WASHINGTON — There has been a recent increase in UFO sightings, but an official U.S. government report has a message for you — please move along, there’s nothing to see here, and the aliens won’t harm you.
The annual intelligence document, delivered to Congress on Oct. 17, 2023, details 291 new sightings of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) from 2019, raising the total cases reviewed by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to over 800 as of April 30, 2023.
The AARO, leading the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) efforts, focuses on documenting and analyzing potential extraterrestrial sightings. Most reports originate from restricted military airspace, reflecting a bias due to reports from military personnel and sensors in these areas. However, reports from commercial pilots have diversified the geographic distribution of UAP sightings (formerly known as UFOs) across the United States.
“While the mere presence of UAP in the airspace represents a potential hazard to flight safety, none of these reports suggest the UAP maneuvered to an unsafe proximity to civil or military aircraft, positioned themselves in flight paths, or otherwise posed a direct threat to the flight safety of the observing aircraft,” the report states.
During the reporting period, AARO received no indications that UAP sightings were “associated with any adverse health effects.” However, they note that “many reports from military witnesses do present potential safety of flight concerns, and there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability.”
“Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies,” says Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder in a media release. “The Department thanks the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other contributing departments and agencies for their collaborative efforts to produce this report. The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one.”
The 2023 UAP report covers reports from Aug. 31, 2022 to April 30, 2023, as well as any unreported cases from previous periods. In total, AARO received 291 UAP reports during this period, with 274 occurring within this timeframe and another 17 from 2019-2022 not included in earlier reports.
South West News Service writer Dean Murray contributed to this report.
AARO is not taken seriously by any of the UFO/UAP real experts. What is making the news is the tip of the iceberg of the global sightings. Reflected in the article are only those few reported in the US DoD.