Status: 05/17/2022 8:21 p.m
400 UFO sightings alone since 2004 – for a long time the US military kept unknown flying objects a secret. For safety reasons, the phenomena should now be clarified. There was even a hearing about it in the US Congress.
Numerous observations of unidentified flying objects in recent years continue to puzzle the US military. This emerged from the first hearing in the US House of Representatives in more than 50 years on “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) – as the US military calls UFOs.
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Scott Bray, said the UAP task force in his agency had no evidence that any of the unexplained celestial objects were of extraterrestrial origin.
“Open to all hypotheses”
House Counterintelligence Subcommittee Chairman Andre Carson said, “EAPs are inexplicable, that’s true. But they’re real. They need to be investigated.” MP Peter Welch noted, “Nobody knows if extraterrestrial life exists. It’s a big universe. And it would be pretty presumptuous to draw a firm conclusion.”
Senior Pentagon official Ronald Moultrie, who revealed himself to be a science fiction fanatic at the hearing, said: “We are open to any hypotheses and conclusions that we might come across.” Bray stated, “Since the early 2000s, we have observed an increasing number of unapproved and/or unidentified aircraft or objects.” Reports of sightings continued.
The topic should be destigmatized
The increase in reports is also due to factors such as improved sensors or newer flight systems such as drones. But it is also a result of the military’s efforts to demand reports of sightings of unidentified flying objects, which used to be stigmatized. “The message is clear now: If you see something, you have to report it.”
In June 2021, the US secret services presented a report on UAP. This showed that there were no explanations for around 140 celestial phenomena from the past two decades. Bray said since the report was published, the number of reported sightings has increased to around 400.
“No explanation what that is”
Bray showed two videos at the hearing. One of them, he said, showed a “spherical object” flying past the cockpit of a fighter jet. “I have no explanation as to what this specific object is.”
A second video showed a triangular floating object observed through night vision goggles. Similar observations were made by the Navy a few years later. Bray described the objects as “unmanned aerial systems”.
UFO reports were often discredited in the past
So far, there have been no collisions between US fighter jets and the unknown objects. “But we had at least eleven near misses,” said Bray. There was no communication with the objects. In no case would US forces have opened fire on a UAP. China, Russia, a private company or even a secret US government project could be behind the flying objects.
The report and hearing mark a turning point for the Washington administration. For decades, this has fended off and discredited observations of UFOs that go back to the 1940s. There had been no public hearing in Congress on the subject since the US Air Force discontinued an inconclusive UFO program codenamed “Project Blue Book” in 1969.