Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Pentagon at a loss over pilots’ UFO sightings
THE US government cannot give a definitive explanation of aerial phenomena spotted by military pilots but has found no evidence they are linked to aliens, according to two officials briefed on an intelligence report examining the issue.
The report due to go to the US Congress later this month examines multiple unexplained sightings from recent years that in some cases have been captured on video of pilots exclaiming about objects flying in front of them.
The two people briefed on the report said it found no proof of an extraterrestrial link and does not rule out that what pilots have seen may be new technologies developed by other countries. One of the officials said there is no indication that the unexplained phenomena are from secret US programmes.
Findings of the report were first published Thursday by The New York Times.
Congress in December required the director of national intelligence to summarise and report on the US government’s knowledge of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs – better known to the public as unidentified flying objects or UFOs.
The effort has included officials on a Defence Department UAP task force established last year. The expected public release of an unclassified version of the report this month will amount to a status report, not the final word, according to one official.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sue Gough, declined to comment on news reports about the intelligence report. She said the Pentagon’s UAP task force is “actively working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on the report, and DNI will provide the findings to Congress”.
The Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency, pictured, have for decades looked into reports of aircraft or other objects in the sky flying at inexplicable speeds or trajectories.
The US government takes unidentified aerial phenomena seriously given the potential national security risk of an adversary flying novel technology over a military base or another sensitive site, or the prospect of Russian or Chinese development exceeding current US capabilities.
It is also seen by the US military as a security and safety issue, given that in many cases the pilots who reported seeing unexplained aerial phenomena were conducting combat training flights.
The report’s lack of firm conclusions will likely disappoint people anticipating the report given many Americans’ long-standing fascination with UFOs and the prospect of aliens having reached humankind.