The Pentagon has created a special working group that will investigate and study "unidentified aerial phenomena" or unidentified flying objects (UFOs). This is stated in an official message posted on the website of the American military department.

“The US Department of Defense has created the Unidentified Air Phenomena Task Force to better understand and gain insight into the nature and origin of unidentified air events. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog unidentified aerial phenomena that may pose a threat to US national security, ”the Defense Ministry said. 

The statement said the group was formed by order of Deputy Defense Secretary David Norkvist on August 4. It will operate under the auspices of the US Department of the Navy and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

“The US Department of Defense and the military are very serious about any incursions by unidentified aircraft into training grounds or designated airspace and conduct checks after each incident. Among them are intrusion checks, which were initially recorded as unidentified aerial phenomena, when the observer is not able to immediately determine what exactly he or she sees, ”the message explains.

Return of the UFO

The UFO theme was brought up again in the US media in December 2017. Then a number of publications, including The New York Times, Politico, Time, Newsweek, reported on the Pentagon's program, which, among other things, was studying UFOs. Also widely circulated were video materials on which one could see the pursuit of allegedly unidentified aircraft by US Navy pilots.

The American military department then confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which existed from 2007 to 2012. According to media reports, within its framework, $ 22 million was spent on the study of unidentified flying objects and unidentified atmospheric phenomena.

  • Photo of an unidentified flying object in New Mexico
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © Bettmann

In 2019, new details about this program appeared in the American media, and military pilots confirmed their participation in the events described. Media interest in the topic of UFOs has increased so much that journalists turned to Donald Trump for clarification directly.

In response to a question about the increased testimony of US Navy pilots about encounters with unidentified flying objects, the president said that he had been informed of alleged UFO sightings.

“I have seen the materials, read and heard about it. I even had one very short meeting on this issue. People claim to see UFOs. Do I believe this? Not particularly, ”Trump said in an interview with ABC News in June 2019.

However, a year later, the US President said that he knew "a lot of interesting things" about the crash of an unidentified flying object in the city of Roswell in 1947, and he "would have to think" about, perhaps, declassified this information. We will remind, American ufologists for decades argued that the US Army managed to take possession of the crashed "flying saucer".

Experts, in turn, note that this topic has been under the control of the US military since the 1960s, when a program was adopted to monitor objects from space that could potentially threaten US national security.

“All existing special programs for the study of extraterrestrial civilizations have always received funds from the budget. At some time more, at some less, it depended on the funds allocated to the Pentagon, ”political scientist-Americanist Mikhail Sinelnikov-Orishak explained in a conversation with RT.

At the same time, the political scientist doubted that the citizens of the United States would be presented with any relevant information that sheds light on the essence of this phenomenon.

“The US military does not share these programs with the public. If they wanted to draw special attention to this, then they would be allocated more media space. Today, the American public is content with only leaks and rumors, ”said Sinelnikov-Orishak.

"Distract attention"

In late April, the Pentagon released three US Navy videos, dated 2004 and 2015. The footage captures "air phenomena", described as "unidentified". The objects captured on the video differed in their shape from the known lethal vehicles.

On the records, the pilots of the US Navy naval aviation commented on the appearance of the "phenomena", noting that one of them looked like a "top" moving against the wind.

  • Pentagon
  • AFP

The department then recalled that as a result of "unauthorized publication in 2007 and 2017," these records were in the public domain, and now they are being made public in order to prove their authenticity.

After the April events, when the topic of UFOs again became the focus of public attention, American parliamentarians demanded to sort out this problem. In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted in favor of a decision that obliges the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to analyze and publish the results of these incidents.

“We have objects flying over military bases and military exercises, and we do not know what it is, and it is not ours, so this is a natural question,” said Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the committee. ...

At the same time, he suggested that the objects in the video could be secret technical innovations of potential opponents of the United States - Russia or China.

“To be honest, if it’s something extraterrestrial, then maybe it’s better than if we saw some example of a technological breakthrough by the Chinese, Russians or other opponents,” the senator added.

Meanwhile, according to analysts, the Pentagon publishes information related to UFOs with a certain frequency, it is far from accidental. From the point of view of the deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, Vladimir Shapovalov, such materials, as well as the creation of programs and initiative groups, are just one of the types of "budget maneuvers" of the American defense department.

“Naturally, the Pentagon, which has a colossal military budget and is therefore a very effective lobbyist, needs to come up with new spending lines to match the appetites of the employees there. After all, the budget required to counter the current "earthly" enemies of Washington, in particular Russia, China, international terrorism, the spread of democracy, is already sufficiently inflated, "Shapovalov explained in an interview with RT.

According to him, UFOs are a “budget-intensive topic,” since it is rather difficult to investigate fantastic objects, and, therefore, there are no clear criteria that would demonstrate that taxpayers' funds are not wasted.

In addition, the American establishment, forming ideas about non-existent objects of study, manipulates public opinion, thus maintaining interest in their activities in different sectors of society, the analyst says.

“The military in this way distract the public's attention from some secret developments, military programs. For example, the Pentagon, while assuring the American man in the street that certain military facilities are associated with the study of UFO activities, in fact masks the true goals of such a structure, "Shapovalov believes.