Pentagon report throws cold water on UFOs, alien visits
A new Pentagon report says there is "no evidence" the U.S. government or any private companies have reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, nor are there any confirmed sightings of UFOs having alien origin, contradicting a high-profile whistleblower who has made those claims without evidence.
The Pentagon's newly established All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released findings Friday in the first volume of the Historical Record Report, fulfilling a requirement enacted by Congress to review the history of what are now referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
The AARO combed through U.S. government investigations and reports into UAPs as far back as 1945, looking into both classified and unclassified documents while also interviewing 30 people.
The office's report said there is no evidence of hidden UAP reverse-engineering programs, saying any claims of those programs are either false or misidentified or relate to a disestablished program.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the AARO conducted a "rigorous analytic and scientific approach to investigate past U.S. government-sponsored UAP investigation efforts and the claims made by interviewees that the U.S. government and various contractors have recovered and are hiding off-world technology and biological material."
"To date, AARO has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology," Ryder said.
"Also, AARO has found no evidence that any U.S. government investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology," he added.
The AARO found most UAP sightings involved ordinary objects and were the "result of misidentification," and said that while some UAP reports remain unresolved, those are still a mystery due to the lack of available data to demystify them.
The AARO also debunked several specific claims made over the years of UAP sightings, including a former military officer who claimed he touched an extraterrestrial craft, which turned out to be an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter jet; an individual who claimed he overheard Pentagon officials discuss a test site where aliens were supposed to be at; and a sample provided by a private organization that was later determined not to be off-world technology.
"The interviewees and others who have mistakenly associated authentic sensitive
national security programs with UAP had incomplete or unauthorized access to
these programs," the AARO wrote in the report. "Discussion of these programs outside of secure facilities presents a high risk of exposing national security information."
The AARO did, however, acknowledge that the Department of Homeland Security received a proposal for a special program called Kona Blue by individuals who wanted to investigate if the U.S. was hiding off-world technology, but the program was never approved.
The findings come after David Grusch, a former military intelligence officer, claimed last year that the U.S. is holding back information about UAPs and that they have recovered nonhuman craft with nonhuman biological materials.
Grusch, a former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, has testified in front of Congress but has not been able to offer evidence for his claims.
The AARO said in its report that a consistent group of individuals who believe the U.S. is hiding off-world craft — some of whom were involved in the failed Kona Blue effort — are responsible for the lingering accusations that Washington is hiding something.
The AARO also blamed inaccurate UAP sightings in the 20th Century on people unfamiliar with emerging technology at the time, including rockets, and attributed the persistence of the claims to distrust in the U.S. government and a culture excited about aliens.
The first volume from the AARO is based on a review of findings from 1945 to October, while a second volume will focus on interviews and research from November to April.