For decades US has been showing deep fascination with the existence of UFOs, but a large portion of discussion was confined to pop culture only. With the lack of government commentary of this issue number of conspiracy theories have emerged. One of them propounding that the government is obscuring the presence of alien life and technology in Area 51 in Nevada.
But this is evolving. In response to growing public interest and potential national security concerns, a surge in government activity over the past few years has focused on demystifying the phenomenon, or UAP as the military has dubbed it.
Source:- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/17/-us-changing-conversation-around-ufos-from-speculation-to-science.html
A former U.S. Navy pilot, Graves appeared in July in front of a joint hearing with two former military officials to discuss his experiences with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). Along with that NASA also appointed its first-ever “UFO czar” to investigate reported sightings and advance science and national security if they are indeed extraterrestrial. A picture of a purported mummified specimen of an alien was also presented in Mexico’s Congress that were part of international headlines in the same month.
Then in June 2021, a report on UAP’s was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence followed by the Pentagon to organise to search and identify the objects in the airspace.
Later in June 2022, an independent expert panel was assembled by NASA to study the UAP incidents and advise the Department of Defense on gathering and interpreting the data on UAP’s. The following month the team of DoD established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, to synchronise efforts across DoD and other federal agencies to help detect and examine UAP sightings.
A variety of reasons why these actions took place can be explained below-
Emerging number of UAP reports- The country witnessed a substantial increment in the number of reports military experts, civilian aviators, ordinary citizens. These accounts frequently depict objects travelling at great speeds, performing strange maneuvers, or exhibiting other features that are difficult to explain. In 1947, an amateur pilot described it as ‘like a saucer if you skip it across the water’ leading to the origin of the word ‘flying saucers.
Source:- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-05/history-of-ufos-and-uaps-and-us-government-investigations/103159256
Another incident where it was described as a ’40-foot object shaped like a Tic-Tac candy that plummeted down from an altitude above Earth’s atmosphere, hovered over the ocean – above an unusual disturbance on the surface of the water – before mirroring the path of his own aircraft, then accelerating suddenly and disappearing’.
National Security Concerns- the existence of UFO’s could endanger the national security as the objects might cause threat to military and civilian aircrafts. Since there is lack of knowledge it gets unfeasible to assess their motives or capabilities of these objects. Along with the rapid advancements in their technologies makes it impossible to keep up with the potential threat that they may pose.
Public Pressure- The ever-increasing public demand for transparency and disclosure regarding UAP’s lead to pressure on the government to address the concern. Many of the politicians played role in the advancement of knowledge one of the significant figures being Bill Clinton who helped in disseminating the findings during the Roswell Incident.
A New York times article was posted about the Pentagon programme that revealed navy had tracked out numerous UAP’s that exhibited extraordinary capabilities.
Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG): The Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group (AOIMSG) was formed by the United States Department of Defonce in 2021 to "improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of objects of interest in Special Use Airspace (SUA)."The AOIMSG oversees gathering and evaluating data about UAPs from various sources, such as military radar, civilian aircraft, and eyewitness reports. Standardisation, the first step in the process is taken to determine, label and recognise and report and examine and so on.
Currently AOIMSG is working with multiple institutions to construct a UAP observation network. Among them are the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, among others, and the next planned cooperation objects include the United States Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Furthermore, AOIMSG intends to extend this UAP monitoring network to US allies and partners.
First UAP public hearing in decades: Congress had its first public hearing on UAPs in decades in May 2022- The hearing was opened by Rep. He expressed worry that UAPs posed a serious national security threat and should be treated as such, adding that the "stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis. Later three former Pentagon officials spoke at the hearing regarding their experiences probing UAPs. According to the officials, they have encountered UAPs with astonishing capabilities, such as hovering in mid-air and accelerating at rates that exceed our knowledge of physics.
Ongoing investigations: The US government is still looking into UAPs. The AOIMSG is collecting more data on these objects, and the Pentagon is developing new detection and tracking technology. The government is also striving to develop guidelines for responding to UAPs detected by military or civilian aviators.
The prospect of extraterrestrial life remains high. Calculating the likelihood that intelligent life is far from us becomes extremely difficult. Is there intelligent life out there in the universe that we will never be able to see or have meaningful contact with because it is too far away? What impact does that have on how we perceive our own role in the cosmos? These are far more profound and intricate spiritual and philosophical issues. However, the math unquestionably favors the aliens.
To conclude, the attitude of the US government to UAPs has been met with conflicting feelings. While some of them feel that the government is still trying to conceal their knowledge, others believe that the government has finally started taking the issue more seriously. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that the US government is treating UAPs with greater seriousness than in the past. Understanding the nature of UAPs allows us to better secure our national security while also advancing scientific knowledge.
Article by:- Vanshika Jain
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