No evidence supports claims that shadowy elements inside the U.S. government have made contact with alien life forms, have reverse-engineered extraterrestrial spaceships or have systematically kept that information hidden from the American public for decades, according to a remarkable Pentagon report issued Friday.
Whether the conclusions will satisfy skeptics of the official stance on what’s “out there” is another story.
The report from the Defense Department All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) directly addressed some of the more far-reaching public claims by former military personnel and other U.S. officials about government contact with aliens. The 60-page study explains in detail the history of government research into UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomena. It specifically rejects charges that the Pentagon has known about UFOs of extraterrestrial origin for years and has engaged in a highly secretive program to reverse-engineer their spaceships.
The study was delivered to lawmakers last week and released online Friday, just a few months after former U.S. officials gave stunning public testimony to Congress claiming knowledge of such highly classified programs.
In the report, the Pentagon said no evidence backs up those allegations.
“AARO found no empirical evidence for claims that the [U.S. government] and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology. AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate,” the report reads in part.
It said no evidence shows that the government has encountered any UFOs that can be definitively described as “extraterrestrial technology.”
“All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” the report says.
The report directly rebuts specific instances of alleged contact with alien craft or knowledge of UFO reverse-engineering programs. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, stressed in a statement the government pored through the records before reaching its conclusions.
“In completing this report, AARO reviewed all official U.S. government investigatory efforts since 1945, researched classified and unclassified archives, conducted dozens of interviews, and partnered with intelligence community and [Defense Department] officials responsible for controlled and special access program oversight, respectively,” Gen. Ryder said.
That the government would address such claims in a detailed, public forum would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
“An interviewee claim that he witnessed what he believed to be the testing of extraterrestrial technology at a [government] facility almost certainly was an observation of an authentic, non-UAP-related technology test that strongly correlated in time, location and description provided in the interviewee’s account,” officials said.
In another instance, the government said it tested samples from an “alleged crashed off-world spacecraft” collected by a UFO research organization.
The sample, the Pentagon said, “is a manufactured, terrestrial alloy and does not represent off-world technology or possess any exceptional qualities. The sample is primarily composed of magnesium, zinc and bismuth with some other trace elements, such as lead. This assessment was based on its materials characterization.”
Critics said the report misses the mark.
“I am very discouraged and disappointed by the Pentagon’s report. Once again, the Pentagon demonstrates it is more interested in discounting witnesses and whistleblowers than it is with actually identifying anomalous objects and phenomena in our airspace,” said Ryan Graves, a former Navy fighter pilot and co-founder of the group Americans for Safe Aerospace.
Push to probe
The report is the latest example of the Defense Department’s public push to clear the air on reports of UFO sightings. In a survey released in the fall, the government said U.S. military personnel and commercial pilots reported at least 291 UFO sightings since August 2022, with some of the craft exhibiting “high-speed travel,” “unusual maneuverability” and other strange characteristics.
Most of the reported sightings were over U.S. military airspace, officials said. None of the incidents resulted in injuries or “adverse health effects.”
“However, many reports from military witnesses do present potential safety-of-flight concerns and there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability,” reads a portion of AARO report.
The AARO said it had received a total of 801 UAP reports as of April, though the number of sightings is thought to be much higher.
The Pentagon also has been accused of a massive cover-up, though officials strongly deny those claims.
Former U.S. intelligence officer David Grusch told Congress under oath in July that he is aware of “a multidecade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program.” He even suggested that the Pentagon has long been in possession of alien bodies.
Now-retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Washington Times shortly after that hearing that he knew no such programs.
“I can tell you … that as the chairman, I have been briefed on several different occasions by the [Pentagon’s] UAP office. And I have not seen anything that indicates to me about quote-unquote aliens or that there’s some sort of cover-up program. I just haven’t seen it,” Gen. Milley said in the August interview, just weeks before his retirement.
The report released Friday tries to put to rest some of the most seemingly outlandish claims.
“AARO assesses that the inaccurate claim that the [government] is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part, the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence,” the report says.
Gen. Ryder acknowledged that the question of visitors from other worlds will always remain open.
“AARO is committed to reaching conclusions based on verifiable evidence,” he said. “As AARO has said before, they will follow the evidence where it leads, wherever it leads.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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