Since the Roswell incident back in the late 1940s, the world has seen an increasing number of reports mentioning UFOs (unidentified flying objects). Here in the United States, many of those sightings have taken place in restricted air space.

For years, the military and government have officially pooh-poohed the existence of aliens or extraterrestrials. Many who have espoused the theory that UFO sightings were aliens were deemed crackpot conspiracy theorists and relegated to late-night television and newspapers of dubious reputation. 

On July 8, 1947, a ranch foreman named William “Mac” Brazel noticed debris spread over the Foster ranch about 30 miles from Roswell. He called the local sheriff, who then passed on the information to Roswell Army Air Field. The military came and picked up the debris and shortly after the incident released a statement saying that the debris had been recovered was a “flying disc.” 

Yet, shortly afterward, the military changed the story to that of a weather balloon crash.

The Military Cannot Explain What the UFOs Are

Some high-ranking officials in the U.S. government, including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, had called for the U.S. military to reveal what it knows about UFOs. But until recently nothing had been revealed. Last year, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida inserted a call for transparency into a federal appropriations bill. By the end of June 2021, the government was required to turn over its full assessment of UFOs.

So, on Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee received a classified briefing from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and then an unclassified report was released by the DNI. That the military reported to Congress on the myriad UFO sightings, which are characterized by the military as UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon), is a huge change in the government’s transparency. 

But if people were looking for answers from the Pentagon on what the UFOs are, then they will be disappointed. Officially the military’s take on the sightings is that it has no idea what they are. So, the questions remain. 

The Unidentified Craft Could Be a Challenge to National Security

There have been released video footage of UFOs taken by Navy and Air Force aircraft and the unidentified craft clearly showed that they are “a challenge” to national security according to the report.  

The report cited 144 reports from 2004 through 2021 with the majority of the sightings by United States Government (USG) sources. Only one could be explained, a large deflating balloon. The rest of the sightings are unexplained.

“UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security. Safety concerns primarily center on aviators contending with an increasingly cluttered air domain. UAP would also represent a national security challenge if they are a foreign adversary collection platforms or provide evidence a potential adversary has developed either a breakthrough or disruptive technology.”

The report doubts the craft are from either Russia or China as neither has that type of technology. The craft seem to display some extraordinary flight characteristics. 

“Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings.”

The Chinese government also recently released a report saying that it is using artificial intelligence (AI), to track UFO sightings. The Chinese refer to them as “unidentified air conditions” much like the U.S. military does. 

Back in 2017, the Navy confirmed the legitimacy of a video that shows two F-18 jets encountering an unidentified aircraft off the coast of San Diego in 2014. In the video, the two fighter pilots chase down a white oval aircraft, the size of a commercial airplane, without success. 

In 2007 the Defense Department began running an investigation known as the “Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.” But it was shut down in 2012 and the former head of that program, Luis Elizondo, resigned out of frustration that senior Pentagon officials weren’t taking the issue seriously enough and damaged his career when he tried to bring the issue to the forefront. He told CNN that Pentagon officials were trying to pull his security clearance by saying that he was “crazy.”

So, what are these UFOs/UAP? No one knows, or if they do, they aren’t talking.