The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently submitted a classified update to its congressionally mandated annual report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), formerly known as Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs. But this new information won’t likely be any more satisfying for extraterrestrial enthusiasts than other government documents on the subject. One possible exception is the identification of some UAP encounters as Chinese surveillance operations using drones.
The ODNI report looked at 144 sightings of unexplainable objects or phenomena between 2004 and 2021. All but one remain mysteries. With high confidence, that one was said to be a huge balloon deflating and descending. But some new information has come to light. “While Congress has been briefed on some of the conclusions about foreign surveillance, Pentagon officials have kept most of the work secret — in large measure because they do not want China or other countries to know that their efforts to spy on the American military were detected,” Julian E. Barnes, national security reporter for The New York Times, wrote. But Barnes’ article might have let the cat out of the bag. The brief description released on the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) surveillance efforts indicates the level of sophistication of the technology being used is not noteworthy.
Defense Department Explained ODNI UAP Report
Sue Gough, a Department of Defense official, told Barnes that the Pentagon is “collecting as much data as we can, following the data where it leads and will share our findings whenever possible.” Although the Defense Department is dedicated to transparency, much of the information remained classified to prevent scrutiny of the military’s sensors and other technologies used in evaluating the UFOs.
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Some sightings – particularly older ones – are unlikely to ever be explained, according to the Pentagon,” the New York Post explained. The recent reporting leaves the aficionados of all unidentified flying things with the work of “spies and airborne trash,” as Military Times’ Jonathan Lehrfeld described. Some explanations referred to inexplicable observations as visual artifacts created by the angle at which the viewer observed the object against the water. That left the impression of incredible speed.
Explanations of UFOs Fall Short
Additional assessments by military officials reveal one culprit was the optics on a classified sensor producing the spinning image seen in a US Navy video. But these explanations should not be a surprise. Liberty Nation’s coverage of the UAP congressional hearing on May 17 quoted Scott Bray, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force leader and deputy director of naval intelligence, describing the five categories in which UAPs were going to be placed. They were: (1) airborne clutter, (2) natural atmospheric phenomena, (3) US industry or governmental programs, (4) foreign adversaries’ systems, and (5) other observations that allow for a whole new “bin of difficult cases including potential surprise technological discoveries.” Airborne trash and spying fall into items one and four.
Will there ever be a level of detail provided by the Defense Department or intelligence community to quench the intense interest and curiosity of sky-watchers? Doubtful. Right now, many are perplexed about the existence of unknown technologies and their threat. And those who may know about them aren’t telling.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
