A few days ago, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, known as the Pentagon, announced a new website for the All-Area Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a government program focused on Unidentified Flying Object (UFO or UAP) investigations.
The site provides information on solved cases, unsolved cases and even some videos showing UFOs in ‘action’. As well as providing videos of UAPs, the site is also intended to function as a clearing house for sightings of the anomalous phenomena; reports of sightings will be received from the military and the general public.
The AARO claims that it uses scientific concepts to interpret the phenomenon, but many cases remain unexplained – on the other hand, ufologists claim that UFOs are spaceships belonging to extraterrestrial beings, but there is no confirmation for the theory.
From now on, solved and declassified UFO cases will be publicized via the website, including the release of photos and videos – soon, government employees, contractors and the US military will be able to report sightings via an online form. According to the AARO, the aim of the program is to minimize the technical and intelligence surprise of these unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) in order to improve the country’s security.
“I believe transparency is a critical component of AARO’s work, and I am committed to sharing AARO’s findings with Congress and the public, consistent with our responsibility to protect critical national defense and intelligence capabilities,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks in a message sent to DefenseScoop.
The obsession with UFOs
In 2019, scientists conducted a survey on the possibility of life outside Earth and, after 26,000 people in 24 countries participated, they found that Russians (68%), Mexicans (61%) and Chinese (60%) are more likely to believe in the phenomenon; about 45% of Americans also believe. In all, 61% of people say they believe in some form of life on other planets.
In a recent interview with the Interesting Engineering website, Harvard professor and astrophysicist Avi Loeb said that around two thirds of Americans believe in extraterrestrials. Loeb was responsible for proposing the idea that Omuamua is an alien cosmic object and recently collected supposed ‘extraterrestrial spheres’ at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
“While I lived in Iran in the 1970s and up to the present day, I was surprised by the interest in UFOs there. So I believe that interest in UFOs is high in most countries. It’s past time for the United States to take the study of UFO reports seriously and appoint a high-level panel to evaluate the data, reports and videos recently released by the Pentagon,” said Loeb.
Future of UFO investigations
The US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, will be the supervisor of the AARO and the current director of the program, Sean Kirkpatrick; the aim of the news on the subject is to speed up the development of the program.
In any case, the website doesn’t mention the possible extraterrestrial origin of these phenomena – it’s no wonder that many US politicians are concerned that these UFOs are related to technology from other countries, such as Russia or China.
During an interview with the TV channel News Nation, Congressman Tim Burchett claimed that the new AARO website only published old content about UFOs. He even says that he doesn’t trust anything that AARO publishes. “The stuff that’s already on it is old stuff… I don’t trust them one bit,” said Burchett.
In July 2023, during a public hearing in the US Congress, former intelligence agent David Grusch claimed that a secret US military group possesses alien spaceships and the bodies of biological beings of non-human origin; supposedly, these military personnel are working on a top-secret program to reverse engineer these spaceships.
NASA also held a broadcast in June 2023 to announce a major investigation into UFOs and said it was necessary to put an end to prejudice on the subject.
“It’s [necessary] to ensure that the information can be received in a way that it’s handled appropriately to ensure, again, privacy, both from a legal and regulatory point of view, but also to ensure that this site and the information there is secure. So that will be something that we will continue to keep the public updated on. The AARO is focused on the facts, gathering information, reviewing the facts and, where possible, declassifying that information and making it available [to the civilian public],” said General and Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder.