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Sci-Fi

Pentagon Shoots Down UFO Rumors But Says 650 Cases Are Still Pending (theregister.com) 40

The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was created last year to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs), said on Wednesday that they have not found any evidence of aliens in its analysis. The office within the Secretary of Defense is, however, tracking more than 650 potential cases of so-called "unidentified aerial phenomena" -- up from the 350 reports referenced in an unclassified intelligence report released earlier this year. Half of them are considered "especially interesting and anomalous." The Register reports: At hearings (one open and one closed) held by the Senate Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities this week, Sean Kirkpatrick said most sightings of UFOs are not as strange as they first appear. They are often balloons, unmanned aerial systems, or aircraft, and look odd due to natural phenomena. "I want to underscore that only a very small percentage of [unidentified anomalous phenomena] (UAP) reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous," he said during this opening testimony at the hearing.

AARO has failed to resolve some incidents, but it's not because something is inexplicable but due to a lack of data. "In our research, AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics," Kirkpatrick confirmed. In other words: It's not aliens. Kirkpatrick said that if the Office does find sufficient scientific data supporting the idea of an object of extraterrestrial origin, it would share its findings with NASA and alert US government personnel. Amateur UFO spotters are fine, he said, but need to apply scientific method to their claims.
Further reading: Pentagon Official Floats a Theory For Unexplained Sightings: Alien Motherships
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Pentagon Shoots Down UFO Rumors But Says 650 Cases Are Still Pending

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  • Wow (Score:5, Informative)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Friday April 21, 2023 @02:05AM (#63466372)

    Is it just me or are people getting stupider?

  • Funny how the government went from complete denial to skeptical examiner. Sure, it might be the right way to do things .... but the way they did a 180, almost makes me feel like the UFO's are the circus in Bread and Circuses. Yeah, its more than a little jaded, but I wonder if they are putting out entertaining stories as a way of giving some hope of their being more "out there" and to distract us from the government's other projects which might not be so well intentioned.

    • Re:Bread and UFO's (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Friday April 21, 2023 @04:25AM (#63466472)

      You seem to think "the government" is a single entity that works with one mind. It isn't and never has been.

    • Skeptical examiner is good. Fear mongering cheerleader is not good.

      This is mostly pushed by right wing fucksticks, which is kind of funny since you would think it should clash with their manifest snowflake mentality.

    • Yeah, seems odd. But I read somewhere that the .gov's recent interest was triggered by a hard push by Harry Reid.

    • It is a real issue. It is not about ETs. All it takes is one glimpse behind the curtain, one. Then your whole worldview switches, and you stop believing consensus reality actually tells us everything. The essential thought experiment is to ask what breakthrough technological capabilities would make a small group so powerful that they would not share the said capabilities, and actively suppress their sharing? UFO tech fall into this group, as do other things. It does not mean it exists, but it means that thi

      • Breakthrough technological capabilities like Velcro, Microwave ovens.

        As Seen in Men in Black.

    • Ever hear of Project Bluebook? Government funded investigation from way back.

  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Friday April 21, 2023 @04:17AM (#63466468)
    Or maybe that's just what They want you to think.
    • Wasn't it just last year that the guy from Ancient Aliens and Skinwalker Ranch stated that he had been the lead scientist for the government UAP program for a year or two?

      I just see that part as "we will put a *scientist* from some sensational tv show in charge and everybody will buy it." type of crap. Misdirect the American people away from other things they wish to keep secret, i.e. the possibility that the anomalous ones are a new reconnaissance stealth drone in testing, or that the govt. already know
      • It's more the media than the government that makes things out of this crap. But Congress knows what it's doing when it holds entire hearings about literally nothing...about files concerning unidentified things. Go for a walk, see a flower, not know what kind of flower it is, boom! Unidentified Flowering Object. Let's call the military and hold Congressional hearings about it.
  • by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Friday April 21, 2023 @05:08AM (#63466526) Homepage

    This just sounds like a waste of time and money.
    If they do find any proof of aliens it would probably be marked as classified.
    And if they actually tell the truth, the conspiracy nuts probably won't believe it.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I have a theory that the ET's do most their work around drunken toothless ramblers to discredit and embarrass all witnesses. It's how I'd run a UFO shop that needs to exit stealth mode every now and then.

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday April 21, 2023 @07:52AM (#63466726)

    That sentence started out promising ... "Pentagon shoots down UFO..." .. then it got lame.

    • I know. It was probably silly to think that the Pentagon could shoot down anything these days without finding out its pronouns first.

  • Sortly after making his statement, Kirkpatrick was disintegrated by a pale green beam from the sky.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

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