It is official: the Pentagon is indeed launching a task force to study instances of unidentified flying objects or areal phenomenon, the US Department of Defence said in a statement.
According to the Pentagon, the aim of the group will be “to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs”.
“The mission of the task force is to detect, analyse and catalogue UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to US national security”, the officials added.
The group, dubbed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), has been approved by Deputy Secretary of Defence David L. Norquist and will be led by the Department of the Navy, under the observance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence and Security.
Explaining the move, the Pentagon said that the safety of American military personnel remains a top priority for the officials and thus it will take “any incursions by unauthorised aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report”.
“This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing,” the DoD announced.
Back in 2017, the Pentagon confirmed that it had previously been operating a programme set up to investigate UFO sightings, which ended in 2012. Some said that the lack of funding from the Department of Defence was the reason for its forced stop.
But the launch of the new task force follows an unprecedented alien-related development in the top ranks of the US military. Just in April, Defence officials declassified three videos featuring encounters of American military with unidentified flying objects in 2004, 2014 and 2015, as taken by US Navy fighter jets flying from the USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carriers. The Department of Defence confirmed the authenticity of the footage, arguing that the nature of the object in questions remains unclear.
