New Pentagon-led group will investigate troops' strange encounters with UFOs

• The Department of Defense announced it will form a new group to investigate reports of UFOs in restricted airspace.
• This comes after a report earlier this year that found government lacked data to explain the nature of 144 observations.

The Department of Defense announced a new group will study reports of UFOs detected by service members on Tuesday. The new task force, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, will be overseen by both the military and intelligence agencies and takes up work that had fallen to a secret group.

This announcement follows the release of a report in June in which the Pentagon said it lacked sufficient data to explain all but one of the 144 strange sightings reported by military personnel over the last two decades.

Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, said these unidentified airborne objects pose a potential safety risk to aircrews and raises potential national security concerns. In a statement, Hicks said the new group will be overseen by an interagency executive council made up of the under secretary of defense for intelligence, the director of the Joint Staff and other senior officials.

The new group will focus on reports of objects in special-use airspace, which includes military operations areas, firing ranges, and places restricted for national security.

The June report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ignited concerns from members of congress over potential threats from Russia or China. However, government officials said there was no evidence of Russian or Chinese technologies and some of the videos demonstrated technologies believed to be beyond their capabilities, according to a report from The New York Times.