No credible evidence exists that U.S. authorities covered up extraterrestrial life, in the form of unidentified flying objects, even if some Americans firmly believe in UFOs, a Pentagon report said Friday.
The report offered a number of explanations of what has led to more than 40% of Americans thinking that life forms from another galaxy have visited earth.
"Investigative efforts determined that most sightings were the result of misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena," according to the conclusion of a 63-page report on "unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)."
"Although many UAP reports remain unsolved, AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) assesses that if additional, quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena."
Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, a defense department spokesperson, insisted there's "no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology."
"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. "All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification."
But Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat ID Program, took issue with Friday's report, especially its strident language rejecting all possible UAP evidence.
"The government has documentation, stacks upon stacks, of UAP going back decades, interfering with our critical military technologies," Elizondo said.
"To try to put the cat back into the bag the way that they did, it’s extremely disingenuous and it’s against the interest of the American people."
The report listed several satellite and other data-gathering craft developed, usually in secret, by the government and private industry that could have easily been identified as UFOs by the general public.
"The below examples represent a sample of the unclassified and declassified authentic national security programs that AARO assesses probably were associated with erroneous UAP reporting," it said of crafts built by companies such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The report suggested that Americans' belief in UFOs is unlikely to change.
"Aside from hoaxes and forgeries, misinformation and disinformation is more prevalent and easier to disseminate now than ever before, especially with today’s advanced photo, video, and computer generated imagery tools," the report said. "Internet search and content recommendation algorithms serve to reinforce individuals’ preconceptions and confirmation biases just as much as to help educate and inform."
Friday's report seemed to contradict at least some elements of a House Oversight subcommittee hearing, in July last year, that put UAPs firmly into the public consciousness.
David Grusch, a former U.S. intelligence official, told the panel he knows of “multiple colleagues” who were injured by UAPs and that he's interviewed individuals who have recovered “nonhuman biologics” from crashed UAPs.
He declined to elaborate and the Pentagon, at that time, categorically denied Grusch's claims.
