reports lack sufficient detail to be able to establish UAP attribution with a high degree of confidence,” the report says. said. Having a larger database of sightings could help investigators solve lingering mysteries.
The report stated that none of the reported UAP encounters resulted in collisions or adverse health effects. There is nothing in the report to address the possibility that aliens may have played a role in any of the UAP incidents – but last year, during a congressional hearing, Pentagon officials said they saw nothing that could be “unearthly.” by origin.
This week’s update received mixed reviews from people closely following the UAP/UFO issue. Christopher Mellon, a former Pentagon official, welcomed the fact that “the UAP issue is gaining momentum and government acceptance” – especially when it comes to awareness of the security problems posed by drones, including surveillance drones that are believed to be using China.
But Mellon said the wording in the report demonstrated “the US government’s unique and uncanny ability to turn an inherently interesting topic into annoying bureaucratic jargon.”
Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, chairman of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee and author of a controversial book on the possibility of intelligent alien life, said the most interesting information about UAP sightings is likely to remain classified and hidden from prying eyes.
“Even if one object out of 510 registered UAPs is of extraterrestrial origin and this object does not pose a threat to national security, its identification will be the most important discovery that humanity has ever made,” Loeb wrote in his Medium post.
“Therefore, the ODNI report complements the work of scientists.
This is intriguing because it alerts the scientific community to anomalous objects, but does not provide sufficient evidence for the nature of UAPs that can move, accelerate, or look different from our technological devices.”
For what it’s worth, NASA set up an independent panel last year to evaluate sighting reports from non-military UAPs. This commission is expected to publish its findings in mid-2023.
During a discussion forum last October, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said to keep an open mind when asked about the prospects for intelligent life beyond Earth.
“My personal opinion is that the universe is so big that there are even theories now that other universes could exist,” he said.
“And if so, then who am I to say that the planet Earth is the only location of a civilized and organized form of life like ours?”
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