Pentagon report: No evidence of UFOs
Findings a rebuttal to claims that government is hiding information
WASHINGTON – In a conclusion sure to rile conspiracy theorists everywhere, a Pentagon review has found no evidence that the U.S. government is hiding information about extraterrestrial visits or technology.
The findings, sent to Congress as part of a mandated review, are the most extensive rebuttal that the Department of Defense has issued in response to claims that it is covering up alien visits to Earth.
As with practically everything else originating from the U.S. military, the new report has a wonky name and comes from a wonky office. It’s called the “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Volume I,” and comes from the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, dated last month.
But the report is a very serious effort, based on an exhaustive all-source review, to put to rest the notion that the Pentagon – or anyone else in or working for the U.S. government – is hiding anything when it comes to visits from outer space.
“To date, AARO has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement. “Also, AARO has found no evidence that any U.S. government investigation, academic-sponsored research or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.”
Ryder added that “all investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” while also emphasizing that military and civilian authorities will continue to investigate all of the many claims about alien visits.
Spy planes, balloons and other anomalies
The 63-page report looked into all information available and was designed to take into account a broad array of potential anomalies generated by new – and old – technologies. That includes spy planes and balloons used by friendly and hostile nations, military and civilian drones and satellites and recreational types of airborne vehicles.
The report, as exhaustive and conclusive as the Pentagon says it is, is unlikely to quell all suspicions that it is hiding something about the existence of so-called UAPs, or “unidentified aerial phenomena,” the official U.S. government term for UFOs, its authors acknowledged.
They cited the increasing attention paid to aliens and UFOs, and widespread distrust of the government.
Last July, Congress held a hearing on the issue of UAPs, where lawmakers and a large crowd of spectators listened as a former Air Force intelligence officer testified that the U.S. government is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse-engineers unidentified flying objects.
The Pentagon has denied the claims made by retired Maj. David Grusch.
According to an Associated Press report on the hearing, Grusch testified that he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to UAPs. At the time, Grusch said, he was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.
“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program to which I was denied access,” Grusch told lawmakers. He also said the U.S. government likely has been aware of “non-human” extraterrestrial activity since the 1930s.
The report released Friday did not mention Grusch by name. But it said that in completing it, the AARO “reviewed all official USG investigatory efforts since 1945, researched classified and unclassified archives, conducted approximately 30 interviews, and partnered with Intelligence Community (IC)
and Department of Defense (DoD) officials responsible for controlled and special access program oversight, respectively.”
The Pentagon also said the AARO will publish a Volume II – also in accordance with its mandate under the National Defense Authorization Act – that will provide analysis of any information acquired by AARO after the date of the publication of Volume I.
Conspiracy theories
The report’s findings are unlikely to satisfy everyone, especially those in the community of conspiracy theorists and other independent investigators who think any denials are part of the coverup, the report’s authors acknowledge. Some are insistent, for instance, that the government has a secret site where it is exploiting downed extraterrestrial craft, which it says it investigated and came up empty.
But to drive home its findings, it included details of past investigations, beginning with Project SAUCER in 1946 and Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, TWINKLE, BEAR and BLUE BOOK over the decades that followed.
America’s “obsession” with UFOs began in 1947, “when two headline-making sightings of strange flying objects prompt the U.S. Air Force’s newly formed Department of Defense to create a series of secret programs to determine how unidentified phenomena may pose a threat to national security,” according to a new book by journalist and historian Garrett Graff.
The report, as exhaustive and conclusive as the Pentagon says it is, is unlikely to quell all suspicions that it is hiding something about the existence of so-called UAPs.