UFOs? Yes, but no aliens, says US government

WASHINGTON – The truth is out there, but aliens aren’t – at least according to the US government.

Reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) resembling a green fireball, jellyfish with multi-coloured flashing lights, and a 1.8m-long silver rocket were described in an 18-page annual report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

The 2024 iteration of the document released on Nov 14 by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a US government office under the Department of Defence (DOD), reviewed a total of 757 cases of UAP phenomena.

The cases were reported from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, as well as any previous UAP reports that were not included in an earlier report.

Although most of the cases have been dismissed as sightings of more regular objects like balloons, birds, unmanned aerial systems (drones), satellites and aircraft, 21 cases have yet to be explained.

In a Nov 19 Congress hearing, director of the AARO Jon Kosloski said that his office is still investigating cases involving an “orange orb” and “a metallic cylinder”.

The orange orb was “floating several hundred feet above the ground a couple of miles away” from a law enforcement officer “out west”, said Mr Kosloski.

When the officer approached it to investigate, he saw “a blacker than black object” that was about 1.2m to 1.8m wide. As he got within 40 to 60 metres of the object, it tilted 45 degrees and “shot up vertically, 10 to a 100 times faster than any drone he has ever seen before” without making a sound.

As it left his field of view, it emitted “very bright red and blue lights” that illuminated the inside of the officer’s vehicle “as brightly as if someone had set off fireworks just outside of his vehicle,” Mr Kosloski told Congress.

“When he came back to investigate the area, he found no disturbance of the ground beneath it.”

In another case, two cars driven by government contractors left a facility in the south-eastern part of the United States at about 9am local time.

They saw in the sky a large, stationary metallic cylinder “about the size of a commercial airplane” with a “very bright white light” behind or around it. After observing it for 15 to 20 seconds, they saw the object disappear.

“Obviously an object that large and stationary – unless it’s a blimp – is unusual, but then disappearing, we can’t explain how that would happen,” Mr Kosloski said.

In a third case, an aircraft was flying parallel to another while capturing images of it when a “small-looking object” appeared to fly between the two of them, except it was much faster than both aircraft.

“Many other cases remain unresolved and AARO continues collection and analysis on that body of cases. It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” stated the AARO in its report.

What is the AARO?

The AARO’s mission is to “synchronise efforts” across the DOD and other US federal departments and agencies to “detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest”.

The term UAP has replaced the term UFO, or Unidentified Flying Object, in official parlance. UFOs are commonly linked to spacecraft, commonly referred to as “flying saucers” in popular culture due to their resemblance to aerial tableware, and are said to be piloted by extraterrestrials, which are lifeforms that do not originate from Earth. You may know them as aliens.

This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.

The AARO is also tasked with mitigating any associated threats to safety of operations and national security where necessary.

In May 2024, a group of Japanese lawmakers including two former defence ministers

urged the Japanese government to look into unidentified flying objects

, citing 2023 AARO findings.

“According to what AARO announced in 2023, there had been many reports of UAP sightings in the skies over Japan,” said a member of the group.

The US government has begun

taking the issue of UAPs more seriously in recent years

. The Pentagon in March

released a 63-page document

rebutting claims that it has information on extraterrestrial visits or technology, and found no evidence that there had been cover-ups.

In September 2023,

a Nasa panel recommended

 that the US space agency increase its efforts to gather information on UAPs.

A US defence official told lawmakers in May 2022

that an

increasing number

of unidentified flying objects have been reported in the sky over the past 20 years, attributing the rise to efforts by the US military to “destigmatise the act of reporting sights and encounters”, as well as to technological advances.