An office set up to track reports of UAPs has received “several hundreds” of new reports, according to the agency’s leadership.
“We have not seen anything that would lead us to believe any of the objects we have seen are of alien origin,” said Ronald Moultrie, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
“I have not seen anything … to suggest there has been an alien visitation or alien crash,” he added.
There are roughly 400 cases under investigation that have been identified by the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
When asked if any of these cases posed any threat to national security, Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the AARO, said: “Yes.”
However, Moultrie added that any unauthorized object in or near a restricted area – such as a military base or training area – would be considered hostile until it was identified.
The investigation covers incidents dating back to 1996 but language in the new defense spending bill would extend to cases 75 years in the past.
The AARO was created in July and is responsible for tracking unidentified objects in the sky as well as underwater and in space.
The office also tracks objects that have the potential to move from one domain to the next.
In June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that there were 144 encounters with unidentified flying objects by military pilots from 2004 to 2021.
The pilots were reportedly reluctant to report these encounters due to fear of stigma.
More than 80 of these instances were captured on multiple sensors.
Dr Kirkpatrick has said that since then, “we’ve had lots more reporting.”
In May, Congress held its first meeting on the topic of UAPs in more than half a century as many members were concerned about whether the objects were aliens or new, unknown technology being flown by China or Russia.
Dr Kirkpatrick said that the office has been coordinating with the Pentagon and US intelligence community to rule out this possible tech.
“We are setting up very clear mechanisms with our blue programs, both our DOD and IC programs, to de-conflict any observations that come in with blue activities, and ensure that we weed those out and identify those fairly early on,” he said.
