The long-awaited report from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) describing confirmed encounters of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena has been released (UAPs).
So they really live among us?
Numerous events have been labeled as showing “unusual flying characteristics or performance capabilities” yet continue to defy explanations.
There have been 510 UAP reports as of August 2022, while more information is only available in the classified version of the report, suggesting that UAP reporting is “growing,” which is “allowing a higher knowledge of the airspace and an enhanced opportunity to address UAP situations.”
The U.S. government thinks that the creation of the Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) would help in resolving UAP sightings.
The public perception of UFO sightings—now known as UAPs—held by the Pentagon has drastically changed in recent years. Notably, the administration unceremoniously declassified three recordings shot by equipment on U.S. aircraft in April 2020.
Navy planes that had previously been shown to the public through leaks in 2017 showed collisions with swiftly moving mystery objects.
The Office of Naval Intelligence’s UAP task force, which has since been replaced by the newly established All-Domain Anomaly Research Office (AARO), was required to submit an unclassified report to Congress outlining the nature of these unexplained phenomena.
This requirement was later included in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
This initial report, which was made public in June 2021, described 144 UAP sightings reported by “credible” sources during a 17-year period, from 2004 to 2021, with the majority of them coming from the military.
Many of the events described in the study, including ones that traveled “with high speed” and “without obvious means of propulsion,” were difficult to understand.
After the public publication, the government’s increased openness caused a sharp increase in the frequency of unexplained sightings as the stigma associated with reporting UAPs began to fade.
The eagerly anticipated ODNI 2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena has now been made available to the public, along with a more in-depth classified version for congressmen.
According to Space.com, the 2022 study described an additional 366 occurrences that have been observed subsequently by various government agencies and branches of the US military.
It also made reference to the fact that many of the 144 UAPs included in the 2021 preliminary evaluation remain unexplained.
Out of the 366 newly reported UAP events, 163 were classified as sightings of balloons or “entities that resemble balloons.” Another 26 “unmanned aircraft systems” (drones) were discovered, while another 6 were ascribed to pilots mistaking flying debris like plastic bags for other objects.
The other 171 UAP reports are still “uncharacterized,” in the elegant words of the AARO, and some of them have been found to exhibit odd flying characteristics or performance capabilities that call for more investigation.
Naturally, while referring to the mysterious encounters, the report included no mention of extraterrestrial visitors or spacecraft from other planets. Instead, aircraft safety and the logical fear that the sightings may be connected to the intelligence collection capabilities of other countries served as the motivation for the continuous need to investigate the phenomenon.