A report revealing more details about the US government’s taskforce researching Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs, is set to be released.
Last week the COVID-19 relief bill was signed by President Trump, committing the country to a $2.3 trillion (£1.7trn) pandemic aid package as positive cases continue to rise.
Buried within the bill’s 5,600 pages were a number of laws with little to do with the coronavirus pandemic, including one requiring the US intelligence services to submit an unclassified report on UFOs to the Senate intelligence committee within 180 days.
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Declassified: UFOs filmed by US navy pilots
The report must include “a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held” by almost all of the country’s intelligence agencies.
It must also include: “Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk.”
Christopher Mellon, a former assistant secretary of defence for intelligence, tweeted that he was hopeful the new administration would “rigorously execute its oversight prerogatives” in this area.
He added: “The concerns of the public and numerous military personnel have been ignored by the national security bureaucracy for far too long.”
It follows the Pentagon declassifying three videos and a range of new details about encounters between US navy aircraft and UAPs last year. The three short videos were recorded by navy pilots in November 2004 and January 2015.
In one video, a dark circular object is seen flying in front of a jet, while another shows a small object speeding over land. The final video clip shows a circular object moving quickly before appearing to slow down.
A voice in one of the videos can be heard saying “there’s a whole fleet of them,” while another adds: “They’re all going against the wind. The wind’s 120 knots to the west. Look at that thing, dude!”
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Nick Pope, who previously investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, has told Sky News the footage shared by the Pentagon could be something “extra-terrestrial” but he did not have a “definitive explanation”.
“Assuming we’re not dealing with a combination of pilot mis-perception and forward-looking infrared camera anomalies, (which is unlikely, as a lot of this was captured on radar too), there are very few options,” he said.
“US black project technology being blind-tested against the military as part of the evaluation process, a Russian or Chinese drone engaged in reconnaissance, or something genuinely unknown and yes, perhaps even extra-terrestrial.”