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THEY'RE HERE! Pentagon’s UFO hunting department is still active and could make findings public every 6 months

A Senate committee report has asked for a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence
UPDATED JUL 24, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

The Pentagon’s once-secret unit, which investigated unidentified flying objects (UFOs), is still operating despite claims that it was disbanded in 2012, according to a report. The program called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is now housed inside the Office of Naval Intelligence. 

A Senate committee report, dated June 17, says that committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence to “standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to US military assets and installations.” According to the New York Times (NYT), the task force was to report at least some of its findings to the public every six months.  

“However, the committee remains 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. The committee understands that the relevant intelligence may be sensitive; nevertheless, the committee finds that the information sharing and coordination across the intelligence community has been inconsistent, and this issue has lacked attention from senior leaders,” says the Senate committee report. 

Accordingly, the senators have called for a detailed report on the program's progress and any phenomena it observes. The provision is part of the 2021 intelligence authorization bill. If approved, a report will have to be submitted to Congress within 180 days. “The committee directs the DNI (Director of National Intelligence), in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other agencies as the Director and Secretary jointly consider relevant, to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena, also known as 'anomalous aerial vehicles',’’ it says. This includes observed airborne objects that have not been identified. “The report shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex,” says the committee.

The committee stipulates that the report should include a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, including data and intelligence reporting held by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The report should also include a detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence, human intelligence, and measurement and signals intelligence. 

The committee wants the report to detail identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries. Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put US strategic or conventional forces at risk, is another area that the report should include.

“The committee further directs the report to include a detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was derived from investigations of intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted US airspace, and a detailed description of an interagency process for ensuring timely data collection and centralized analysis of all unidentified aerial phenomena reporting for the federal government, regardless of which service or agency acquired the information,” it adds. Recommendations regarding the increased collection of data, enhanced research and development, and additional funding and other resources must be part of the analysis.

The Senate committee wants the report to detail identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security (Getty Images)

According to NYT, Defense Department officials had said that the task force’s predecessor unit — the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and its $22 million in funding — had lapsed after 2012. “People working with the program, however, said it was still in operation in 2017 and beyond, statements later confirmed by the Defense Department. The program began in 2007 under the Defense Intelligence Agency and was then placed within the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, which remains responsible for its oversight. But its coordination with the intelligence community will be carried out by the Office of Naval Intelligence, as described in the Senate budget bill. The program never lapsed in those years, but little was disclosed about the post-2017 operations,” says the NYT report. 

The Pentagon program’s previous director, Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who resigned in October 2017 after 10 years with the program, told NYT that the new task force “evolved from the advanced aerospace program.” “It no longer has to hide in the shadows. It will have a new transparency,” he said. Elizondo is among those who believe that “objects of undetermined origin have crashed on earth with materials retrieved for study.”

Eric W Davis, an astrophysicist who worked as a subcontractor and then a consultant for the Pentagon UFO. program since 2007, told NYT that as recently as March, he gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency, informing it about retrievals from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”

Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, also told NYT that “it is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out.” He is sure that “vehicles from other worlds” have crashed into the US and have been retrieved and investigated. “After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports — some were substantive, some not so substantive — that there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession,” he said.

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