Us government releases ufo files 2013

The report makes no mention of extraterrestrial life and never even implies that any of the reported UAP could be of extraterrestrial origin. While the report does not offer much in the way of explanation for the objects, it offers five categories of possible explanations:. Americans have long been fascinated by questions about what their government knows about UFOs, but several recent developments have driven lawmakers to push for more transparency.

The story would have shaken the American public to its core in the UFO-obsessed s, but barely rose above the din of daily news coverage in the first chaotic year of the Trump administration. Over the next few years, lawmakers and Defense officials began to take interest as more Navy pilots shared their accounts of frequent run-ins with UFOs, and several videos of the encounters were released.

A provision — which set the six-month timeline and added some additional funding for the project — was tucked into the Intelligence Authorization Act for the fiscal year , which passed as part of the December stimulus package.

Science writer Mick West is generally considered the leading voice of the group asserting that the UFOs spotted by the military are likely technology we already understand. In an appearance on CNN last month, he summarized his argument: The images we see in the military UAP videos could easily be the result of mis-calibrated instruments or various camera distortions.

Is it a failure of personnel or technology? For many, aerial objects moving in impossible ways immediately brings to mind alien visitors. But for those working in the electronic warfare industry, strangely manifesting phenomena are their stock-in-trade.

And the UFO phenomenon is perhaps one of the most potent of these stories, linking uncertainty about worlds beyond our own to conspiracy theories about government and especially the US government.

Down the centuries people have looked to the sky and tried to explain mysterious lights and objects. But the modern UFO story took root in when a farmer discovered debris at Roswell, New Mexico, initially described as a flying disc, but now thought to be part of a secretive balloon programme to monitor the Soviet Union. Subsequently the testing base for advanced aircraft, known as Area 51 in Nevada, became the alleged centre for UFO research.

For the conspiracy theorists this was where the US government sought to harness advanced alien technology. Over the years many of the most outlandish theories have been debunked.

But in , the Pentagon did finally admit that it had a long-standing programme, now terminated, investigating alleged UFOs. Hicks called for reports of UAP observations to be ready within two weeks of an occurrence or observation. Report follows years of infighting. After years of Washington infighting , including bureaucratic battles within the Pentagon and pressure from certain members of Congress, the US government finally appears to be taking seriously what has for so long been considered a fringe issue.

For lawmakers and intelligence and military personnel working on unexplained aerial phenomena, the bigger concern with the episodes is not that alien life is visiting earth, but rather that a foreign adversary like Russia or China might be fielding some kind of next-generation technology in American airspace that the United States doesn't know about.

That is one of the reasons this unclassified report will likely disappoint UFO-ologists who had hoped it might offer definitive proof the US government has made contact with extraterrestrial life. The Defense Department and Intelligence Community have a lot of work to do before we can actually understand whether these aerial threats present a serious national security concern.

Top US general hits back against 'offensive' Republican criticism and defends Pentagon diversity efforts. If the sightings were the result of Chinese or Russian technology -- either some kind of unknown aircraft or a technology system that can spoof US radar and other surveillance and reconnaissance systems -- the intelligence community would not want to reveal what it does and doesn't know.

Still, the fact that the intelligence community is producing reports on what the Pentagon has labeled UAPs Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon is itself extraordinary, as CNN has previously reported.

Even as sightings of unexplainable objects rose into the hundreds, Pentagon officials wrestled with how much time and resources to devote to investigating them. Most of the sightings covered in the report were recorded by US Navy pilots, although there were some reports from other US government sources — a clear "reporting bias" in the data set investigators examined, the US official said.

Investigators tried to categorize the sightings into five categories: airborne clutter, like birds or weather balloons, natural atmospheric phenomena, US government or industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and an alluring catchall: "Other.

But in the unexplained cases investigators simply lacked the necessary data to categorize the sighting. Some reports included no technical data at all for engineers to examine, but rather were solely verbal recollections by pilots. He explains on Twitter that one of the most interesting discoveries he's made in the documents is that an unnamed former CIA assistant deputy director for science and technology "exhibited interest" in an object.

That advice is classified," Greenwald tweeted. Getting names is likely a long shot. COM App.