A famous photograph taken by a government employee of an aerial phenomenon over the Holloman Air Development Center in 1957. The object may have been a secret. The image is from Bettmann/Getty Images.
The Pentagon has a new office that will investigate reports of flying objects.
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security has put the new "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" program in its purview, which has some people upset as they don't trust the military to reveal the truth.
"Anything that lacks a new openness about the information is subject to more, possibly inappropriate control," said Ron James, a spokesman for the nonprofit Mutual UFO Network.
There are 9 things we learned about aliens in 2021.
The National Defense Authorization Act was passed in December and codifies the creation of the new office. The topic has received renewed interest in recent years after the publicization of videos taken by U.S. military pilots.
Whether these are really unexplained technology is up for debate. The U.S. military is worried that foreign governments might be making advances in flight technology right under their nose.
"Our national security efforts rely on aerial supremacy, and these phenomena present a challenge to our dominance," said Sen. The United States needs a coordinated effort to take control of these aerial phenomena and understand if they belong to a foreign government or something else.
There are also non-technological explanations for many of the occurrences. During the Perseid meteor shower, bright-green streaks are sometimes produced by meteorites, and a report of a "bright green" ufo over Canada in July 2021. A skywatcher in Switzerland took a picture of a glowing "doughnut" flying through the sky. The videos from the Navy seem to show incredibly swift unexplained objects, which could be the result of an optical illusion called parallax, in which a video of a moving object takes on a new look.
Mick West told NBC News that the Pentagon may have gotten the publicity and political support they needed to do their work, but not necessarily because they believe that aliens are trying to make contact.
The text of the legislation seems to reflect the concerns of the extraterrestrial hypothesis believers, according to West. The military is forced to do some silly hoops while doing serious work.
Don't expect the office to hire Fox Mulder. The Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) will be the new Pentagon effort to investigate such claims.
The AOIMSG will coordinate efforts across the Department and the broader U.S. government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests in Special Use Airspace. "DOD takes reports of incursions by any airborne object, identified or unidentified, very seriously, and investigates each one."
Live Science published the original article.
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