The Pentagon this week created a new office to track and analyze unidentified aerial phenomena – a new nomenclature for unidentified flying objects (UFOs) – in US special-use airspace, as the space reserved for training and other maneuvers is designated military.
The creation of the Airborne Object Management Synchronization and Identification Group (Aoimsg) was informed in a memorandum signed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, who claimed in the document that UFOs pose a potential risk to aircrews and raise national security concerns.
The new group will have the attributions of creating a standard system for reporting such occurrences to the Department of Defense, collecting and analyzing operational, intelligence and counterintelligence data and developing approaches to prevent or mitigate risks posed by unidentified aerial phenomena, among others.
In June of this year, the office of the director of US National Intelligence released a preliminary report on these phenomena, which gathered information on UFOs sighted by military aviators and which were collected by systems deemed reliable by National Intelligence.
“These reports describe incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2021, with the majority occurring in the past two years, as the new reporting mechanism has become better known to the military aviation community. We were able to identify an unidentified aerial phenomenon reported with high confidence. In this case, we identify the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain inexplicable”, pointed out the report.
Altogether, there were 144 reports originating from US government sources, of which 80 involved observation with multiple sensors. “Most reports described unidentified aerial phenomena as objects that disrupted previously planned training or other military activity,” added National Intelligence.
The agency emphasized that unidentified aerial phenomena pose a danger to flight safety and may pose a broader risk “if some cases represent sophisticated action against US military activities by a foreign government or demonstrate innovative aerospace technology by an adversary potential”.
Tara Copp, a Pentagon operative at the military news website Defense One, noted in an article published after the new group was announced that the June report neither proves nor disproves that extraterrestrial technology is behind the unidentified air phenomena described. , in which flying objects maneuvered in ways beyond the known capabilities of the United States and its geopolitical rivals.
She stressed that the big news is that the matter is being brought into the spotlight of American defense strategy, rather than being treated with the secrecy that has always sparked folklore and conspiracy theories – and at a time when new weapons developed by adversaries do the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, sees a “Sputnik moment.”
“The creation of the office is important; for years, reports from Naval Aviation pilots were dismissed and aviators were reluctant to discuss such encounters. Bringing the office into the mainstream, where it will articulate with National Intelligence and have the high-level contribution of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the signal is that, amidst new technologies being rapidly implemented by China and Russia, whatever it may be that pilots are seeing there, the Pentagon wants to know more about it,” Copp said.
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