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United States Science

US Officials Say Pentagon Committed To Understanding UFO Origins (reuters.com) 75

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Two senior U.S. defense intelligence officials said on Tuesday the Pentagon is committed to determining the origins of what it calls "unidentified aerial phenomena" -- commonly termed UFOs -- but acknowledged many remain beyond the government's ability to explain. From a report: The two officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, appeared before a House of Representatives intelligence subcommittee for the first public U.S. congressional hearing on the subject in a half century. It came 11 months after a government report documented more than 140 cases of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, that U.S. military pilots had observed since 2004. Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence, said the number of UAPs officially cataloged by a newly formed Pentagon task force has grown to 400 cases. Both officials chose their words carefully in describing the task force's work, including the question of possible extraterrestrial origins, which Bray said defense and intelligence analysts had not ruled out. Bray did say that "we have no material, we have detected no emanations, within the UAP task force that would suggest it is anything non-terrestrial in origin."
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US Officials Say Pentagon Committed To Understanding UFO Origins More

US Officials Say Pentagon Committed To Understanding UFO Origins

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  • No study needed,

  • we have an guy at the FBI on it.

  • I'm glad they solved all the other problems first so we can concentrate on the real issues, aliens.

    • > I'm glad they solved all the other problems first so we can concentrate on the real issues, aliens.

      Maybe it's aliens. Maybe China has aircraft flying over the US that jam targeting RADAR and don't show evidence of reaction-based propulsion. The open-source intelligence suggests either are possible.

      Which do you think is more likely? Which would you be more concerned by if you were NORAD?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        Funny how the Air Force never has anything to say about these things. I mean, maybe its China, who are just now barely catching up with us in aerospace technology. Doubtful, but possible. Or, it could be us. And this is our way of telling the world exactly what we can do, while maintaining plausible deniability.

        If you were NORAD, would you make a big public spectacle over how much you don't know? Would you tell the whole world, "Aw shucks, we have no idea what's going on in our own airspace?"

        I wouldn't. Unl

        • "Funny how the Air Force never has anything to say about these things."

          Way back in the early 60s, in Tucson, they did.

          We filled a couple of hundred feet of dry cleaner bag with natural gas and put a fuse on it. Great leaping flames in the sky! Many people saw it and reported it as an aircraft crash. The Air Force responded that it was neon lights reflecting off low clouds I am sure this didn't satisfy anyone who saw it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Or maybe pilots can get confused by parallax, lens/sensor flare and gimbal lock. Oh, and seek attention once they're packed off to retirement.

        If an actual enemy of the US had reactionless drives they'd probably just inform the US government that they were defeated and introduce them to their new governor.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by myrdos2 ( 989497 )

        Which do you think is more likely?

        China.

        Which would you be more concerned by if you were NORAD?

        Aliens.

      • Oh really? OSINT suggests the Chinese have non-reaction-based propulsion? Enlighten us, and while you're at it, tell us why they don't use it to launch one of their aircraft carriers through the air and land it in Taipei, with a full load of aircraft.

    • I think a bug in the F/A-18 FLIR system is a serious problem and should be investigated and corrected.
      Also, we need to identify fault scenarios in the system and train our aviators to identify and disregard them.

  • Or rather, only interesting because the military suddenly switched to playing it up after decades of playing it down. (Wonder why that happened? There's got to be a good conspiracy theory hiding in there.)

    At any rate, get back to us when you have the slightest hint that these are artifacts not made by humans.

    p.s.- "We don't know what it is" isn't evidence for anything except ignorance.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Ah bistromath. I often wonder if that, and the "someone elses' problem field generator" are actually being deployed in real life.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        It isn't the Pentagon that want to spend money on this, it is Congress. If anything, the Pentagon was hoping to kill the investigations as a waste of their time:

        Congress Dweeb: So, what's the story here? Why do we have these things flying around?

        General: We don't know.

        CD: But surely you know something about them.

        General: Well yes, we have observed them doing unspeakable things in the air.

        CD: So what is your assessment?

        General: We have no assessment, as I said, we don't know what they are.

        CD: But we told you

    • Doesn't matter.

      If they can't be explained then they're alien by default. They're not just lighting/camera artifacts. Nope.

      (nobody seems quite clear why aliens would come all this way just to mess with people in Arizona though)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
        Maybe they like visiting the Grand Canyon. It's a nice family trip for sure!

        • Maybe, but I hear Valles Marineris is even better. And now that we (humans) have a number of satellites orbiting Mars, and a few things driving around on the ground, I'm sure we'll get views of the Martian tourists any day now.

      • The number of UFO and bigfoot sightings have suddenly declined around the same time as everyone started carrying an HD video camera in their pocket.

      • (nobody seems quite clear why aliens would come all this way just to mess with people in Arizona though)

        Clearly, they're here to track down some renegade gerbils that escaped a nearby prison planet, and are thought to be hiding "on" Earth.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Well, last time it was weather balloons, as they claimed. The kind that sniff out residue from nuclear tests.

  • ...that's about all there is to it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Bullshit, it was Congress that forced them into it. The Pentagon thinks its waste of time.

    • No, it was congress that demanded the hearings. The people who study UAP generally hate this kind of thing.

      If you watch the proceedings you can see just how idiotic most of the questions are, and see how carefully the people under oath are squirming to answer both politely and accurately.

      They ask to explain what they are, and the answer is variations that the U in "unidentified aerial phenomena" is "unidentified ".

      They ask for assurances that they're safe, and they explain again that the U stands for, a

  • Not because of threat of Space Men! but just general understand of Unique Natural occurrences, Possible foreign advancements, Issues and improvements to monitoring systems. As we use the skies for travel, warfare, communication... Anything up there that we don't know or can't explain can be something that may be an issue.

  • If you honestly think (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @01:53PM (#62543652)
    spies aren't flying drones of various types all over this country you're being silly. Of course the Pentagon is committed to understanding to UFOs. A UFO is just an Unidentified Flying Object.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      And if there's one thing intelligence agencies can't stand, it's things they don't understand :)

  • Mastering FTL but crashing in Roswell (Score:3)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @01:55PM (#62543656)

    I don't have a lot vested in this discussion one way or another, but the whole..UFO's == aliens seems bizarre to me. I say that as a fan of sci-fi stories, where we necessarily need to suspend a certain amount of logic

    Mostly because in order to get to Earth, any beings would have mastered manipulating time and space. FTL, wormholes, interdimensional space, really complicated stuff But then to be seen by some Top Gun pilots off the coast of Florida, or crashing their runabout into the desert?! Gimme a break. Best case would be a 'Rendezvous with Rama' situation where the flyby of our solar system by some sort of generational ship included that ship firing off probes or something.

    I freaking hated the fact that it seemed like in every other Star Trek Voyager, Paris had to ditch a shuttle on random planet due to 'ion storms' or something. They seriously needed to train better pilots...or better AI pilots.

    • Maybe they're just keeping an eye open, making sure we don't escape the prison. Then we proceed to shoot up the neighborhood, like we're currently doing with our own.

    • Re:Mastering FTL but crashing in Roswell (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @02:56PM (#62543892) Journal

      > the whole..UFO's == aliens seems bizarre to me.

      For the record, the military does not claim they are aliens, merely a mystery.

      > any beings would have mastered manipulating time and space.

      Not necessarily. We ourselves almost have the technology for a multi-generational nuclear-powered starship. That's the key: multi-generational. If it can get to say 10% of the speed of light, then cross-galaxy travel is within grasp. Other than money, testing, and experience, I don't see any clear show-stopper using just existing human tech.

      And the UFO's may be controlled by AI, not biological beings, meaning that surviving long space-flights is more feasible.

      • WTF lameness filter ? There is NO ascii art ! why I can't submit ? The expectation from the one looking at those is that it is mostly (or all) natural phenomena or optic illusion which are not properly explainable because we don't have the data. Multigenerational ship has tzhe braking problem (lot of energy emited) or slingshot (go away or orbit) both detectable.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > Multigenerational ship has the braking problem (lot of energy emitted [making them detectable])

          Perhaps they stopped here before we had space-facing radiation detection equipment, and camped out.

    • Mastering technology doesn't make you a master of complexity. Quite the opposite, usually, as the devices and solutions become more complicated for lack of other ways to solve problems. And complexity kills.

    • It's teen age aliens on joy rides. "Watch me buzz this monkey's heavier-than-air craft!"

  • They would be identified flying objects.

  • Kidding. Sort of.

    I've read reports of these things for years and what have we seen these things do?

    1) Dart away randomly.

    2) Fly together in groups.

    3) Sniff around big chunks of yummy metal and radioactive material.

    What *haven't* they done? Tried to talk to us or interact with us.

    So for my money, these things may well have *evolved* in space, but I don't see any evidence that they're any smarter than, or very different from, a guppy or a sparrow. They fly and they flock and they hang out around what to them

  • Should cost only a few dozen billions.

  • "I identify as UFO."

  • the Pentagon has awarded contracts to improve anti-glare coatings on cockpit glass.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

      LOL, I was gonna say....

      Yeah, all the recently-released footage have pretty obviously been camera artifacts. We have a highway cam in my state that makes the same kind of reflective artifacts every time the sun hits it at the right angle -- if it were in a moving jet or a shaky hand, that matched set of triangles would likewise appear to leap and joggle across the field of view.

      Not to mention my digital camera with condensation spots inside, only visible in the image under certain conditions of low light pl

  • What was the project all about? They were told to find the most unexplained aerial phenomenon they could.
    They were given millions of dollars toward this effort.
    Obviously, they are going to find stuff that looks like UFOs.

  • This type of investigation needs to get proper funding and be lead by science not the military, the military for a long time has proven they are not up to the task. Their secretive nature means they are not the right organisation to run a scientific investigation. Also most importantly it doesn't matter what their findings are no-one will trust them as they are not "independent". Tax payer money, testable measurable results which tax payers have visibility of.

  • Interesting, why they are doing this populistic and wasteful activity? There is no reason to spend any money on such bullmanure activity. But they are just so adamant with it lately. There is something untold in this story. And it has nothing to do with aliens or videos.
  • What are they trying to distract us from?
    • This is a far cry from a "distraction." A real distraction would be something like starting a war. This is just the gov't and military finally owning up to the fact that there have been several unexplained incidents, confirmed by sensors and eye witness, and implementing a way for personnel to report strange or unexplainable activity.

  • The only aliens likely to be behind these phenomena are Russian and Chinese. Therefore, it is an issue for the military.

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