The Pentagon will set a task force to investigate UFO sightings spotted by US military aircraft, CNN reported, citing unnamed defence sources.
According to the report, David Norquist, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, will head a newly-established task force set to be officially announced in the next few days.
The reported initiative is thought to have emerged particularly due to the release of three short videos by the Pentagon earlier in April, showing what it described as "unidentified aerial phenomena". In June, a committee was established by the Pentagon to analyse these encounters.
"We have things flying over our military bases and places where we are conducting military exercises, and we don't know what it is and it isn't ours, so that's a legitimate question to ask," said GOP Senator Marco Rubio, who chaired this committee.
The three videos, released in April, showed encounters with "unidentified aerial phenomena" that took place in 2004 and 2017.
Earlier in 2007, a program to study recordings of observations of unknown aerial objects was launched at the behest of former Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, but ended in 2012 because "higher priorities" required available funding.
As of today, the Pentagon is reportedly returning to the idea of investigating UFO sightings. US President Donald Trump teased in June that he might know some "very interesting" facts about one of the most intriguing supposedly-alien incidents, which occurred in Roswell in the early 1970s.
Noting that "a lot of people would like to know what's going on", Trump hinted that he may declassify Roswell-related information but did not offer specifics.
