For the believers and nonbelievers, the Pentagon answered whether UFOs or aliens have ever visited Earth, saying there is no evidence.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder fielded several questions from reporters on Thursday on topics such as the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the use of B-2 bombers to conduct precision strikes on five military sites controlled by Houthi forces in Yemen, and North Korean soldiers fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine. On top of those subjects, the daily news cycle is filled with nonstop election coverage.
Jeff Schogol of Task & Purpose, which provides military news, culture and analysis by members of that community, took the opportunity to go off-topic with Ryder, and asked about one of Earth’s biggest mysteries.
“Given the news cycle, you could announce anything about aliens or extraterrestrial life, and no one would care,” Schogol said. “So…I’m just going to take the shot. What do you got on UFOs, aliens, etc.?”
“The truth is out there, Jeff, and the truth is, we have no evidence to indicate extraterrestrial life has visited the planet,” Ryder said.
The spokesperson’s message was the same that was given months ago on the topic after the coordination of efforts to get to the bottom of whether UFOs, unidentified anomalous phenomena, UAPs, and aliens had been to Earth.
On July 20, 2022, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the establishment of an All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
AARO’s mission is to synchronize efforts across the DoD and other U.S. federal departments and agencies to “detect, identify and attribute objects of interest” in or around military facilities or airspace, which could pose a threat to safety of operations or national security — this includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and trans medium objects.
Then in November, the DoD set up a website to report government activity related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs.
But after setting up the AARO and conducting multiple investigations, the DoD claims there is no evidence any UAPs came from out of this world.
“The aggregate findings of all USG investigations to date have not found even one case of UAP representing off-world technology,” according to the report, which was released on March 1, and “authentic sensitive national security programs” were “mistaken” with UFO programs.
“AARO has no evidence for the USG reverse-engineering narrative provided by interviewees and has been able to disprove the majority of the interviewees’ claims,” the report says, although “some claims are still under evaluation.”
Other conclusions put forth in the report include the public’s general mistrust of the government and “perceived bureaucratic barriers,” intense secrecy related to military programs and growing interest in UFOs.
To put the rapidly growing interest in UFOs into perspective — a once-considered taboo subject that destroyed careers, like Bob Lazar’s after he was essentially forced to hide in exile, had its own Super Bowl commercial.
Ryder, at around the same time the report was released, said there was no evidence that any information was “illegally or inappropriately” withheld from Congress.
“What we found was that claims of hidden programs are largely the result of circular reporting by a small group repeating what they heard from others and that many people have sincerely misinterpreted real events for mistaking sensitive U.S. programs as UAP or being extra-terrestrial exploitation,” he said.
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