On Tuesday, for the first time in more than half a century, the US Congress will hold a [public hearing] on UFOs, CNET reported( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYfxwBQL69A ) Now, officials call it "unidentified air phenomenon" (UAP)** At least since the Roswell incident in 1947, the concept of UFO and its potential connection with alien intelligent life have attracted the public and popular culture, but this week's hearing originated from a series of events in recent years. It began with some recorded UAP sightings by military personnel over the past few decades, which were first leaked and then confirmed and declassified by the U.S. government.
In 2020, Florida Senator Marco Rubio added a paragraph to a funding bill requiring the director of the National Intelligence Agency to prepare a "report on unidentified air phenomena (also known as' abnormal aircraft '), including unidentified air objects observed".
The nine page document, released on June 25, 2021, caused far more memes than panic. Then in December, US President Biden signed a new defense authorization bill into law. It includes requiring the military to establish a new office to investigate the UAP and provide annual reports and semi annual briefings to Congress.
The new Pentagon UAP office is known as the "air target identification and management synchronization team" (aoimsg), and one of the top U.S. intelligence officials working to launch it will be a witness at Tuesday's hearing.
"We are still trying to fully staff the organization and put them into the rhythm of fighting," John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, said on May 10.
No new UAP sightings or data are expected at this week's hearing, but CNET believes people can look forward to some discussion on the 9-Page report released last June.
The Pentagon UFO report shows that all the strange flying objects seen over the years are divided into several categories, need more research, and are still largely unable to explain and identify.
"The limited number of high-quality reports on unidentified air phenomena hinders our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of the UAP," the office of the director of national intelligence wrote in a summary of the report published online on June 25.
"There may be many types of UAPs that require different interpretations based on the scope of appearance and behavior described in existing reports... UAPs clearly pose flight safety issues and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security," the summary said.
According to the document, each report on UAP "may... Belong to one of five potential interpretation categories: Airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government or U.S. industrial development projects, foreign opponent systems and an overarching" other "possibility".
Some of these categories led the report authors to highlight potential concerns.
"Security issues are mainly focused on pilots' struggle with increasingly chaotic airspace. If UAP is a collection platform for foreign opponents or provides evidence that potential opponents have developed breakthrough or destructive technologies, it will also represent a national security challenge."
It is worth noting that the U.S. Department of defense UAP working group reported 11 "recorded cases of pilots reporting that they almost missed the UAP".
There is not enough data to determine whether the UAP belongs to the potential competitor.
Some hope that the report will include revelations that change reality, or at least a watershed in the UFO truth movement, as in the 1947 Roswell crash, a secret military reconnaissance mission rather than an alien spacecraft. However, this remains to be seen.
"I'm surprised by this report," blogger Mick West said on twitter at the time. He has always been a prominent debunker of UAP's alien spacecraft interpretation. "This seems to be an overall accurate assessment of the situation."
Over the years, pilots and other military personnel have encountered strange things in the sky, which are called "unidentified air phenomena". The change from "UFO" to "UAP" is partly to indicate that some events may be explained by technical faults or environmental phenomena rather than actual tangible objects.
The report acknowledges from the beginning that some UAPs may be just errors in the system.
"Sensors that register various forms of UAP usually operate correctly and capture enough real data for preliminary evaluation, but some UAPs may be attributed to sensor abnormalities." But it continued to conclude: "most of the reported UAPs may indeed represent physical objects."
"In a limited number of incidents, the UAP is said to have shown unusual flight characteristics. These observations may be the result of sensor errors, deception or misunderstandings by observers, requiring additional rigorous analysis."
The report is required to be made public and includes a confidential annex. Officials previously told the New York Times that the appendix did not contain any evidence of alien visits.
The report does not address the long-standing human question of whether we have been visited by aliens, but it does not mention E.T. at all.