<ul class="summary-list"><li>Over the years, there have been a number of incidents in which US pilots reported seeing UFOs.</li><li>A former <keyword id="42407" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Navy">Navy</keyword> pilot talked to Insider about her experience with an "<keyword id="11344427" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="unidentified-aerial-phenomenon">unidentified aerial phenomenon</keyword>."</li><li>She was one of two F/A-18 pilots who observed the mystery object, nicknamed the "Tic Tac," in 2004.</li></ul><p>A former US Navy fighter pilot recently shared details and some of her thoughts on an unusual experience almost two decades ago, an encounter with an unidentified flying object nicknamed the "Tic Tac."</p><p>In mid-November 2004, as the Navy's Nimitz Carrier Strike Group trained off the West Coast in preparation for an upcoming deployment, the destroyer USS Princeton detected several UFOs, also called anomalous aerial vehicles or unidentified aerial phenomena, moving in inexplicable ways around the carrier group.</p><p>On Nov. 14, 2004, after again detecting one of the anomalies, the destroyer tasked two F/A-18 Super Hornets to take a look around the area where it had been detected. The fighters were flown by Dave Fravor, then a squadron commander, and Alex Dietrich, then a lieutenant junior grade.</p><p>Once they arrived in the area, the pilots got a visual on a mysterious object, which was reported to be "an elongated egg or a 'Tic Tac' shape" that was "solid white, smooth, with no edges," and "uniformly colored with no nacelles, pylons, or wings," according to a military report on the event obtained a few years ago <a href="https://www.8newsnow.com/news/i-team-exclusive-confidential-report-analyzes-tic-tac-ufo-incidents/1187688105/">by a CBS News affiliate</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-05-16/">During a recent "60 Minutes" interview</a>, Fravor recalled seeing "this little white Tic Tac-looking object" moving above the water with, as Dietrich noted, "no predictable movement" and "no predictable trajectory."</p><h2>Not 'part of our plan'</h2><div type="image" title="Alex Dietrich" height="2253" width="3311" msid="83061681" hostid="261"></div><p>"This didn't fit our script," Dietrich, who retired as a lieutenant commander, told Insider, explaining that the carrier group and the accompanying air wing were training for a deployment to the Middle East, where they might be called upon to provide precision strikes, convoy oversight, and air support, among various other missions and tasks.</p><p>"A flying Tic Tac wasn't part of our plan," she said, recalling their encounter with the object.</p><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-05-16/">In the recent "60 Minutes" interview</a>, Dietrich described the experience as "unsettling." Neither aircraft was armed at the time, and she said she "felt the vulnerability of not having anything to defend ourselves."</p><p>Talking with Insider, the former naval aviator said that it was not entirely clear how she or her commander were expected to react and respond to the mystery object, which they were not expecting to encounter.</p><p>"We do air-to-air scenarios where we expect to encounter adversary aircraft, and we have set plans for how we approach them," Dietrich explained. "But these assume that it is a generation of fighter we would be at least familiar enough with."</p><p>She said that at that time, she "had not been briefed on any protocol for intercepting or merging with a UAP."</p><p>During the encounter, Dietrich remained overhead as Fravor moved in to investigate. As the commander got closer to the unidentified object, which Fravor said was about the size of his plane, it suddenly accelerated and disappeared. A different Navy flight later caught the object on infrared video.</p><p>The US military officially declassified that video last year, along with a couple of others from different incidents, and <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/">noted in a statement</a> that the phenomena seen in these videos are still "unidentified." The following video is from the 2004 "Tic Tac" incident.</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lWLZgnmRDs4" frameborder="0"></iframe><h2>'We don't know what it was'</h2><p>Dietrich recalled that she experienced a "roller coaster of emotions" during the 2004 incident, with feelings running from excited to nervous. She said that her primary concern was figuring out whether it was an adversary, some sort of threat, or a even just a flight safety issue. They didn't figure that out, and it is still not clear what it was.</p><p>Over the years, there has been a lot of speculation about this incident and others, but Dietrich told Insider that she did not let her mind "run away with wild conclusions or fantasies about what it might be."</p><p>"I gave my report, and I went on with my life and my career," she said, acknowledging that she has not followed this matter closely in the years since.</p><p>Dietrich revealed that at the time of the incident she was a little "disappointed" by the lack of response.</p><p>"If I had been in charge of the carrier strike group and had heard this report, I probably would have redirected assets. We had all of these aircraft and sensors and radar to collect information in that moment," she said, adding that she is not sure "why the decision was made not to pivot in that moment and redirect focus."</p><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-05-16/">Fravor and Dietrich told "60 Minutes" that</a> while they were debriefed, they were not aware of any further investigation into what happened that day in 2004.</p><p>"We don't know what it was, but it was there. We saw it, and it is worth investigating further," Dietrich told Insider.</p><p>Dietrich's personal interest in this issue has faded over time.</p><p>"It mattered to me on November 14, 2004," she said. "It mattered very much because I was there face-to-face with it, and it could have been a threat ... In the years and now decades since, it doesn't matter as much to me."</p><h2>'Not jumping to conclusions'</h2><div type="image" title="flir gimbal gofast pentagon releases ufo videos" height="1080" width="2000" msid="83061683" hostid="261"></div><p>Dietrich told Insider that by answering questions about her experiences, she hopes that if and when these incidents occur, and there have been a few, the military will "take a training time out" and "spend some resources investigating" to determine whether or not what is being observed is a danger. She also said she hopes to reduce the stigma around reporting these incidents.</p><p>This is potentially more likely given the military's newfound interest in these incidents.</p><p>The Pentagon created the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program in 2007, but the program ended in 2012 as the military directed its attention to "higher priority issues," <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/16/politics/pentagon-ufo-project/index.html">a Pentagon spokesperson told CNN</a> in 2017 after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">The New York Times dragged the program</a> out of the shadows.</p><p>But last year, just a few months after the Pentagon declassified several videos of unexplained incidents, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/">the Department of Defense publicly established</a> the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force "to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to US national security."</p><p>Dietrich's story is unusual but not necessarily unique. There have been a number of unexplained <keyword id="43930" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="UFO">UFO</keyword> sightings by US service members. One former naval aviator, retired Lt. Ryan Graves, <a href="https://www.insider.com/former-navy-pilot-ufo-off-us-coast-daily-2021-5">told "60 Minutes" recently</a> that there was a time when they saw them "every day for at least a couple of years."</p><p>The <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/us-navy-guidelines-reporting-ufos-1375290">US Navy, explaining new policies for reporting encounters with unidentified aircraft, told Politico</a> in 2019 that "there have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years."</p><p>These sightings have raised a lot of questions and provided few real answers, but next month, the US intelligence community is expected to present an unclassified report on these "unidentified aerial phenomena." It is not clear whether this report will shed light on what pilots and others have been seeing.</p><p>As for what the unexplained incidents involving the military might mean, Dietrich, a veteran pilot who flew over 200 combat missions during her career in the Navy, did not speculate. She said she would "urge patience and not jumping to conclusions."</p>

'A flying Tic Tac wasn't part of our plan': Former US Navy fighter pilot describes encounter with UFO

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Recent testimonies before Congress and meetings with NASA have renewed interest in UAPs and UFOs.</li><li>There are differences between UAPs and UFOs, especially related to potential proof of alien life.</li></ul><p>On Wednesday, a former intelligence officer testified in front of Congress that the US government has evidence of alien life.</p><p>While ex-Air Force officer David Grusch's comments were shocking — but in line with his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whistleblower-who-testified-us-has-alien-proof-claimed-vatican-coverup-2023-7">previous wild claims that the Vatican was part of a massive UFO cover-up</a> — they did renew public interest in UAPs and UFOs.</p><p>There are differences between a UAP and a UFO. Here's what the two terms mean, and how seriously should we take the testimony that the US military is keeping the existence of aliens a secret.</p><div type="image" title="UFO" height="1155" width="1800" msid="102215251" hostid="261"></div><h2>What does UAP mean?</h2><p>UAP stands for "unidentified anomalous phenomena."</p><p>It was previously an acronym for "unidentified aerial phenomena," but the Pentagon, NASA, and other organizations tweaked it in December 2022 in order to represent "submerged and trans-medium objects," a defense official <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3249303/usdis-ronald-moultrie-and-dr-sean-kirkpatrick-media-roundtable-on-the-all-domai/">said at the time</a>.</p><p>The term describes documented events or objects in the sky that cannot be explained naturally. These could be instances not entirely understood on a scientific level, or instances where an aerial object does something in the sky that can't be explained under normal circumstances. </p><p>Hundreds of military commercial pilots have reported UAP encounters, often citing video footage, photographs, or sensor readings that supposedly show inexplicable objects.</p><p>While some turn out to be weather balloons or drones, others aren't immediately identifiable. </p><div type="image" title="A UFO variety was photographed when it hovered for fifteen minutes near Holloman Air Development Center in New Mexico. The object was photographed by a government employee and was released by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization after careful study. There is no conventional explanation for the object." height="2392" width="3871" msid="102215254" hostid="261"></div><h2>UAP vs. UFO</h2><p>UFO — which stands for "unidentified flying object" — was coined by the Air Force in 1952.</p><p>Before that, interest in UFOs really took off in 1947 when pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed to having seen a flying disc while on a flight. Shortly after, conspiracy theories spread that an alien flying saucer crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Military officials insisted it was part of a weather balloon.</p><p>Both of these events cemented UFOs in the public consciousness, creating a cultural phenomenon that would persist for decades. </p><p>Portrayals of UFOs haven't changed much from those initial events. In popular culture, UFOs are typically represented as flying saucers, while extraterrestrial beings are typically portrayed as two-legged, almost humanoid grey or green creatures. </p><p>"Unidentified aerial phenomena" became a more common phrase in recent decades, and in 2020, the Pentagon established a Navy-led UAP Task Force to spearhead investigations into reports and rumored sightings. </p><div type="image" title="A woman looks at a UFO display outside of the Little A'Le'Inn, in Rachel, Nev., the closest town to Area 51, July 22, 2019." height="2435" width="3653" msid="102215256" hostid="261"></div><h2>Do UFOs exist?</h2><p>Grusch, an ex-intelligence officer and now whistleblower, told lawmakers on Wednesday that he knew of "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program" by the government, and had knowledge of crashed aircraft that contained non-human biologics. </p>  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="undefined"> —Pop Crave (@PopCrave) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1684247875276922880">July 26, 2023</a> </blockquote><p>Two other witnesses, Navy pilots David Fravor and Ryan Graves, also told Congress about their experiences with flying objects.</p><p>"The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies," Graves said. </p><p>Fravor had previously told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html">The New York Times</a> about a 2004 encouter with a whitlish, oval-shaped aircraft that "accelerated like nothing I've ever seen."</p><p>"I have no idea what I saw," Fravor told a pilot at the time. "It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s." But, he added, "I want to fly one."</p><p>Despite their testimony under oath, the witnesses didn't provide evidence supporting their claims. </p><p>While it's unclear what exactly UAPs are or whether or not they definitely exist, the government is still taking investigations into reports of UAPs seriously. </p><p>In June 2022, NASA announced a study team focusing on available UAP data. The group, along with the All-doman Anomaly Resolution Office — a portion of the US Office of the Secretary of Defense — said in May 2023 that they needed better data to identify UAPs. </p><p>They proposed a method using <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-use-your-cellphones-help-identify-ufos-2023-5">"unclassified crowd-sourced data"</a> from the general public to collect information on potential sightings to figure out what the anomalies are.</p>

What is a UAP? What the acronym means, why they're different from UFOs, and what a Congressional hearing revealed

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent over 8,100 consecutive hours in space. </li><li>He said on Wednesday at a NASA meeting that he saw a lot of odd behavior while he was up there. </li></ul><p>UFOs rev up our imaginations and make us dare to wonder about highly-intelligent life beyond Earth. But retired astronaut Scott Kelly is here to tell us that many <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-could-tell-us-aliens-are-real-2023-2">UFO sightings</a> are probably just our eyes playing tricks on us.</p><p>Kelly was part of a panel that convened on Wednesday at NASA headquarters to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-use-your-cellphones-help-identify-ufos-2023-5">discuss UFOs</a>, what NASA now refers to as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-study-team-members/">unidentified aerial phenomenon</a>. He described a time when he was flying and his radar intercept office (RIO) thought he spotted a UFO.</p><p>"I remember one time I was flying in the warning areas off of Virginia Beach military operating area and my RIO — the guy who sits in the back of the Tomcat — was convinced we flew by a UFO," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_O7B6Ld4Zs&amp;ab_channel=VideoFromSpace">Kelly said</a>. "So I didn't see it. We turned around. We went to go look at it. It turns out it was Bart Simpson — a balloon." </p><p>In 2016, Kelly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-kelly-returns-safely-to-earth-2016-3">broke the record</a> for the longest consecutive days (340) spent in space. His record has since been surpassed by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-mark-vande-hei-breaks-scott-kellys-spaceflight-record-2022-3#:~:text=NASA%20astronaut%20Mark%20Vande%20Hei%20has%20broken%20the%20record%20for,International%20Space%20Station%20(ISS).">NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei</a>, who reached 353 days on the International Space Station.</p><p>Recalling the thousands of hours he spent in space, Kelly said on Wednesday, "Oftentimes, in space, I would see things and I was like, 'That's really not behaving like it should.' And every single time when I would look at it long enough, I would realize that it was atmospheric lensing."</p><div type="image" title="Astronaut Scott Kelly in a white spacesuit giving a thumbs up at the camera." height="683" width="1024" msid="100733166" hostid="261"></div><p>Atmospheric lensing can create optical illusions, like making the sun appear higher in the sky than it actually is. This can actually extend daylight by five minutes along the equator, per <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/chapter6-6/#:~:text=Electromagnetic%20waves%20entering%20Earth's%20atmosphere,higher%20than%20its%20true%20height.">NASA</a>.</p><p>Optical illusions like this are the result of how the particles in Earth's atmosphere bend and manipulate light, which can make us see distorted versions of reality. </p><p>"It was the fact that what I was looking at was actually flying behind the atmosphere and because of the variations in the atmosphere it made the trajectory look like it wasn't going in a straight line," Kelly said.</p><p>NASA's meeting on Wednesday was more a call to action for better data collection than it was a revelation for folks looking for answers to UFO conspiracy theories. So are UFOs real, or are they just a trick of the eye? </p><p>"We have a community of people who are completely convinced of the existence of UFOs, and we have a community of people who think addressing this question is ridiculous," said David Spergel, the panel's chair. "And I think as scientists, the way to approach questions is you start by saying, 'We don't know,' and then you collect data and you try to calibrate your data well."</p><p>Watch Kelly talk more about optical illusions in space in the video below:</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p_O7B6Ld4Zs" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly describes his UFO experience. 'It turns out it was Bart Simpson, a balloon.'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Congress held a public hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena, better known as UFOs, for the first time in 50 years.</li><li>Some researchers say scientific instruments — not just the intelligence community — should study these objects.</li></ul><p>Congress held an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/us/politics/ufo-sightings-house-hearing.html">open congressional hearing</a> on Tuesday on unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — better known as unidentified flying objects — for the first time in five decades. </p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSDweUbGBow">The hearing</a>, held before a US House Intelligence subcommittee, included testimony from defense officials following a nine-page <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-report-cant-rule-out-alien-origin-more-120-ufos-2021-6">report</a> released last year, which investigated more than 140 instances of strange sightings by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-confirms-videos-show-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-not-aliens-2019-9">fighter aircraft instruments</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-us-navy-fighter-pilot-opens-up-about-ufo-encounter-2021-5">pilots</a>. Officials were only able to explain <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-sources-reported-over-140-ufo-sightings-since-2004-2021-6">one of the incidents</a> — a large, deflated balloon. </p><p>Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana and chairman of the subcommittee, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-hearing-congress-pentagon-watch-live-stream-today-2022-05-17/">said at the start of the hearing</a> that UAPs "are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way."</p><div type="image" title="U.S. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray explains a video of an unidentified aerial phenomena, as he testifies before a House Intelligence Committee subcommittee hearing at the U.S. Capitol on May 17, 2022 in Washington, DC" height="2735" width="3646" msid="91627322" hostid="261"></div><p>Unexplained objects have fascinated and puzzled people for decades, but studying them has often been dismissed as pseudoscience or tabloid fodder. As these mystery sightings reenter the mainstream, however, some researchers say they need to be investigated by scientists, not just the intelligence community, in order to find answers.</p><h1>Beyond tin foil hats</h1><p>Last year's report confirmed the existence of unexplained aerial phenomenon, but prompted more questions than answers, Jacob Haqq-Misra, a research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">Science</keyword>, a non-profit that promotes space exploration, told Insider.</p><p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-unexplained-phenomena-of-the-ufo-report">Some science experts theorize</a> that these mystery objects could be anything from drones to weather-related phenomena to artifacts to sensor glitches — or even the handiwork of aliens. But the report did not include enough data to conclusively make that determination.</p><p>Since UAPs have long inspired conspiracy theories, researchers like Haqq-Misra believe the government should give scientists more access to data and allow inquiries to happen in the open, rather than behind closed doors.</p><p>Tuesday's public hearing was followed by a closed session, which scientists like Haqq-Misra expect will have the information they really want: "We really need transparency and new data if we want to solve this problem," he said.</p><p>The report included first-person accounts, which have the potential for human error. Haqq-Misra said UAPs should be studied with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-concerns-about-elon-musk-plan-30000-more-spacex-satellites-2022-2">satellites</a>, fast-tracking cameras, or audio sensors at locations where the unusual signals have been spotted: "What we need is to collect data in a systematic way — stare at this whole sky in many locations for long periods of time, and with many different instruments, and see how many things, if any, show up that you can't identify." </p><p>For decades, it's also been a taboo subject for scientists and <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/why-is-harvard-astrophysicist-working-with-ufo-buffs">dismissed as pseudoscience</a>. Government officials even rebranded UFOs as unidentified aerial phenomena, in part, to avoid the stigma attached to claims of alien visitors. Researchers hope a scientific pursuit for answers, and more transparency, could help overcome that stigma, according to Ravi Kopparapu, a planetary scientist at <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s Goddard Space Flight Center.</p><p>"There is a process to understand unknown phenomena," Kopparapu told Insider. "We should not jump to conclusions one way or another, about either dismissal or jumping to some exotic explanation."</p><h1>From the fringes to serious science</h1><div type="image" title="ilots E.J. Smith, Kenneth Arnold, and Ralph E. Stevens look at a photo of an unidentified flying object which they sighted while en route to Seattle, Washington." height="2424" width="3232" msid="91627323" hostid="261"></div><p>Kopparapu said that there are a growing number of privately funded research groups focused on the systematic study of unidentified aerial phenomena, such as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alien-search-harvard-astrophysicist-avi-loeb-2021-7">Harvard's Galileo Project</a> and <a href="https://www.uapexpedition.org/">UAPx</a>, a research non-profit. (The Galileo Project is helmed by Avi Loeb, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/harvards-top-astronomer-says-an-alien-ship-may-be-among-us--and-he-doesnt-care-what-his-colleagues-think/2019/02/04/a5d70bb0-24d5-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html">prominent and controversial</a> astronomy professor, who has <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/avi-loebs-galileo-project-will-search-for-evidence-of-alien-visitation/">been</a> <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/avi-loebs-galileo-project-will-search-for-evidence-of-alien-visitation/">criticized</a> for including <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/why-is-harvard-astrophysicist-working-with-ufo-buffs">outspoken UFO proponents</a>, without science backgrounds, on the project.) </p><p>"I think this is a great opportunity for scientists to show the public how a scientific investigation can be done of something that is unknown," Kopparapu told Insider.</p><p>NASA <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/faq-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-uapsufos/">does not actively search </a>for UAPs, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/faq-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-uapsufos">according to the agency's website</a>. "If we learn of UAPs, it would open up the door to new science questions to explore," <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/faq-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-uapsufos">according to NASA</a>. "Atmospheric scientists, aerospace experts, and other scientists could all contribute to understanding the nature of the phenomenon. Exploring the unknown in space is at the heart of who we are."</p><p>In the meantime, the Galileo Project is designing software to screen data coming from large telescopes for interstellar objects, and developing a network of sky cameras searching for signs of alien life. This spring, the team <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/news/be-kind-extraterrestrial-guests">plans to install</a> the first of hundreds of cameras — which capture both infrared and visible light — and audio sensors on the roof of Harvard College Observatory, to record everything that moves through the sky, 24 hours a day. </p><p>"We are moving away from a time where we were just thinking about them as some sort of tabloid <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword>," Kopparapu said, adding, "These objects exist. And if we want to understand them, we need to use the same technologies and scientific instruments that we use to study our everyday world around us."</p><p>Sightings of unexplained objects in the sky have long captured human imagination and raised questions about national security and even potential alien life. But these questions will remain unanswered if they're not subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry, researchers say.</p><p>"I think it's significant that branches of the military are acknowledging that there's a thing that's supposed to be in their jurisdiction that they don't understand," Haqq-Misra told Insider. "If they're willing to do that, I think then it really, truly is a puzzle and we've got to figure out what this is." </p><p>Kopparapu seemed to agree: "Science should be the forefront in understanding this unknown phenomena," he said, adding, "I hope there is more interest from scientists and I'm eager to see what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks with all this news." </p>

After Congress' first hearing on UFOs in 50 years, some scientists want to be let in on the investigation

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11893699" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="congress" source="Orion">Congress</keyword>' first hearing on <keyword id="13960440" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ufos" source="Orion">UFOs</keyword> in more than 50 years ended without any major bombshells.</li><li>Department of <keyword id="11922500" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="defense" source="Orion">Defense</keyword> officials stressed that there are still many incidents that they can't explain.</li></ul><p>Congress held its first UFO hearing in more than half a century on Tuesday, but it ended without any major bombshells, like a military confirmation that <keyword id="12151277" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="aliens" source="Orion">aliens</keyword> exist. No, instead, the discussion between lawmakers and defense officials simply bounced back and forth between serious questions about US national security concerns and speculation about what might be out there.</p><p>Over the years, there have been numerous incidents in which US military personnel observed, either through military sensors or with their own eyes, what are officially called unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs). Such incidents are more commonly referred to as sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs for short. Many of these unusual incidents have occurred in or around sensitive military bases or exercises, raising national security concerns.</p><div type="image" title="UFO" height="1188" width="1200" msid="91626187" hostid="261"></div><p>"To me, among the most fascinating questions are these phenomena that we can measure, that is instruments report that something is there. It is not the human eye confusing objects in the sky," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said at the start of the hearing. "There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know with physics or science more broadly."</p><p>Though observations have been unusual and at times inexplicable, defense officials testified that they have "no material and have detected no emanations" that would "suggest it is anything non-terrestrial in origin."</p><p>"When I say unexplained, I mean everything from too little data to the data that we have doesn't point us toward an explanation," said Scott Bray, deputy director of Naval Intelligence, adding that officials take their investigations "wherever the data takes us."</p><p>Defense officials testified that they are getting a better handle on tracking and investigating when Navy pilots and other service members report odd sightings and unexplained occurrences.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">—CSPAN  (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1526569516276260864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2022</a></blockquote><p>During the hearing, lawmakers pressed the officials to take seriously security concerns associated with UAPs and to do more to reduce the stigma of troops filing official reports on possible sightings.</p><p>"Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way," said Rep. André Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who chairs the intelligence subcommittee that held the hearing.</p><p>"For too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis, good reporting, or pilots who were laughed at when they did. DOD officials relegated the issue to the backroom or swept it under the rug entirely," he said. "Today we know better."</p><p>Bray said that the government now has approximately 400 UAP reports in its database, a massive increase from the 144 reports that were publicly disclosed in a draft report last summer. Last June, the Office of National Intelligence said it had collected 144 largely firsthand reports of unexplained instances from 2004 to 2021. In that case, only one of those instances was able to later be explained. </p><p><a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf"></a></p><div type="image" title="Government report on UAPs" height="1176" width="1634" msid="91626189" hostid="261"></div><p>Though many remain unexplained, some additional incidents, Bray said, can now be explained, such as a video of "flashing triangles" taken somewhere off the US coast "several years ago." Bray said because the video was taken through night vision goggles with a "single-lens reflex camera," it was difficult to perceive what they might be. But a different phenomenon observed by a separate ship has led officials to believe that the "flashing triangles" were probably drones.</p><p>"The triangular appearance is the result of light passing through the night vision goggles and then being recorded by an SLR camera," Bray said.</p><p>Though the defense officials testified they had seen no evidence pointing to an extraterrestrial origin for the incidents that are still unexplained, Rep. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, went further than any of his colleagues in suggesting that aliens could exist and that they would likely want to visit Earth.</p><p>"No one knows whether there is extra-terrestrial life. It is a big universe," Welch said. "It would be pretty presumptuous to have a hard and fast conclusion. And then if there is, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that there is some exploration coming here."</p><p>The officials called to testify were on Capitol Hill in part to discuss their progress standing up a special office that lawmakers mandated the <keyword id="11897408" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pentagon" source="Orion">Pentagon</keyword> create to serve essentially as a clearinghouse for defense and intelligence community reports on UAPs. The office, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/16/intelligence-agencies-congress-ufo-hearing-00032713">supposed to be fully operational by next month</a>. But as Carson pointed out, the office still does not have a named director.</p><p>Lawmakers repeatedly pressed the Pentagon to be as open as possible with the American people on what they find out. But both the officials and some lawmakers themselves conceded that if some or all of the UAPs turn out to be technology fielded by a US adversary, then some of the answers will likely remain classified.  They stressed that classification in of itself isn't evidence of a cover-up, but rather it is an example of the intelligence community doing everything it can to keep its sources and methods protected.</p><p>"There aren't separate UAP sensors, there's not a UAP processing computer, there's not a separate UAP dissemination chain or whatever," Moultrie said. "We need to protect that. This is something that we're looking at, but there are going to be other things that we'll look at in the future that we're going to need the same sensors, the same sources and methods to help us do."</p>

Hundreds of incidents but no sign of aliens: What we learned from Congress' first UFO hearing in more than 50 years

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee have voted to require intelligence agencies and the <keyword id="6362444" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pentagon">Pentagon</keyword> to provide an unclassified report to Congress on "unidentified aerial phenomenon."</li><li>In particular, senators want to know whether or not "unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries."</li><li>The bill submitted by the Senate Intelligence Committee still has to pass the full Senate and the House.</li></ul><p>US lawmakers are demanding intelligence agencies and the Pentagon share information on "unidentified aerial phenomenon," to include whether these reported incidents could be the work of foreign adversaries.</p><p>The annual intelligence authorization bill submitted by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has yet to pass the full Senate or the House, requires the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense to prepare an unclassified report for Congress on reported incidents, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/senators-ufo-government-reports-336021">Politico reported Tuesday</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-116srpt233/pdf/CRPT-116srpt233.pdf">report on the bill</a>, <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/news/senate-ufo-report-adversaries-technology">as Task &amp; Purpose reported</a>, calls for the intelligence community and the military to provide "an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries."</p><p>The unclassified report required by the bill should also identify "any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk."</p><p>Senators explained that they want to know about "any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to US military assets and installations."</p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-declassify-ufo-navy-videos-harry-reid-2020-4">Pentagon declassified three videos</a> of "unidentified aerial phenomena" in late April. The videos had been leaked well before that, with the Navy confirming last September that they were real videos but stating in January that they should not have been released.</p><p>The Pentagon said that the videos do not "reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems" and that releasing them "does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena."</p><p>Following actions by the Pentagon, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-release-pilot-reports-ufo-sightings-2020-5">the Navy released several incident reports</a> in mid-May from encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs), a term that is a generic term for any aerospace asset that is unidentifiable — rather than confirmation as an actual aerial object piloted by extraterrestrials.</p><p>"The US needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications," former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had tens of millions of dollars invested into related investigations, <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorReid/status/1254836730546384897">tweeted when the videos were released</a>. "The American people deserve to be informed."</p><p>He said that the information released "only scratches the surface" of what is available.</p><p>The Senate Intelligence Committee report states that it is "concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena, despite the potential threat."</p><p>The committee, chaired by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, is pushing for the centralization of intelligence gathered from the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and elsewhere.</p><p>If the bill passes, it will require reporting to congressional intelligence and armed services committees "on unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as ''anomalous aerial vehicles''), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified" within 180 days of passage.</p>

Lawmakers want to know if the US military's UFO sightings are the work of foreign adversaries

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="6362444" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pentagon">Pentagon</keyword> launched a task force to investigate <keyword id="43930" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="UFO">UFO</keyword> sightings, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/source/GovDelivery/">according to a Friday Department of Defense news release.</a></li><li>Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist will assist in overseeing the task force.</li><li>Previously, the US <keyword id="42407" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Navy">Navy</keyword> led any efforts to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena because many of the encounters involved their aircraft, CNN said.</li></ul><p>The Pentagon is launching a task force dedicated to investigating UFO sightings by military aircraft, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/source/GovDelivery/">according to a Friday Department of Defense news release</a>, which establishes the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/politics/pentagon-ufo-task-force/index.html">CNN first reported</a> the story earlier this week.</p><p>"The <keyword id="159767" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Department-of-Defense">Department of Defense</keyword> established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs," the DoD said in a release. "The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze, and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to US national security."</p><p>"The Department of Defense and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report," the DoD added. "This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing."</p><p>Politicians and Pentagon officials have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-to-know-if-us-adversaries-behind-ufo-sightings-2020-6">previously expressed concerns about the appearance of "unidentified aerial phenomenon"</a> flying over US military bases. </p><p>In April the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-declassify-ufo-navy-videos-harry-reid-2020-4">Pentagon declassified three videos</a> of "unidentified aerial phenomena." The next month, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-release-pilot-reports-ufo-sightings-2020-5">the Navy released several incident reports</a> from encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) — a generic term for any aerospace asset that is unidentifiable, rather than confirmation as an actual aerial object piloted by extraterrestrials.</p><p>In response, US lawmakers called on intelligence agencies and the Pentagon share information on these kinds of sightings, including whether the incidents could be the work of foreign adversaries, with the public, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-to-know-if-us-adversaries-behind-ufo-sightings-2020-6">Business Insider previously reported</a>.</p><p>"The US needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications," former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorReid/status/1254836730546384897">tweeted</a> at the time.</p><p>The UAPTF will be lead by the "Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security," the DoD said.</p><p>In the past, efforts to investigate these unexplained aircraft were led by the Navy, CNN reported. </p><h2><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/politics/pentagon-ufo-task-force/index.html?utm_term=link&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=2020-08-13T23%3A04%3A03&amp;utm_source=twCNNpource=twCNNp">Read the original story on CNN »»</a></h2><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more: </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-to-know-if-us-adversaries-behind-ufo-sightings-2020-6">Lawmakers want to know if the US military's UFO sightings are the work of foreign adversaries</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-declassify-ufo-navy-videos-harry-reid-2020-4">The Pentagon released 3 videos of UFOs spotted by Navy aircraft</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-confirms-mysterious-videos-pilots-show-ufos-uaps-2019-9?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">The US Navy has finally confirmed that mysterious videos showing pilots spotting UFOs</a></li></ul>

The Pentagon launched a task force to investigate UFO sightings by military aircraft

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="2540" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="President">President</keyword> <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword> was asked about the existence of <keyword id="1067639" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="UFOs">UFOs</keyword> during an interview with Maria Bartiromo of <keyword id="17242" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Fox">Fox</keyword> <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword> on Sunday.</li><li>Trump said he first heard about <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/">the Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force</a>, which was announced in August, two days ago.</li><li>He also added that he'd "take a good, strong look" at the existence of UFOs.</li><li>When asked about unidentified flying objects in 2019, Trump expressed skepticism.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/category/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a> said in an interview on Sunday that he plans on looking further into US intelligence on the existence of UFOs.</p><p>Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump during "Sunday Morning Futures" about the <keyword id="159767" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Department-of-Defense">Department of Defense</keyword>'s announcement that <a href="https://www.insider.com/pentagon-launch-task-force-investigate-ufo-sightings-2020-8">the Pentagon launched a task force to investigate sightings of unidentified flying objects</a> in August. The group is called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).</p><p>"Mr. President, as we wrap up here, are there UFOs?" Bartiromo said.</p><p>"Well I'm gonna have to check on that," Trump replied. "I mean, I've heard that. I heard that two days ago, so I'll check on that. I'll take a good, strong look at that."</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">—Aaron Rupar  (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1315308706968543234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2020</a></blockquote><p>The president went on to discuss the military and later reiterated his promise to "check on" UFOs.</p><p>"I will tell you this," he said when asked about the UAPTF by Bartiromo. "We now have created a military, the likes of which we've never had before in terms of equipment. The equipment that we have, the weapons that we have — and hopefully, hope to God we never have to use them."</p><p>"Russia, China, they're all envious of what we've had," Trump added. "All built in the USA. We've rebuilt it, $2.5 trillion. As far as the other question, I'll check on it. I heard about it two days ago actually."</p><p>Insider's Haven Orecchio-Egresitz <a href="https://www.insider.com/pentagon-launch-task-force-investigate-ufo-sightings-2020-8">previously reported</a> that "politicians and <keyword id="6362444" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pentagon">Pentagon</keyword> officials have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-to-know-if-us-adversaries-behind-ufo-sightings-2020-6">previously expressed concerns about the appearance of 'unidentified aerial phenomenon'</a> flying over US military bases."</p><p>"In April, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-declassify-ufo-navy-videos-harry-reid-2020-4">Pentagon declassified three videos</a> of 'unidentified aerial phenomena,'" Orecchio-Egresitz wrote. "The next month, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-release-pilot-reports-ufo-sightings-2020-5">the Navy released several incident reports</a> from encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) — a generic term for any aerospace asset that is unidentifiable, rather than confirmation as an actual aerial object piloted by extraterrestrials."</p><h2>Trump has expressed skepticism when asked about UFOs in the past</h2><p>In June 2019, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-very-brief-meeting-about-ufos-but-doesnt-believe-it-2019-6">Trump told ABC News that he had "one very brief meeting" to discuss US Navy reports of UFOs</a>. At the time, he said he didn't necessarily believe the reports, but wanted pilots to "think whatever they think."</p><p>"I think it's probably — I want them to think whatever they think," Trump <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/exclusive-trump-unidentified-flying-objects/story?id=63725191&amp;__twitter_impression=truetrue" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told George Stephanopoulos</a>. "They do say, and I've seen, and I've read, and I've heard, and I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they're seeing UFOs."</p><p>"Do I believe it? Not particularly," he added.</p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YDom6wNYb9w" frameborder="0"></iframe><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/pentagon-launch-task-force-investigate-ufo-sightings-2020-8">The Pentagon launched a task force to investigate UFO sightings by military aircraft</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-very-brief-meeting-about-ufos-but-doesnt-believe-it-2019-6">Trump says he's had 'one very brief meeting' about UFOs but remains skeptical</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/ufo-sighting-goodyear-blimp-in-new-jersey-2020-9">Viral videos of a 'UFO' in New Jersey really captured a Goodyear blimp</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/navy-says-release-files-into-ufo-sightings-would-damage-security-2020-1">The Navy cryptically says it has top-secret UFO briefings that would cause 'exceptionally grave damage' to US national security if published</a></li></ul>

Trump says he'll 'take a good, strong look' at whether UFOs exist

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A former <keyword id="6358717" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="intelligence">intelligence</keyword> official said the government is preparing to release a report on UFOs.</li><li>The report will detail <keyword id="43930" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="UFO">UFO</keyword> sightings, former National Intelligence Director <keyword id="5551850" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="john-ratcliffe">John Ratcliffe</keyword> said.</li><li>Many of the sightings are "difficult to explain," he said, speaking to Fox <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news">News</keyword>' Maria Bartiromo.</li></ul><p>A top intelligence official under former President Donald Trump said on Friday that the government plans to release a report declassifying numerous UFO sightings. </p><p>"There are a lot more sightings than have been made public," former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.</p><p>"Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain," he continued. "Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">-Daniel Chaitin  (@danielchaitin7) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1373054999954087936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2021</a></blockquote><p>Ratcliffe's remarks come months after the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-declassify-ufo-navy-videos-harry-reid-2020-4">Pentagon released three videos</a> of "unidentified aerial phenomena" - more commonly referred to as UFOs - after years of speculation about them.</p><p>The videos, captured on Navy aircraft cameras with infrared targeting systems, show black shapes floating and sometimes accelerating at incredible speeds against the wind as baffled pilots watch.</p><p>Former Sen. Harry Reid, who funneled $22 million into the government's UFO investigations, said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorReid/status/1254836730546384897">tweet</a> that the Pentagon's release of the videos "only scratches the surface" of what the government has on file.</p><div type="image" title="flir gimbal gofast pentagon releases ufo videos" height="1080" width="2000" msid="81619571" hostid="261"></div><p>"The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications," Reid said. "The American people deserve to be informed."</p><p>Ratcliffe said Friday there have been reports of sightings "all over the world."</p><p>"When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it's not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection," Ratcliffe continued. "Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things, and so again some of these are just unexplained phenomenon, and there is actually quite a few more than have been made public."</p><p>Ratcliffe also added that intelligence officials try to look for a "plausible explanation" behind all unidentified flying aircraft. But sometimes, he said, officials aren't able to justify their presence.</p><p>"Weather can cause disturbances, visual disturbances," he said. "Sometimes we wonder whether or not our adversaries have technologies that are a little bit further down the road than we thought or that we realized. But there are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things that we have seen."</p><p>The Pentagon is expected to release the report by June 1, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8GEJxc4Kc&amp;t=3st=3s">Bartiromo said during the interview</a>.</p><p>The Department of Defense did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.</p><p><em>Additional reporting by Mia Jankowicz</em></p>

A former intelligence official says an upcoming government report will detail 'difficult to explain' UFO sightings

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A former US Navy pilot said pilots saw <keyword id="1067639" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="UFOs">UFOs</keyword> in the sky almost daily. </li><li>A UFO expert says there is no concrete evidence <keyword id="77929" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="aliens">aliens</keyword> exist but the idea is not off the table. </li><li>Advanced technology beyond current comprehension could also be at play. </li></ul><p>An expert on UFOs said while there's no concrete evidence to show whether aliens may or may not be out there, there are technological artifacts that exist "way beyond our comprehension."</p><p>In May, a former US Navy pilot told CBS's 60 Minutes that <a href="https://www.insider.com/former-navy-pilot-ufo-off-us-coast-daily-2021-5">pilots training off the US coast sighted UFOs - also known as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) -  nearly every day.</a></p><p>In 2019, the Department of Defense launched a special task force to investigate videos of UAP. A report on the sightings found no evidence that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-report-cant-rule-out-alien-origin-more-120-ufos-2021-6">UAP sighted belong to aliens, but said so little is known that it can't be ruled out.</a> </p><p>University of Southern California <a href="https://pressroom.usc.edu/madhu-thangavelu/">Professor Madhu Thangavelu</a> told Insider that what pilots saw may not be extraterrestrial in origin, as there still isn't any public evidence that aliens exist - but that doesn't mean the possibility is off the table. </p><p>"[In the] scientific field, the material evidence is important," he said. </p><h2>NASA is now also looking into UAP</h2><p>NASA's new chief, Bill Nelson, told <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/04/tech/ufos-nasa-study-scn/index.html?utm_source=optzlynewmarketribbon">CNN</a> last week that the agency is setting up an investigation to further look into the flying objects. </p><p>Nelson said he doesn't think the UFOs prove the existence of aliens, but said he referred to scientists who could better explain what they are. </p><p>"We don't know if it's extraterrestrial. We don't know if it's an enemy. We don't know if it's an optical phenomenon," Nelson<strong> </strong>said. "We don't think [it's an optical phenomenon] because of the characteristics that those Navy jet pilots described ... And so the bottom line is, we want to know."</p><p>Thangavelu, who works in both the Engineering and Architecture departments at USC, said these videos do show things that can't be easily explained. </p><p>"It's possible that we will see more evidence as things happen," he said, referring to the Pentagon report and further investigations into the UFOs. "There's also the possibility that the technologies that are employed are what is causing these rapid movements that they talk about that cannot be explained using our physics or our engineering," he said.</p><p>However, whatever is piloting these craft is not likely human. Or if they are human, they're probably not on board.</p><p>"Very simply, when they talk about these things that are moving very fast ... if there was a human being inside, they would simply be crushed because of the acceleration."</p><h2>The interactions were too far away to identify </h2><p>However, Thangavelu said when talking about other life forms, it's important to categorize what's being seen into three categories based on the proximity of the interaction. The first being where someone sees something they can't explain from far away. The second is when something is witnessed in close proximity. Finally, the third is actual face-to-face interaction with an alien.  </p><p>Thangavelu said all the interactions being talked about so far are from afar, which makes it harder to really tell what the Navy pilots are witnessing.  </p><h2>Advanced technology could be at play</h2><p>Thangavelu said our technology and innovations span over a relatively small amount of time in history and it's possible what we're seeing are innovations that we haven't completely understood, so whether it's aliens, new technology by other countries, or top-secret projects by the US, the ability to understand it is hindered by the scope of what we know. </p><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/04/1003262749/how-ufo-sightings-went-from-conspiracy-theory-to-a-serious-government-inquiry">NPR</a>, however, said the report found the objects witnessed were not created in classified programs by the US or the Pentagon. </p><p>To put it more simply, Thangavelu quoted the inventor and writer Arthur C. Clarke who said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." </p><p>However, even if what's being seen is the work of aliens, Thangavelu says there's no reason for anyone to panic. And while he said this could be advanced technology, he rejected theories that they're being used to spy on the US by rivals and said if they were, we would feel the consequences. </p><p>"If it were a spying operation then we should see the consequence of it that in some of our actions and I'm not aware of anything that suggests that whatever is looking at us or running around ... is affecting our intelligence community to date, because if they were, we would know it," he said. </p>

UFO expert says aliens may or may not be out there but 'technological artifacts exist way beyond our comprehension'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d41ae83a209d311f32475d9-1920/ufo thumb arrow.jpg" border="0" alt="Why most scientists don't care about these incredible UFO videos" data-mce-source="Department of Defense" /><p class="source"><span>Department of <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">Defense</keyword></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Congressman Mark Walker, R-North Carolina, wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer requesting information about UFOs - or unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP), as the letter says.</li><li>Walker is only the most recent lawmaker to raise concern about UAPs - Virginia Sen. Mark Warner met with Navy officials in June regarding UFO sightings by Naval aviators. </li><li>Walker expressed concern that the UAPs might be the result of advances in Chinese technology, and asked whether the sightings were being adequately researched. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/">Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories. </a></li></ul><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A lawmaker is raising concerns that the Pentagon isn't sufficiently investigating the strange sightings of UFOs that Navy pilots have reported.</span></p><p><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/30/navy-mark-walker-ufo-1441105"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Politico reported </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">that Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican from North Carolina, wrote a July 16 letter to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer requesting more information about the source of the unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, and whether the Navy was aware of any foreign government or company that had made any significant advances in aeronautical engineering. Walker was a guest on Fox <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword>' Tucker Carlson Tonight on July 26 to discuss his concern about the UAP that naval aviators have reported over the past four years.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"Is this something that's a defense mechanism from another country?" Walker asked during the program. "We do know that China is looking at hypersonic missiles, that's 25,000 [kilometers per hour] or to break it down into our language that's getting from D.C. where I'm at to L.A. in about nine minutes."</span></p><p><a href="https://walker.house.gov/sites/walker.house.gov/files/UAPLetter.pdf?utm_source=Full+Press+List&amp;utm_campaign=f52434a6b9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_29_03_34&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_a7cbce4c92-f52434a6b9-132287189"><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the letter to Sec. Spencer</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Walker stated that the unexplained encounters often "involve complex flight patterns and advanced maneuvering, which demand extreme advances in quantum mechanics, nuclear science, electromagnetics, and thermodynamics," highlighting concerns about the national security risks posed by such objects. </span></p><p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Read more</strong>: </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/area-51-air-force-dangerous-2019-7">The US Air Force is warning people to stay away from Area 51 after a viral Facebook joke to storm the base and 'see them aliens'</a></em></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The letter also expressed concern about the demise of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which DoD said it shut down in 2012, according to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The New York Times.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> "I am concerned these reports are not being fully investigated or understood," Walker's office wrote. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Walker, the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">ranking member of the House Intelligence and Counterterrorism subcommittee,</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is not the first lawmaker to express concern about unidentified flying objects. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In June, Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, attended a classified briefing with Navy officials regarding sightings of UFOs reported by naval aviators. At the time, a spokesperson from Warner's office told INSIDER, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">"If pilots at Oceana or elsewhere are reporting flight hazards that interfere with training or put them in danger, then Senator Warner wants answers. It doesn't matter if it's weather balloons, little green men, or something else entirely - we can't ask our pilots to put their lives at risk unnecessarily."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">INSIDER reached out to Walker's office and to the office of the secretary of the Navy for comment, but did not receive responses by publication time. </span></p>      <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guards-intercept-drug-smuggling-submarine-2019-7">Heart-pounding video shows a badass Coast Guardsman running down a narco-sub loaded with cocaine and pounding on the hatch</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/H9zPWgLK-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

A lawmaker is asking the Navy whether UFOs might be from China - not space

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a39933cb0bcd5b9008b614d-1500/pentagon-building-dod-2010-mariordo-camila-ferreira-mario-duran-ccbysa3.jpg" alt="pentagon building dod 2010 mariordo camila ferreira mario duran ccbysa3" data-mce-source="Mariordo Camila Ferreira and Mario Duran/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)" data-mce-caption="The Pentagon building in 2010." data-link="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pentagon_DCA_08_2010_9854.jpg" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pentagon_DCA_08_2010_9854.jpg">Mariordo Camila Ferreira and Mario Duran/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Pentagon building in 2010.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The Department of <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> reportedly funded a program to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs), according to The New York Times and Politico.</strong></li><li><strong>One of the program's contractors said he is "absolutely convinced" that aliens frequently visit Earth.</strong></li><li><strong>However, scientists who look for extraterrestrial life say the published videos and other materials don't prove aliens were here.</strong></li><li><strong>Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, gives several basic arguments for his skepticism about extraterrestrial visitation.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p><br />On Saturday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Politico</a> independently published stories confirming that the US government had quietly funded a program to study UFOs for years.</p><p>The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program "collected video and audio recordings of reported U.F.O. incidents," including one of an undated encounter with "an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves," the Times wrote.</p><p>AATIP reportedly started in 2007 to study potential unknown military threats, and was funded by nearly $22 million of Department of Defense "black money".</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a359b4d4aa6b54d008b5722-479/screen shot 2017-12-16 at 51247 pm.png" alt="ufo pentagon" data-mce-source="Department of Defense" data-mce-caption="Screengrab from a video showing a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program." /><p class="source"><span>Department of Defense</span></p><p class="caption">A screengrab from a New York Times video shows a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>DoD officials told The Times and Politico that it shut down the program in 2012. But Luis Elizondo, a military intelligence official who ran the research effort, allegedly continued its efforts after that.</p><p>Elizondo reportedly resigned in protest of the secrecy surrounding the program in October, and he now helps run a startup to research UFOs called the <a href="https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stars Academy of Arts and Science</a>.</p><p>"These aircraft ... are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory, nor in any foreign inventory that we're aware of," Elizondo <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/942925945916162048" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told CNN</a> on Monday. "My personal belief is that there's very compelling evidence that we may nto be alone. Whatever that means."</p><p>But Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, is not convinced - despite <a href="https://futurism.com/seti-scientist-bets-everyone-a-cup-of-coffee-that-well-find-intelligent-life-in-20-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">making a bet</a> that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-aliens-have-not-contacted-humans-2015-9">we'll detect aliens</a> within 20 years.</p><p>"If you see something in the air that you don't understand, and you're the guy in charge of the Air Force, you want to know what that is. It doesn't have much to do with aliens, necessarily," Shostak told Business Insider of AATIP's purpose. "But despite more than a half-century of this, the really good evidence that we're being visited still has failed to surface."</p><h2>Traveling hundreds of light-years 'to do nothing'?</h2><p>But that isn't the only reason Shostak is skeptical of alien visitation claims.</p><p>For one, the distances in space are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/entire-universe-picture-logarithmic-map-2017-6">mind-bogglingly vast</a>. NASA's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/voyager-probes-mission-history-farthest-movie-2018-08">Voyager 1 spacecraft</a>, for example, is leaving the solar system at a clip of 38,000 miles per hour. If the probe was aimed at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/proxima-b-habitable-atmosphere-jwst-2016-9">Proxima Centauri</a> - the closest star to Earth besides the sun - it'd take nearly 75,000 years to reach that system, since it's roughly 4.24 light-years away from us.</p><p>Shostak said that alien civilizations would know about our existence if they're within about 35 light-years of Earth, since we haven't been sending signals into space for very long.</p><p>"The only way they could know that is to pick up, for example, signals from our transmitters - television, radio, radar, all that stuff. But those signals have been going out only since the second World War," Shostak said. "So if they're more than 35 light-years away, there hasn't been enough time for our signals to get to them, and for them to decide, 'Well this is worth the money to go down there and fly around.' Because they can't go faster than the speed of light, and they probably can't <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/extraterrestrial-contact-small-robot-ufos-starshot-2016-4">go the speed of light</a>."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img style="color: #000000;" src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58adfbd154905724008b6458-2400/trappist-1-exoplanet-ice-water-habitable-eso1615a.jpg" alt="trappist 1 exoplanet ice water habitable eso1615a" data-mce-source="ESO/M. Kornmesser" data-mce-caption="This artist's impression shows an imagined view from the surface one of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth that were discovered using the TRAPPIST telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory." data-link="https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1615a/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1615a/">ESO/M. Kornmesser</a></span></p><p class="caption">This artist's impression shows an imagined view from the surface one of the three potentially habitable planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Within a generous 50 light-years, there are only about <a href="http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/50lys.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,400 star systems</a>.</p><p>"That sounds like a big number, but it's a very small number if you're looking for intelligent beings," Shostak said. "Unless they're the next star system over, which is statistically rather unlikely."</p><p>Assuming that aliens regularly visit Earth defies logic in other ways, too. In nearly all credible reports of UFO sightings, there's no interaction with the witness (aside from claims of alien abductions, which evidence suggests are hallucinations <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1363461505050715" target="_blank" rel="noopener">caused by episodes of sleep paralysis</a>).</p><p>"They're the best house guests ever. Because if they're here, they're not doing anything, except for occasionally puzzling pilots. ... They don't help us. They don't hurt us. They don't do anything, just sail around." Shostak said. "It is a little odd that aliens would come hundreds and hundreds of light-years to do nothing."</p><p>Shostak compared this to Europeans discovering America, but not troubling any Native Americans: "They don't try and take any of their land, they don't bring any disease, they don't do anything; they just sort of walk around at the fringes of their settlements, leading to puzzling sightings, but that's it."</p><p>On top of this, Shostak thinks the reasons to visit Earth aren't very convincing.</p><p>"I always ask, 'Why are they here now?' They weren't visiting the founding fathers in the late 1700s, they're visiting us," he said. "The Romans weren't troubled by the aliens visiting. It doesn't make very much sense why they're here now."</p><h2>Rooting out the nature of UFOs</h2><p>Shostak rejects the notion that the <keyword id="6355005" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="News">news</keyword> about AATIP and the Pentagon's footage constitute any proof of aliens.</p><p>About 90% of UFO sightings have explanations, he said, and that still doesn't mean the other 10% are aliens.</p><p>"It just means they're unexplained," he said. "It isn't that one shouldn't look into these - of course, if there really is something here, it'd be extraordinarily interesting to find out. But the fact that there are cases that are hard to explain and that sound rather convincing would be true no matter what the premise."</p><p>Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT who hunts for signs of habitable planets, echoed this idea in the Times' story, telling the newspaper "what people sometimes don't get about <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> is that we often have phenomena that remain unexplained."</p><p>Another area of skepticism for Shostak is that AATIP contracted out much of its work to Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada. The real-estate billionaire Robert Bigelow runs that startup and is friend of former Nevada senator Harry Reid, who started AATIP - in part, according to the Times, due to persuasion from Bigelow. Shostak said he's met Bigelow, and describes him as a "very likable guy" who is a passionate <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bigelow-aerospace-founder-says-commercial-world-will-lead-in-space/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believer in alien visitations</a>, but "not a scientist." </p><p>"If you were investigating some phenomenon that you're not sure whether it's for real or not, but it would be extraordinarily important if were real ... you would want somebody sort of impartial, I would think," Shostak said. "Giving this case to somebody who already knows what the answer is is maybe not terribly objective."<span style="background-color: #ffff00;"></span></p><p>And then there are the sightings themselves, which likely have far simpler explanations than alien visitations. For example, sightings tend to spike in the summer for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ufo-sightings-peak-in-the-summer-2016-2">a variety of reasons</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img style="color: #000000;" src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56c1d9e1dd0895a8758b46a2-1200/tigraphicsufo-spottings-2.png" alt="UFO spottings" data-mce-source="Skye Gould/Tech Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Skye Gould/Tech Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Issues with camera hardware, unfamiliar optical effects, atmospheric phenomena, bright stars and planets, and the presence of unmanned aerial vehicles are all common explanations.</p><p>Though AATIP's unmasking has vindicated many claims by the UFO community that the government is covering up its research, it "may be a situation where they should have been careful what they wished for," Shostak said. "The government said, 'Well, yeah - we did have a program, and we did cover it up, but we didn't find anything.'"</p><p>Indeed, an anonymous senior intelligence official <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111">told Politico</a> that AATIP began mostly to root out the existence of unknown Chinese and Russian military technologies. But after a couple of years, "the consensus was we really couldn't find anything of substance," the official said. "They produced reams of paperwork. After all of that there was really nothing there that we could find."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacecraft-cemetery-pacific-ocean-dead-satellites-2017-10">There's a place at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where hundreds of giant spacecraft go to die</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/lapl6PJc-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

You Searched For "unidentified aerial phenomenon" and got 12 results

'A flying Tic Tac wasn't part of our plan': Former US Navy fighter pilot describes encounter with UFO

Ryan Pickrell

What is a UAP? What the acronym means, why they're different from UFOs, and what a Congressional hearing revealed

Chris Panella

Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly describes his UFO experience. 'It turns out it was Bart Simpson, a balloon.'

Jessica Orwig

After Congress' first hearing on UFOs in 50 years, some scientists want to be let in on the investigation

Paola Rosa-Aquino

Hundreds of incidents but no sign of aliens: What we learned from Congress' first UFO hearing in more than 50 years

Brent D. Griffiths

Lawmakers want to know if the US military's UFO sightings are the work of foreign adversaries

Ryan Pickrell

The Pentagon launched a task force to investigate UFO sightings by military aircraft

Haven Orecchio-Egresitz

Trump says he'll 'take a good, strong look' at whether UFOs exist

Amanda Krause

A former intelligence official says an upcoming government report will detail 'difficult to explain' UFO sightings

Yelena Dzhanova

UFO expert says aliens may or may not be out there but 'technological artifacts exist way beyond our comprehension'

Sarah Al-Arshani

A lawmaker is asking the Navy whether UFOs might be from China - not space

Ellen Ioanes,Ellen Ioanes

An alien hunter explains why extraterrestrial visitors are unlikely - despite the US government's UFO evidence

Dave Mosher