A Pentagon office set up in July to track UFO sightings says it has its hands full. “Several hundred” reports of unidentified flying objects have been received, but so far there has been no evidence of extraterrestrial life, the leadership of the so-called All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) announced on Friday.
The office was not only created to track UFOs in the sky, but also mysterious phenomena under water or in space – or possible objects that can move from one sphere to the next.
AARO was created after pilots from the US armed forces had repeatedly sighted suspected UFOs over a period of more than a year and the topic had caused a stir. Sometimes, however, they shy away from reporting the phenomena for fear of stigmatization.
In June 2021, the Office of the US Intelligence Coordinator reported that there had been 144 such sightings between 2004 and 2021, 80 of which had been recorded by multiple sensors. Since then, “we’ve received many more reports,” said AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick. His office was created not only to investigate whether aliens existed, but also the possible security risks posed by the numerous UFO sightings by military installations and fighter jets.
In May, Congress held a hearing on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP), what the Pentagon calls UFOs, for the first time in more than 50 years. Several members of Congress and Pentagon officials stated at the time that there was no evidence of an extraterrestrial origin of sighted UFOs.
But they expressed concern that unknown objects that might be blown up by China, Russia or other potential enemies could pose a possible security risk. From futuristic stealth bombers to fighter jets and drones to hypersonic weapons, there is plenty of cutting-edge technology from the US and China that could easily be confused with UFOs. Kirkpatrick said his office, in consultation with the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies, is trying to get the signatures of such American planes or drones in order to be able to identify them at an early stage.
