The Pentagon released a video of a reported UFO flying at a high rate of speed in the vicinity of Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones that "showed some really interesting things that everyone thought was truly anomalous."
The object flew over South Asia earlier this year and appeared to have a propulsion trail, but it was later determined to be a "censor artifact," Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick explained.
It was the second of two videos that the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) showed lawmakers during the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing on April 19.
The first was an "unresolved" UAP – unidentified anomalous phenomena, which is the government-created word for UFO – in an active conflict zone in the Middle East in 2022.
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"Why am I showing you this?" Kirkpatrick told lawmakers. "This is the kind of data we have to work with and the type of analysis we have to do, which can be extensive when you have to pull these apart frame by frame."
"Further, we're now matching all of this with models of all those imaging censors so that I can recreate this. I can actually show how the censor is going to respond."
Kirkpatrick showed an infographic during his presentation with information about the 2023 UFO sighting in South Asia that he said is "resolved."
The Pentagon is tracking more than 650 cases of reported UFOs that are preliminarily categorized into common objects like balloons or airplanes. The ones that don't fit in any of the categories are prioritized by where they were spotted, Kirkpatrick said.
"Are they attached to a national security area? Does [it] show some anomalous phenomenology that's of interest?" he said.
"If it's just a spherical thing that's just floating around with the wind and has no payload, that's less important than something with a payload on it, and that's less important than something that's maneuvering."
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An in-depth report about UFO reportings is expected to be released sometime this summer, possibly in July, Kirkpatrick said.
He opened his presentation by saying there's no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial technology or alien life.
But the number of UAP reports has increased over the last few years as the stigma associated with UAPs slowly wears off and as the government ramps up its efforts to address potential safety risks associated with unexplained objects in the sky.
The ongoing review by the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon of hundreds of UAP incidents reported by military personnel was one of the techniques that helped identify Chinese spy balloon, a U.S. official said in February.
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Last week's public hearing was only the second one in the last 50 years in which lawmakers have openly discussed UFOs. The first was last May.
Kirkpatrick said there needs to be more information and data funneled to the AARO if the department hopes to close "unresolved cases."
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"We're working with the joint staff to issue guidance to all the services and commands that will then establish what are the reporting requirements, timeliness and all the data that is required to be delivered to us and retained from all the associated censors," Kirkpatrick said.
Former Navy pilot Ryan Graves was one of the whistleblowers who have come forward to discuss their interactions with potential UFOs.
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"We need to be able to agnostically, as a media, accept that there is uncertainty and look at it from a first principles approach," Graves said in March. "Because if we wrap it into all that context about little green men, we’re going to be barking up the wrong tree."
Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker who was the only civilian named during Congress' historic UAP hearing in May 2022, told Fox News Digital that "no single video of a UAP will make the case for the UFO reality."
"That case has been consistently made over the decades when civilians and military pilots alike have reported or recorded objects, events and experiences that defy our current understanding of what's possible," he said.
"It's important to remember that consensus reality is what dictates our beliefs, and time and time again, consensus reality has shifted to accommodate discovery and actual reality. We must change and adapt when we learn new truths."
"The acknowledgment of the UFO presence is likely one of those formative moments for humanity."
