There’s no evidence that aliens have landed, crashed or just visited Earth, according to the official Department of Defense looking into UFOs.
The Pentagon has been examining reported cases of unidentified aerial phenomena — a term used instead of UFOs — but there’s no sign so far that any are alien in nature, according to Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, who held a press briefing on the upcoming UAP report on Friday.
“I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that,” Moultrie said on Friday.
Moultrie, along with the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, told reporters that the office has received hundreds of new cases of apparent UAP sightings over the last several months. Both officials declined to say how many of those new cases have been investigated and how many are outstanding.
Subscribe to Task & Purpose Today. Get the latest military news, entertainment, and gear in your inbox daily.
“I would just say that we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all,” Kirkpatrick said, according to DW News. “As a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.”
In many cases UAPs can be weather events, American military projects or foreign nations’ military technology. Moultrie said a major concern for the Pentagon is any UAP sighting near American military installations, particularly any underwater. He said that is a security concern for anyone at those sites, and the Pentagon is taking those reported cases seriously.
The upcoming report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is set to include further information on how many cases have been reported, and what intelligence groups were able to determine them to be, if at all. The report was supposed to come out in October but has been pushed back. It will be the first new report on UAPs since 2021, and the first one since the Department of Defense reorganized the office that oversees these matters.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was created in July, spinning out of past Pentagon efforts to look into these phenomena, but with a slightly larger mission. That included investigating “anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects,” not just aerial ones. At the briefing on Friday, Moultrie said that there have not been “credible” reports of any transmedium phenomena.
That mission also received an update this past week. The National Defense Authorization Act approved by Congress has language specific to the AARO. The bill directs the AARO to look at government records of any UAP sighting as far back as 1945.
It’s unclear when the ODNI report on unidentified aerial phenomena will be released.
The latest on Task & Purpose
- Air National Guard colonel suspended following investigation
- The Navy will now enlist recruits who score 10 on their ASVAB
- The Army has selected the V-280 Valor to replace its Black Hawk fleet
- Five soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division arrested for rape
- Old Air Force A-10 Warthog learns new trick: Covering fire for B-1B bombers
Want to write for Task & Purpose? Click here. Or check out the latest stories on our homepage.