It's never aliens.
At least, it hasn't been yet. The United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities heard testimony on Tuesday (Nov. 19) from Jon T. Kosloski, director of the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The U.S. Department of Defense created the office in July 2022 in order to have a single place for military and government personnel to report UFO sightings, or UAP, as they're now known. The new term, short for unidentified anomalous phenomena, encompasses not only unidentified objects or events in the sky, but also those in water, in space or those that appear to travel between these domains.
During today's hearing, Kosloski came in strong, stating that "it is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology." Still, despite having resolved hundreds of cases with prosaic explanations, Kosloski noted that his office does not believe that every UAP is a bird, balloon or drone. "We do have some very anomalous objects," he said.
Kosloski also reported on the office's latest analysis of UFO/UAP cases, stressing that his office will "continue to follow the science and data wherever they lead" and keep both Congress and the public as informed as possible  —  at the unclassified level, he clarified.
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That stands in stark contrast to testimony presented to a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee last week, in which a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a former U.S. counterintelligence officer told lawmakers that the American government is part of a decades-long coverup to conceal the fact that "we are not alone in the cosmos."
During his testimony, Kosloski gave an overview of his office's activities since it issued a report to Congress and testified in a similar setting last year. "Many reports resolve to commonplace objects like birds, balloons and unmanned systems, while others lack sufficient data for comprehensive analysis," Kosloski said, adding that "only a small percentage of reports received by AARO are potentially anomalous."
Kosloski referred to a UAP incident that occurred in 2013 near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The infrared video, shot in 2013 by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol helicopter, appears to show an object flying just above the ocean before disappearing into it, or perhaps splitting in two.
That stands in stark contrast to testimony presented to a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee last week, in which a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a former U.S. counterintelligence officer told lawmakers that the American government is part of a decades-long coverup to conceal the fact that "we are not alone in the cosmos."
During his testimony, Kosloski gave an overview of his office's activities since it issued a report to Congress and testified in a similar setting last year. "Many reports resolve to commonplace objects like birds, balloons and unmanned systems, while others lack sufficient data for comprehensive analysis," Kosloski said, adding that "only a small percentage of reports received by AARO are potentially anomalous."
Kosloski referred to a UAP incident that occurred in 2013 near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The infrared video, shot in 2013 by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol helicopter, appears to show an object flying just above the ocean before disappearing into it, or perhaps splitting in two.
AARO released a report to accompany today's hearing earlier this week. The report, titled, "All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena," examines UAP cases dated between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024 as well as historical incidents that were not included in previous reports.
But, like in its other reports, AARO found no smoking gun for alien visitation this year. "AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology," the report notes. Out of the 485 cases that are well within the report's timeframe, 118 were solved and another 174 were slated to be closed, pending a final review.
Still, AARO's 2024 report says that many cases remain unsolved, and that the office continues to study them. However, AARO’s ability to resolve cases "remains constrained by a lack of timely and actionable sensor data," according to the report, meaning there just isn't enough data to conclusively solve cases that lack detailed or multi-sensor observations. In some cases, all there might be to analyze is a single photograph, a few seconds of grainy video or an aviator's written report. Many UAP sightings happen in the blink of an eye as an unknown object zooms past a moving aircraft, for example, so there often isn't enough time to gather photographic or video evidence.
In other cases, the capabilities of the sensors or platforms involved in the UAP sightings are themselves classified (sometimes, even their existence isn't publicly known), so AARO is unable to discuss them in unclassified reports.
Though overall, according to the 2024 report, there is enough data for AARO to state that it has has "no indication or confirmation that these activities are attributable to foreign adversaries."
Today's hearing echoed a previous hearing held last year on April 19, 2023. During that hearing, AARO's previous director Sean Kirkpatrick told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his office has seen "no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics."
Similarly, the report released by AARO in March 2024 that examined historical UFO cases found "no evidence that any USG [U.S. government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology."
AARO's previous report, released in 2022, examined 510 contemporary UAP reports gathered from government agencies and branches of the United States military. The report found that, while most cases were able to be resolved, 171 remained a mystery.
"Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis," AARO's 2022 report states.
Today's hearing concluded with a discussion of recent incidents in which unidentified drones, or uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), were seen over U.S. military bases and other sensitive installations. Those incidents, Kosloski notes, underscore the need for the United States to have "more persistent monitoring and understand that, whether it is a UAP or a counter-UAS issue, that we need to have that complete domain awareness around our national security facilities."
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