The US Department of Defense

Photo: SAUL LOEB/ AFP

The US government is said to have been secretly owning and researching UFOs for decades.

This was what a former high-ranking US military and intelligence official claimed last summer.

He reported under oath to the US Congress about a UFO recovery program.

Now the US Department of Defense has published a report analyzing all official investigations into unknown objects spotted in US airspace since 1945.

The result: There is no evidence of extraterrestrial life.

"All investigations at all levels of secrecy revealed that most of the sightings were of common objects and phenomena," Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters.

The report explains the increase in UFO sightings in the 1950s and 1960s with secret military tests at the time.

The report was presented to Congress on Friday.

It is part of a broad public effort by the US government to investigate "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (UAP), as UFOs are officially called.

In recent years, the debate about UFOs has become more intense and public than ever before.

Starting in 2017, when the New York Times revealed that there were government research projects on UFOs in the USA.

In 2021 there was a report from the Pentagon, according to which there were no explanations for dozens of celestial phenomena since 2004.

And in July 2023 there was a statement from a high-ranking ex-Pentagon employee about the UFO recovery program.

The Pentagon then set up a new department to closely monitor reports of unidentified flying objects: the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office”.

The report that has now been published was also created under his leadership.

The authors declare that their approach was strictly scientific.

However, they themselves do not believe that their study will dispel popular belief in extraterrestrial visitors.

"The proliferation of television shows, books, films and the large amount of Internet and social media content dealing with UFOs has most likely influenced public discussion on the topic and reinforced beliefs in some parts of the population," it says in the report.

According to a 2021 Gallup poll, just over 40 percent of Americans believe that alien spacecraft have visited Earth.

vet/AP