There is no evidence of alien visits, says Pentagon

The Pentagon’s new initiative to investigate UFO reports has so far not produced any evidence to suggest aliens have visited Earth or crash-landed here, US military leaders said on Friday.

However, the Pentagon’s program to investigate anomalous and unidentified objects – whether they are in space, in the skies or even underwater – has led to hundreds of new reports, which are now being investigated, officials said.

But so far, they haven’t seen anything to indicate the existence of intelligent alien life.

“So far, I haven’t seen anything in these reports to suggest there was an alien visit, an alien crash or anything like that,” said Ronald Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s newly established All-Domain Anomaly Resolution (AARO) office, did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and said he was taking a scientific approach to the research.

“I would just say that we’re structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We’re going to get through all of that,” Kirkpatrick said, speaking at the first press conference since AARO was created in July.

“And as a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.”

AARO’s mission focuses on unexplained activity around military installations, restricted airspace and “other areas of concern” and aims to help identify potential threats to US military operations and national security.

A government report last year documented more than 140 cases of what the US military officially calls “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs, observed since 2004.

All but one of the sightings listed — an episode attributed to a large deflating balloon — remain unexplained, subject to further analysis, the report said.

For the other 143 cases, the report found that there is little data to conclude whether they represent some exotic air system developed by a US, government or commercial entity, or by a foreign power such as China or Russia.

The 2021 report included some UAPs revealed in previously released Pentagon videos of enigmatic objects exhibiting speed and maneuverability superior to known aviation technology, and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight control surfaces.

Kirkpatrick said hundreds of other cases have since been documented. The exact number will be released soon, but a senior Navy official said in May that the total number of reported cases had already reached 400.