There has been a dramatic increase in the number of sightings of UFOs over the past two years, according to a report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on Thursday.
The report, which was current as of August 2022, revealed that “there have been 247 new reports and another 119” unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), as the Pentagon now calls them, that were either since discovered or reported since the ODNI’s preliminary assessment on sightings in 2020.
At that time, the office had accumulated just 144 reports in 17 years, but now the total stands at 510, the document states.
The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was set up by the Department of Defense in July 2022, was assigned to sort through the roughly 366 newly identified reports using a “robust analytic process” to make “initial characterizations” of their nature.
According to the report, the AARO characterized 26 reports as being of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or UAS-like entities; 163 were characterized as balloon or balloon-like entities; and six were attributed to clutter.
“Initial characterization does not mean positively resolved or unidentified,” the report notes. “This initial characterization better enables AARO and ODNI to efficiently and effectively leverage resources against the remaining 171 uncharacterized and unattributed UAP reports.
“Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis,” the ODNI noted.
“The majority of new UAP reporting originates from US Navy and US Air Force aviators and operators who witnessed UAP during the course of their operational duties and reported the events to the UAPTF [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, AARO’s predecessor] or AARO through official channels. Regardless of the collection or reporting method, many reports lack enough detailed data to enable attribution of UAP with high certainty.“
In a statement on Thursday, US Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, hailed the report’s publication, calling it “a step forward in understanding and addressing risks to aviators.”
“Overall, I am encouraged to see an increase in UAP reporting – a sign of decreased stigma among pilots who are aware of the potential threat that UAPs can pose,” he added.
The ODNI’s report is now mandated annually by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the massive spending bill that funds the Pentagon every year.
The US military has long taken an interest in UFO sightings, launching several programs to collect reports and study them, beginning with Project Blue Book from 1952 until 1969. That project yielded the conclusion that UFOs were not extraterrestrial craft, but explainable phenomena, including stars, meteors, weather phenomena, and experimental aircraft. Later, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) tracked similar reports before being shut down in 2012.
In 2017, the Pentagon confirmed the existence of the UAPTF, despite the public closing of the AATIP years earlier, and after, lawmakers began requesting the release of footage collected by the program, which also began to be leaked in the press.
In 2021, Congress required the ODNI to begin issuing an annual report on UFO sightings and the potential dangers they might include for US military installations and warships, and in May 2022, the Senate held a hearing on the phenomena.