What we know about Pentagon efforts to study UFOs and ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’

By Daniel Otis, CTVNews.ca writer

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    TORONTO (CTV Network) — As the search continues for three mysterious objects shot down over Canada and the U.S., the White House says it will be engaging its allies on the subject of “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

“These unidentified aerial phenomena have been reported for many years, without explanation or deep examination by the government,” White House national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “President Biden has changed all that. We are finally trying to understand them better.”

Unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP for short, is a term used in official circles for what are more commonly known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. Kirby described it as “an issue that affects everybody around the world.”

“Secondly, we are consulting with allies and partners on the challenge of unidentified aerial phenomenon and how we can all work together to deal with that challenge,” Kirby explained. “The president has directed the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence to engage with their relevant counterparts to share information and to try to gain their perspectives as well.”

CTVNews.ca reached out to relevant Canadian departments like Global Affairs, National Defence and Public Safety to learn more, but did not receive responses. WHAT IS THE U.S. DOING ABOUT UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA?

While Canadian and American officials both looked into UFOs during the Cold War, little was known about subsequent programs until a December 2017 investigation by The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon had been quietly studying the national security implications of UAP since 2007. Amid renewed public and political interest, in 2020 the Pentagon publicly announced the creation of the UAP Task Force. That group has now been replaced by what’s known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which was established thanks to a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate.

“UAPs pose a significant challenge to our national security, appearing in sensitive U.S. airspace and around military personnel,” U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Kirsten Gillibrand, a Republican and a Democrat, said in a joint December 2021 statement.

A headline-grabbing June 2021 report from U.S. intelligence officials described recent U.S. military sightings, including UAP that appeared to “manoeuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion.” In an updated report from Jan. 12, 2023, U.S. officials said 171 out of 510 reports remained “uncharacterized and unattributed,” and that some of them involved UAP that appeared “to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.”

“We apply the highest analytic and scientific standards,” Sean M. Kirkpatrick, the Pentagon program’s current director, said during a December 2022 media roundtable. “We execute our mission objectively and without sensationalism and we do not rush to conclusions.”

NASA has also announced its own UAP study program, which started work in October 2022.

“Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified anomalous phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable.”

The issue has taken on a new urgency following the February 2023 downing of three unidentified objects and a suspected Chinese spy balloon in North American airspace.

“The president also instructed the Intelligence Community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects,” Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said on Monday. “Indeed, President Biden conducted the first-ever Daily Intelligence Briefing session devoted to this phenomenon back in June of 2021. He was briefed that this is not just an issue for the United States but one for the rest of the world. And as I said, our friends and our partners are dealing with this as well.” IS CANADA INVESTIGATING UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA?

This wouldn’t be the first time U.S. officials reached out to their Canadian counterparts about UAP, an acronym that’s also used for the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena.”

CTVNews.ca previously reported that members of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force briefed Canadian military personnel nearly a year ago, on Feb. 22, 2022. Former Canadian defence minister Harjit Sajjan also received a UAP briefing from Canadian military officials in May 2021, and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra’s staff held their own internal UAP briefing in May 2022.

Declassified documents and public records reveal decades of reports of unidentified objects and lights over Canada from police officers, soldiers, air traffic controllers and pilots on medical, military, cargo and passenger flights operated by WestJet, Air Canada Express, Porter Airlines, Delta and more. In 2022 alone, CTVNews.ca discovered 11 reports like these from pilots flying for airlines such as Air Canada, WestJet, Virgin Atlantic, United and KLM. The most recent report comes from Feb. 7, 2023, when a cargo flight from Miami to Amsterdam “observed unusual lights, moving erratically 40000ft to 50000ft” while flying near Nova Scotia.

Transport Canada, which operates the online aviation incident database where many of these reports are found, cautions that they contain “preliminary, unconfirmed data which can be subject to change.”

A spokesperson from Transport Canada previously told CTVNews.ca that UAP reports “have no potential for regulatory enforcement and often fall outside the department’s mandate.”

“Reports of unidentified objects can rarely be followed up on as they are as the title implies, unidentified,” they said.

For its part, the Canadian military routinely states that it does “not typically investigate sightings of unknown or unexplained phenomena outside the context of investigating credible threats, potential threats, or potential distress in the case of search and rescue.” Before the recent downing of the three unidentified objects this month, at least four cases appear to have met that criteria since 2016.

Conservative defence critic James Bezan believes Canadian officials ought to be paying more attention to this enigmatic issue.

“The Canadian government needs to implement a scientific plan to identify the origins and intent of UAP,” Bezan previously told CTVNews.ca. “Conservatives believe the best way to start that process is for government to adopt a streamlined, whole-of-government approach to standardize the collection of reports across numerous departments and contractors… All efforts undertaken to investigate UAP should be made public in a responsible manner.” DOES THIS MEAN THE PENTAGON IS STUDYING ALIENS?

U.S. officials regularly state there is no evidence that UAP represent extraterrestrial technology.

“We have detected no emanations within the UAP Task Force that would suggest it’s anything non-terrestrial in origin,” Scott Bray, the deputy director of U.S. naval intelligence, said in May 2022, during the first congressional hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years.

In Monday’s briefing, Kirby also shot down theories that the three downed objects could have otherworldly origins.

“I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens, with respect to these craft. Period,” Kirby, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said. “I don’t think there’s any more that needs to be said there.”

In a Tuesday update, Kirby said a “leading explanation” is that three objects “could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose.”

Officials and experts agree that there are likely many explanations for UAP sightings, including drones, lasers, balloons, satellites, meteors, floating lanterns, weather phenomena, advanced military technology and more.

“I’m a firm believer that these UAPs are not from another planet and another universe,” Iain Boyd, professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, told CTVNews.ca. “I think that there’s no one explanation, though, for all these different UAP events, but one of the most likely ones is going to be some kind of experimental vehicles or surveillance vehicles.”

Robert Powell is a Texas-based engineer and founding board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, which is an international thinktank dedicated to applying scientific principals to UAP research. The group appears more open to possibilities.

“I’m sure a small percentage of UAP reports may be related to foreign surveillance, just as a small percentage are truly anomalous and unexplainable,” Powell told CTVNews.ca. “The vast majority of reports should have an explanation.”

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