The US military received hundreds of new UFO reports, but half are suspected to be balloons, drones, and random clutter

• The US military has received hundreds of new UFO reports in recent years, a new intelligence report reveals.
• Half of the new reported incidents are suspected to be balloons, drones, and random clutter.

The US military has received hundreds of new UFO reports, a newly published intelligence report revealed. And while some of the objects have been identified, others remain unknown.

Since March 2021, a special task force that was established by the Department of Defense has received 247 new unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) — or more commonly unidentified flying object (UFO) — reports, according to an unclassified analysis by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that was released on Thursday.

The March 2021 date represents the end of a preliminary assessment period by ODNI that spanned 17 years, during which there were 144 UAP reports. Since that date, another 119 incidents that took place before March 2021 but weren't included in the preliminary assessment were also reported — bringing the total number of reports to 510 as of late August 2022.

The Pentagon task force — called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — conducted an initial analysis and characterization of the 366 new reports not included in ODNI's preliminary assessment and found that over half of the objects were "exhibiting unremarkable characteristics."

According to the ODNI analysis, 26 objects were determined to be drones or drone-like entities, 163 were characterized as balloons or balloon-like entities, and another six were attributed to "clutter." This, for example, could mean birds, plastic bags, airborne debris, or weather events.

American officials have attributed a number of UFO incidents to foreign drones engaged in spying or airborne trash, The New York Times reported last October.

Still, ODNI cautioned in its report that these initial characterizations don't mean "positively resolved or unidentified." These observations simply help the US obtain the necessary resources to approach the remaining 171 new reports that have gone uncharacterized.

"Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis," ODNI wrote.

A majority of UAP reports come from US Air Force and Navy personnel, who have witnessed the objects during their regular duties, ODNI said. Although the UAPs can potentially pose a safety hazard for aircraft, there have been no reported incidents between US planes and the UAPs.

"The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of US operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount," Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a Thursday statement about the new ODNI analysis. "We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one."

Last May, Congress held its first hearing on UFOs in decades, though it ended without any notable revelations. Defense officials testified that although the incidents may be strange, nothing has suggested any extraterrestrial characteristics.