Strange Seeings

US Pentagon finally admits the existence of UFO study programme

US Pentagon finally admits the existence of UFO study programme

The US government has a history of commissioning UFO investigation programmes which conclude that UFOs are mostly nonsense. There was Project Sign (1947), Project Grudge (1949) and Project Blue Book (1952-1969). To be fair these projects did admit that a tiny number of sightings defied rational explanation. The US Air Force commissioned the Condon Report (1968) which also concluded that the study of UFOs had contributed nothing to science and was not scientifically justified. Unsurprisingly serious and systematic UFO research stopped at that point. Or at least officially.

There have been defence insiders who have claimed that UFO research has been going on continually since just after World War II. This also applied to the United Kingdom and several other countries. Those same insiders also say that the general strategy has always been not to excite the public. Perhaps those in governmental leadership positions around the world are nervous over the notion of superior beings visiting our divided and troubled world. There may be good reasons why governments want to restrict public dialogue about UFOs and their presumed builders and pilots.

Recently the Pentagon has revealed that there have recently been several projects which investigate UFOs. These are as follows:

NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team (UAPIST).

This body was convened in 2022 to investigate UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena - the new more elliptical phrase for UFOs and USOs or seaborne objects). It comprises 16 experts in the field. A UAP is anything not an aircraft, sea craft, known space craft or natural phenomena. This body only reports on unclassified data so could be seen as a throwback to the days of Project Blue Book. The team finally reported in 2023 that there was no evidence of extra-terrestrial life but did recommend a further study programme and the appointment of a 'Director of UAP Research'.

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)

This is an organisation established in 2022 in the Pentagon to investigate UAPs. In 2024 it reported that there is 'no empirical evidence of alien technology'.

AARO has set up a website at https://www.aaro.mil/ where members of the public can report UFO activity. The site introduces itself thus:

"Welcome to the website for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Our team of experts is leading the U.S. government’s efforts to address Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach. Since its establishment in July 2022, AARO has taken important steps to improve data collection, standardize reporting requirements, and mitigate the potential threats to safety and security posed by UAP. We look forward to using this site to regularly update the public about AARO’s work and findings, and to provide a mechanism for UAP reporting. Thank you for visiting."

This site is a step forward in that the Pentagon now admits that there is something to report. After all, no government has a site where the public can report leprechauns.

Another step forward is that AARO admits that some of the reports made are unexplained and states that some of the UAPs exhibit unusual flight characteristics.

We will have to wait until further sightings are analysed by AARO to get an idea of its trustworthiness.

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)

This was a low-key investigation which ran from 2007 until 2012. it produced a 494 page report which stated that UFO sightings had been documented around the world for several decades - hardly revelatory stuff.

Interestingly this report did not go out of its way to debunk the subject of UFOs.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (UAPTF)

After AATIP was closed the UAPTF took over from 2020 until 2021. This programme was run by the US Office of Naval Intelligence to standardise collection of and reporting of UFO or UAP data. AARO succeeded this task force.

Conclusion

It may be that the US government has realised that debunking and denial of UFO subject matter has slowly created a climate of distrust among its citizens. This has been evident in such popular TV shows as 'Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles' from the 1990s and further back Steven Spielberg's films 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977) and 'ET - The Extra-Terrestrial' (1982). In those TV shows and films the government was presented as duplicitous and manipulative. The more recent smash-it TV show 'Stranger Things' also starts off in a secret US government laboratory.

A potentially dangerous internet conspiracy narrative, that the government is not necessarily looking out for its citizens, has become established in recent decades. This is in part due to widespread suspicions of a well-established conspiracy to hide potentially spiritually important information about the existence of other beings in the universe. Why might governments be so determined to hide such an important thing from their citizens? Who is really running these governments? The elected representatives? The term 'deep state' has now gone mainstream in US politics to describe a supposedly shadowy group of people who really run things.

Therefore one has to conclude that a more open consideration of the UFO phenomenon is in the interests of government itself, if it wants to retain the trust of its citizens. The above initiative at least begin that process.

One last observation: As a British citizen I admire the United Kingdom's approach to UFOs. It is very clever. The UK government says that it only investigates UFO reports if 'they are of defence significance'. That means several things: first they are not denying that there are UFOs to be reported! Second they state that if the UFOs do not threaten us the Ministry of Defence simply ignores them. Third the door is left open here - there may be UFOs but that is fine as long as they do not threaten us! That way the government does not mock its citizens. It admits that it does not know what is flying in our skies - and that may be perfectly true.