President Donald Trump said Thursday he will direct multiple U.S. government agencies to declassify files related to aliens and UFOs.
The move came five days after former President Barack Obama sparked interest in the topic by saying aliens are real.
Obama made the comments in a Feb. 14 interview with political commentator and podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, who asked Obama a lightning round of questions, including whether aliens are real. Obama’s answer in the affirmative quicklywent viral on social media.
Aboard Air Force One Feb. 19, Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump: “So aliens are real?”
“Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not,” Trump said. “I can tell you (Obama) gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information.”
Doocy then said Trump, as president, can declassify anything he wants to.
“I may get him out of trouble by declassifying it,” Trump responded, referring to Obama.
Hours later, Trump said on Truth Social he would do just that.
“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” Trump’s Feb. 19 post read.
Here are Obama’s comments during Cohen’s speed-round interview, when the former president answered several questions in a short period of time.
Cohen: “So I want to do a little bit of a lightning round here, because it’s not often I’ll get access to the president of the United States. So a couple questions here. Are aliens real?”
Obama: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in, what is it?”
Cohen: “Area 51?”
Obama: “Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
Declassified documents released in 2013 during Obama’s presidency acknowledged the existence of Area 51, saying that the secret government space was used as an aerial testing ground for U.S. government projects.
Obama clarified his podcast remarks on social media, saying, “I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
While not discovered, there’s a possibility that there could be life on other planets; NASA researchers said in August 2025 that they found a long-lasting source of chemical energy in the ancient past of planet Ceres that could have made it possible for microorganisms to survive. NASA noted that this doesn’t mean that Ceres had life, but that there was likely “food” available should life have ever arisen on Ceres.
In 2024 the Pentagon’s UFO office, called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, said it found “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technologies.”
The UFO reporting centre CENAP located in western Germany this year recorded more sightings by puzzled citizens than ever before, its director said on Monday.
The Central Research Network for Extraordinary Sky Phenomena is a point of contact for members of the public seeking a scientific explanation for their spotting of a UFO – the abbreviation for “unidentified flying object.”
According to its experts, most of these were planets or stars, rather than anything connected to extra-terrestrial civilizations.
CENAP, based in Lützelbach south of Frankfurt, recorded 1,348 UFO sightings last year from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as a few from other countries, according to its director Hansjürgen Köhler.
Since 2019, reports have risen steadily every year. But even last year, there were no alien spaceships among them, Köhler said.
Sightings have many causes
According to him, bright planets such as Venus, Jupiter and the star Sirius continue to confuse many sky watchers.
In addition, meteors surprised many early risers and casual observers when they burned up with a conspicuous glow.
More than 120 sightings of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communication systems were reported, including by pilots who were surprised during night flights, according to Köhler.
Other reports were attributed to rocket stage re-starts, when spent fuel is illuminated by the sun and creates bizarre luminous phenomena in the night sky.
In addition, satellites and rocket parts regularly burn up spectacularly in the atmosphere as space debris.
Reports that can be identified as drone flights have been increasing for five years, Köhler said. As well as small private drones, larger industrial drones and police drones are also in use.
UFO Whistleblower Claims Aliens Have Established Two Secret Bases on Earth as Danny Sheehan, a prominent lawyer known for UFO disclosures, makes startling allegations regarding extraterrestrial life on our planet.
Sheehan asserts that these alien bases are hidden in remote mountainous regions and beneath the ocean.
One of the purported bases is located off the coast of Baja California, near Guadalupe Island.
Reports indicate that this underwater base has been closely monitored, with potentially hundreds of videos capturing vehicles entering and exiting the site.
Danny Sheehan, a lawyer renowned for leaking information about UFO and alien encounters, has made sensational claims about extraterrestrial life on Earth. According to Sheehan, aliens have established two bases on our planet, located in remote and inhospitable regions.
In an interview that has gone viral on the Reddit platform, Sheehan revealed his shocking allegations. He stated,
UFO Whistleblower Claims Aliens Have Established Two Secret Bases on Earth | The Guardian
“(There are) bases here, on our planet. Many of which are located high in the desolate areas of the mountains where very few people ever go, and beneath the sea.”
Sheehan specifically mentioned one alleged base in the Pacific Ocean, situated off the coast of Baja California near Guadalupe Island. He claimed,
“There’s a major base in the Pacific that we’re virtually certain exists off Baja – between Baja and Guadalupe Island.”
The lawyer added that this underwater base has been monitored, with potentially hundreds of videos and vehicles observed entering and exiting the location. He emphasized,
UFO
“Potentially beneath the ocean floor, it’s been monitored and we have potentially hundreds of videos and vehicles coming and going down into, and coming from that base.”
Sheehan also revealed that there are individuals within the national security apparatus who allegedly know about these extraterrestrial bases.
These insiders, he claimed, are currently engaged in attempting to shoot down UFOs and capture the alien pilots. Sheehan described this situation as “extraordinarily dangerous.”
His claims have sparked widespread interest and debate online, with many questioning the validity of his allegations. While Sheehan’s statements are intriguing, they remain unsubstantiated claims until further evidence emerges to support them.
Aliens have not been discovered in South America after all. The doll-like figures, photos of which went viral online last year, are just that – dolls, according to scientists.
The controversial artifacts were seized by Peruvian customs agents in October and intended for “a Mexican citizen,” the Associated Press reported.
Mexican journalist and self-described “UFOlogist” Jaime Maussan brought similar unidentified fraudulent objects in front of the Mexican congress last September, claiming that they had been recovered near Peru’s ancient Nazca Lines and dated over 700 years old.
The Mexican congress heard testimony on Sept. 12, 2023, on UFOs and the prospect of alien life. Self-described “UFOlogist” Jaime Massan brought two caskets into the congressional chambers and revealed what he claimed to be extraterrestrial life.
Provided to CBS News
Maussan went in front of the Mexican congress again in November, with a team of doctors confirming the bodies were of once-living organisms.
“None of the scientists say [the study results] prove that they are extraterrestrials, but I go further,” Maussan said, per Reuters.
Experts with Peru’s prosecutor’s office analyzed the seized dolls, and forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada presented the results of their findings at a press conference for the Peruvian Ministry of Culture on Friday.
Flavio Estrada, a forensic archaeologist at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Peru, speaks as he holds a tiny body of a specimen in Lima, Peru. Jan. 12, 2024.
SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA / REUTERS
“They are not extraterrestrials, they are not intraterrestrials, they are not a new species, they are not hybrids, they are none of those things that this group of pseudo-scientists who for six years have been presenting with these elements,” Estrada said.
The humanoid three-fingered dolls consisted of earth-bound animal and human bones assembled with modern synthetic glue, Estrada elaborated. It isn’t the first time Maussan has had an otherworldly corpse debunked — he made similar claims in 2017.
“Our cultures of the past made Machu Picchu, our cultures of the past made the Nazca Lines, they didn’t need any alien help to do it. Those who have promoted that have an economic interest, some other kind of interest,” Estrada said. “What we have presented here is science, not pseudo-science.”
Washington — An independent group of scientists and experts convened by NASA is set to release its report on efforts to track unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, amid growing calls for more transparency into the strange encounters.
UAPs, the government’s official name for what were formerly known as UFOs, have attracted enormous interest from the public, the military and lawmakers over the past several years as hundreds of pilots have reported their experiences with objects of unexplained origin.
NASA formed the group of 16 experts last year to examine how data about UAPs is collected across the government and private sector. Formally known as the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study, the group’s final report is set to be released publicly at 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. NASA officials will discuss the findings at a briefing beginning at 10 a.m., which will be streamed live in the player above.
The space agency defines UAPs as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective.” The group was tasked with “identify[ing] how data gathered by civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources can potentially be analyzed to shed light on UAPs,” NASA said when the study began. Thursday’s report, NASA noted, “is not a review or assessment of previous unidentifiable observations.”
Members held their first and only public meeting about their work in May and stressed the need for better data about UAPs across the board, including better photos and videos of the incidents. One scientist stressed that the group hadn’t seen “any evidence that indicates that UAPs have anything to do with extraterrestrial phenomena.” The experts did not have access to classified information.
The NASA group is separate from a military effort aimed at better understanding the objects. The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office said in May that it has collected roughly 800 reports of strange objects or other phenomena. Most end up having innocuous explanations, but many others remain explained.
Interest in UAPs spiked in July, when a former intelligence officer and two pilots testified before a House panel about their experiences. Lawmakers convened the hearing to pressure the executive branch to disclose more of what it knows about UAPs to Congress.
David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, told a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee that he had learned of a “multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” during the course of his work. He claimed he had interviewed officials who had direct knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origins, and that so-called “biologics” were recovered from some craft.
A spokeswoman for AARO denied his claims, and said the office is “committed to timely and thorough reporting to Congress.”
Three military veterans testified before Congress claiming that the U.S. government is concealing a longstanding program that reverse engineers alien aircraft and has recovered non-human “biologics” from alleged crash sites. What do you think?
“Where do you think we got Inkjet technology?”
Chandra Burke, Friendship Appraiser
This Week’s Most Viral News: July 28, 2023
“That’s fair. There are plenty of multi-decade operations I don’t tell the government about.”
Art Marasky, Bellhop
“I just found out about a 100-year-old race massacre, so I guess anything’s possible.”
John Dickerson reports on new developments in the Hunter Biden case, what came from a congressional hearing on UFOs, and why scientists fear the planet is nearing several climate tipping points.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Is there life beyond our little blue planet? And how much does the government know about it? Those were the questions a House Oversight Subcommittee attempted to answer Wednesday as they heard testimony from a former Air Force intelligence officer and two Navy veterans. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane reported on what came from the hearing on Capitol Hill.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
During a Wednesday hearing before House lawmakers on unidentified anomalous phenomena, also known as UFOs, a retired Navy fighter pilot testified about his experience seeing what he described as a “Tic Tac-looking object” while on a flight back in 2004.
Retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor was commander of the F/A-18F squadron on the USS Nimitz when he says he spotted the object during a flight off the coast of Southern California on Nov. 14, 2004.
In a 2021 interview with “60 Minutes,” Fravor, a graduate of the Top Gun naval flight school, also spoke about what he saw.
He and Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich were training with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group about 100 miles southwest of San Diego, Favor told “60 Minutes.” At the time, advanced radar on a ship that was a part of their training group, the USS Princeton, detected what operators called “multiple anomalous aerial vehicles” over the horizon, descending 80,000 feet in less than a second. Fravor and Dietrich diverted to investigate.
“I said, ‘Dude, do you, do you see that thing down there?’ And we saw this little white Tic Tac-looking object. And it’s just kind of moving above the whitewater area,” Fravor told “60 Minutes.”
During the training exercise, Fravor and Dietrich each had a weapons system officer in the back seat of their F/A-18F.
“There was four of us in the airplanes literally watching this thing for roughly about five minutes,” Fravor said in his 2021 interview.
Fravor went in for a closer look. He described the “Tic Tac” object mirroring his movements, saying “it was aware we were there.”
The object was about the size of Fravor’s F/A-18F, with no markings, no wings and no exhaust plumes, he said. When Fravor tried to cut off the UAP, it accelerated so quickly that it seemed to disappear. He said it was detected roughly 60 miles away less than a minute later.
“I think what we experienced was, like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years,” Fravor testified Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee.
Retired Navy Commander David Fravor testifies at a House Oversight & Accountability Committee hearing on “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” in Washington, D.C., July 26, 2023.
ELIZABETH FRANTZ / REUTERS
In addition to Fravor, the panel heard testimony from Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions, and David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
A report released in January of this year revealed that the office tracking UAPs has had more than 500 sightings since 2004. Military officials have said most cases have innocuous origins, but others remain unexplained
Washington — A former military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower told House lawmakers that Congress is being kept in the dark about unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAP or UFOs, alleging at a hearing that executive branch agencies have withheld information about the mysterious objects for years.
David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, appeared before the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee alongside two former fighter pilots who had firsthand experience with UAP.
Grusch served as a representative on two Pentagon task forces investigating UAP until earlier this year. He told lawmakers that he was informed of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” during the course of his work examining classified programs. He said he was denied access to those programs when he requested it, and accused the military of misappropriating funds to shield these operations from congressional oversight. He later said he had interviewed officials who had direct knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origins.
Members of both parties questioned how Congress should go about investigating the remarkable allegations, a reflection of the increasing willingness by lawmakers to demand the executive branch be more forthcoming about the phenomena.
“We’re going to uncover the cover-up, and I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings and many more people coming forward about this,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Grusch’s claims, but the department has denied his assertions in the past.
The UAP issue has gained widespread attention from Congress and the public in recent years with the release of several video recordings of the encounters, which typically show seemingly nondescript objects moving through the air at very high speeds with no apparent method of propulsion.
The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which Congress established last year to investigate the incidents, has investigated roughly 800 reports of UAP as of May. While military officials have said most cases have innocuous origins, many others remain unexplained. Lawmakers say the military knows more about the objects than it has disclosed to Congress.
What the witnesses said at the UAP/UFO hearing
From left to right, Ryan Graves, David Grusch and David Fravor are sworn in to testify during a House subcommittee hearing on UAP on Capitol Hill on July 26, 2023.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
In addition to Grusch, the panel heard testimony from Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions, and David Fravor, who shot the now-famous “Tic Tac” video of a large object during a flight off the coast of California in 2004.
All three witnesses said current reporting systems are inadequate to investigate UAP encounters, and said a stigma still exists for pilots and officials who press for more transparency about their experiences.
Graves was an F-18 pilot stationed in Virginia Beach in 2014 when his squadron first began detecting unknown objects. He described them as “dark grey or black cubes … inside of a clear sphere, where the apex or tips of the cubes were touching the inside of that sphere.”
He said a fellow pilot told him about one incident about 10 miles off the coast, in which an object between 5 and 15 feet in diameter flew between two F-18s and came within 50 feet of the aircraft. He said there was no acknowledgement of the incident or way to report the encounter at the time.
UAP encounters, he said, were “not rare or isolated.”
“If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change,” Graves said. “I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents. If UAP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety. The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue.”
Grusch served as the National Reconnaissance Office’s representative to the AARO and its predecessor task force. While he said he couldn’t answer many questions about what he knew about classified programs in Wednesday’s open hearing, he said he was “hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency.”
Fravor recounted his 2004 encounter with an object off the California coast. He told the subcommittee that the smooth, seamless oval-shaped object was spotted hovering over the water before rapidly climbing about 12,000 feet in the air. It then accelerated and disappeared. It was detected roughly 60 miles away less than a minute later.
“I think what we experienced was, like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years,” Fravor said.
An unidentified object seen in footage captured by the Navy in 2004.
Department of Defense
Congress pushes for UAP/UFO transparency
Wednesday’s hearing took place amid a growing willingness by lawmakers to demand the military and intelligence agencies release more about what they know regarding the mysterious incidents, with many members of Congress citing the potential national security threat posed by unknown objects in or near U.S. airspace.
A bipartisan group of senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced an amendment to the annual defense spending bill currently making its way through Congress. The measure, modeled off legislation aimed at revealing government records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, would require executive branch agencies to hand over UAP records to a review board with “the presumption of immediate disclosure.” Agencies would have to justify requests to keep records classified.
A different House panel heard testimony from Pentagon officials at the first open hearing about the issue in more than 50 years last summer.
At Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers of both parties expressed anger about their inability to get information about UAP from the military and intelligence agencies, describing a system of overclassification that shields reports of incident from public view.
“We should have disclosure today. We should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida.
“Several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this,” said GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman, the subcommittee’s chairman.
The House Oversight Committee will hold an unusual hearing Wednesday on what’s being called “unidentified aerial phenomena” — better known as UFOs. Several witnesses, including a former Navy commanding officer, are expected to testify about what they’ve seen in the skies.
The number of so-called “close encounters” has risen dramatically in recent years, with 366 reports of unidentified aerial phenomena since March 2021.
Videos from across the globe appear to show strange objects flying through the air, like a triangle hovering over a California military base or an unidentified object zipping across the sky over the Middle East.
Retired Navy Commander David Fravor previously described another incident near San Diego on “60 Minutes.“
During a 2004 training exercise, Fravor and another pilot were diverted to check out an anomalous object. Both said they found an area of roiling whitewater the size of a Boeing 737, and then they saw something strange above the water.
“We saw this little white Tic-Tac-looking object… and it’s just kind of moving above the whitewater area,” Fravor said.
Fravor went down for a closer look at the object, which he said was about the size of his F/A-18F, but with no markings, no wings, and no exhaust plumes.
“It goes boop! And just turns abruptly. and it starts mirroring me. So I’m coming down, it starts coming up,” he said.
Fravor tried to cut off the object, but it accelerated away so fast that it seemed to disappear, he said. Seconds later, the USS Princeton, the ship that had detected the phenomena in the first place, reacquired the UAP on its radar — approximately 60 miles away.
Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett believes the Pentagon is withholding evidence of possible extraterrestrial encounters.
“I think there’s a lot of questions that the American public needs to know,” he said. “I want transparency, just release all the files that they have on it. Quit with this redacted stuff and let’s get it out there.”
Former intelligence officer David Grusch will tell Congress during the hearing that he was “denied access” to information on a secret government UFO “crash retrieval program.” The Pentagon disputed that claim.
Astronomer Seth Shostak said the Pentagon would have little incentive to cover up UFO encounters.
“Why would they do that? And almost invariably the response is, well, the public couldn’t handle the news,” he said. “That’s totally bonkers, right?”
But New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said more transparency is critical, as the increasing number of objects in the sky could be a threat to military aircraft.
“These pilots, they see it as urgent for a national security reason to have domain awareness,” she said. “They could crash into the objects.”
The U.S. government is investigating more than 650 potential UFO sightings, a Pentagon official confirmed Wednesday.
Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, made the revelation in an appearance before a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The sightings are concentrated off the East Coast and West Coast of the U.S., in the Middle East and in the area of the South China Sea, Kirkpatrick said.
Newly declassified video of an American military drone conducting surveillance in the Middle East showed an unidentified object zipping in and out of frame. If the video is slowed down, it appears to show a metallic sphere. But where it came from and what it was doing remains one of many such mysteries to the Pentagon.
According to the Pentagon, there is no credible evidence any of the still unidentified objects came from outer space. However, the Pentagon said a small number of them exhibited advanced flight characteristics which indicate they may have been developed by China.
This acknowledgment comes after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report in January which disclosed that its office had tracked a total of 510 UFO sightings since 2005.
That was up significantly from 2021, when ODNI had reported just 144 total sightings. Of the 366 new sightings reported in the January report, 26 were characterized as drones, 163 as balloon-like objects and six as aerial clutter, with the remaining 171 unexplained, some of which exhibited “unusual flight characteristics or performance, and require further analysis.”
In a report released Thursday, the Pentagon said that 366 additional UFO sightings have been investigated since its last report in 2021. While some of those sightings appeared unusual, officials said they have found no evidence that any are extraterrestrial.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The office tracking reports of UFOs has added nearly 400 additional sightings to its catalog over the last year, either because of new sightings or older sightings discovered in existing files, bringing the total number of UFO sightings to over 500.
On Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified version of its annual report on UFOs, or what the government calls unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
The assessment revealed that the office tracking UAPs has had a total of 510 sightings since 2004. This is significantly up from the 144 sightings included in the initial report in 2021.
File Navy image: US. Naval aviator encounter with an unknown object in a fleeting pass. This image is a screen capture of the UAP observed in a video of the flyby captured by the pilot in the cockpit of a Navy fighter jet.
U.S. Navy, via DVIDs
The 366 additional sightings were either new or discovered in the files. An office within the Department of Defense has determined that about half of the additional sightings displayed “unremarkable characteristics.”
Of the additional sightings, 26 have initially been characterized as drones, 163 as balloon-like objects, and 6 as aerial clutter. That leaves 171 unexplained, some of which exhibited “unusual flight characteristics or performance, and require further analysis.”
The latest assessment suggests the uptick in reported sightings is partially due to reduced stigma surrounding UAP sightings. The majority of the new reporting is from U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aviators and operators who saw a UAP and reported it through official channels.
FILE: Navy image of a UAP captured during Naval Exercises off the East Coast of the United States in early 2022. The image was captured through night vision goggles and a single lens reflex camera. Based on additional information and data from other UAP sightings, the UAP in this image were subsequently reclassified as unmanned aerial systems.
U.S. Navy, via DVIDs
The increase in sightings is also due to a better understanding of the potential threats UAPs pose as a hazard to flight safety or a possible adversary collection threat.
A U.S. official told CBS News that none of the incidents have yet been definitively linked to China, Russia or any other country.
However, at least one incident involving what turned out to be drones occurred off the West coast in 2019 at a time when Chinese merchant vessels were known to be in the area. U.S. intelligence was unable to directly link the drones to the vessels, but China remains a “suspect” in the case.
To date, there have been no reported collisions of U.S. aircraft with UAP nor have there been any UAP encounters that have contributed directly to adverse health-related effects.
A new Pentagon office set up to track reports of unidentified flying objects has received “several hundreds” of new reports, but has not seen evidence so far of alien life, the agency’s leadership told reporters Friday.
“We have not seen anything that would lead us to believe any of the objects we have seen are of alien origin,” said Ronald Moultrie, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
“I have not seen anything … to suggest there has been an alien visitation or alien crash,” Moultrie added. Neither Moultrie nor Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the newly reorganized All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), would say how many of the roughly 400 cases under investigation have been identified. They said that information would be contained in a report to be released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The latest public accounting dates back to 2021 when a Pentagon official said one out of 144 cases had been resolved. Asked if any of the cases investigated to date indicated any threat to national security, Kirkpatrick said “yes,” but Moultrie jumped in to add that any unauthorized object in or near restricted area — a military base, training area, etc. — would be assumed hostile until it was identified.
The Pentagon’s investigation covers incidents reported since 1996, but language in the new defense spending bill would extend that 75 years into the past.
The name has been changed from Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to All Domain Anomaly to account for the fact that some of the investigations deal with unexplained sightings underwater, on the surface and in space, although most of the reports still deal with aerial phenomena.
The AARO was set up in July and is responsible for not only tracking unidentified objects in the sky, but also underwater or in space — or potentially an object that has the ability to move from one domain to the next.
The office was established following more than a year of attention on unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed but have sometimes been reluctant to report due to fear of stigma.
In June 2021 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that between 2004 and 2021, there were 144 such encounters, 80 of which were captured on multiple sensors.
Since then, “we’ve had lots more reporting,” said anomaly office director Sean Kirkpatrick.
Because October 31 falls on a Monday this year, many of the best and most elaborate costumes are being shared today and through the weekend. Each year, I look forward to seeing the creative ways people incorporate new (or newly mainstream) media into their Halloween attire or cosplay! This year, I’m looking out for odes to Nope, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Northman, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Ms. Marvel, Turning Red, and Encanto. One artist on TikTok has already found a creative way to dress up as the villain(-ish) from the best-performing box-office horror of 2022.
21-year-old artist Robyn Ester recreated Jean Jacket! While the creature goes by many names, OJ Haywood (played by Daniel Kaluuya) calls the Occulonimbus edoequus “Jean Jacket” after a family horse that couldn’t be broken or tamed. From the dripping guts to the triangle flag banners attached to her thumb, I love everything about this! The final touch of spitting out a horse from the Haywood Ranch, or maybe Jupiter’s Claim, is brilliant.
(Universal Pictures)
Ester’s “about page” on her artist website says, “So long as I have brought some form of bewilderment, confusion, or disruption to their lives, then I’m happy.” Her urge to create work that invokes these responses likely created a connection with Nope, and its themes. Horror and comedy (Jordan Peele’s wheelhouse) both foster these emotions.
It may be a bit early to declare winners of Halloween 2022, but she’s definitely a finalist.
A team of scientists and experts on Monday began a new study into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), formerly known as UFOs, NASA announced. The nine-month study will “lay the groundwork for future study on the nature of UAPs for NASA and other organizations,” the space agency said.
The team, announced on Friday, includes former astronaut Scott Kelly along with 15 other scientists and experts in fields ranging from computational data science, physics, astrophysics, astronomy, oceanography and several other disciplines. NASA had announced in June that the team would be led by David Spergel, the president of the Simons Foundation and an astrophysicist who formerly chaired Princeton University’s astrophysics department.
The study will focus exclusively on unclassified data, NASA said.
“The team will identify how data gathered by civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources can potentially be analyzed to shed light on UAPs,” the agency said. “It will then recommend a roadmap for potential UAP data analysis by the agency going forward.”
NASA noted that, “without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to scientifically discern the nature of UAP.”
A report is expected to be publicly released in mid-2023.
“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are at NASA,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable.”
The effort is separate from the work of a Defense Department group that has been investigating UAP incidents reported by aviators for several years, but NASA noted in June that the agency has “coordinated widely across the government regarding how to apply the tools of science to shed light on the nature and origin of unidentified aerial phenomena.”
The number of reported encounters with UAPs has exploded in recent years as the military has encouraged pilots to document their experiences, citing possible national security threats. The incidents acknowledged publicly typically involve strange objects zooming at high speeds across vast distances, with no apparent propulsion system.
A report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force issued last year found no evidence to suggest the objects originated from a foreign adversary or were extraterrestrial in nature, but investigators also could not explain most of the incidents.
Pentagon officials working to identify the origins of UAPs testified in May before a House subcommittee in the first public hearing on the matter in more than 50 years. They told lawmakers the number of reported encounters had grown to about 400 over nearly 20 years, with 11 “near-misses” between the objects and military jets.
CINCINNATI, May 24, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, applauds members of the United States House of Representatives and, specifically, the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation (C3) Subcommittee for holding a hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). MUFON is dedicated to the scientific study of UFOs and UAP in order to benefit humanity. MUFON is the longest-serving organization of its kind, having been in existence since 1969. As an organization, MUFON has long investigated UAP sightings and has collected the critical data needed to educate the public on the UAP phenomenon and its potential impact on society.
“I am excited that Congress is taking this critical first step in disclosing what is known,” MUFON Executive Director David MacDonald said. “Through our knowledge and database of sightings, we know that there are many unanswered questions. We hope that Congress and the Department of Defense continue to be transparent with the American people. MUFON stands ready to assist the government in any capacity.”
With more than 10,000 reports a year, MUFON has a 92 percent rate of being able to explain the sightings.
After many years of being taboo, discussions regarding UAPs are becoming mainstream. The hearing held on May 17 was the first Congressional hearing since a push in 1969 by then-Congressman Gerald Ford that led to an Air Force report and hearing. In advance of the hearing, MUFON has spoken with numerous Congressional officials, providing individuals with information and answers to questions they might have on UAPs. MUFON has always worked closely with Congress. For example, information from MUFON has been instrumental for years in unfolding the process of disclosure. Information from the MUFON database was instrumental in convincing Harry Reid to seek funding for the AATIP program.
MUFON’s 1,100 volunteers nationwide, and 46 international chapters with 4,600 members globally, tuned in to watch the hearings this week. Now that the conversation regarding UAPs is mainstream, a more significant bipartisan collective effort is needed to push for better legislation and more in-depth information to be released to the public. MUFON stands ready to assist the federal government on UFO sightings and the best way to collect and handle the data from those sightings. More information can be accessed at www.MUFON.com.
