A highly anticipated US intelligence report on UFOs due to be published this month has found no evidence of alien origins but did not rule it out. Photo / Getty
A highly anticipated US intelligence report on UFOs due to be published this month has found no evidence of alien origins but did not rule it out. Photo / Getty
A highly anticipated US intelligence report on UFOs due to be published this month has found no evidence of alien origins but did not rule it out.
The exhaustive analysis of more than 120 UFO sightings over the last two decades did eliminate the possibility that the incidents involved secret "black ops" US military programmes.
Senior government officials briefed on the report told the New York Times they were increasingly concerned the sightings could be Chinese or Russian hypersonic aircraft.
There are growing fears in the Pentagon that Beijing and Moscow could have made technological strides that the US is unaware of.
Many of the sightings involved eyewitness accounts from US Navy aviators backed up by radar and MASINT [Measurement and signature intelligence].
However, the review was unable to explain mysterious movements of the objects such as unusual acceleration, wild direction changes and the capability to travel rapidly in and out of water.
Senior officials said the lack of clear conclusions in the report meant that, while there was no evidence of extraterrestrial technology behind the phenomena, it was also impossible to rule out.
Last year, the Pentagon set up the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force following a series of unexplained sightings by military personnel.
The report is expected to be delivered by the defense secretary Lloyd Austin and director of national intelligence Avril Haines to the Senate intelligence committee by June 25.
It was requested by Marco Rubio, the senior Republican senator on the committee, who has long had concerns that UAPs could represent a potential national security threat.
The report is said to rule out top secret advanced US technology as a source of the sightings.
An idea that the CIA, or another government agency, could be "blind testing" new technology against the US Navy had been considered a possibility.
An idea that the CIA, or another government agency, could be "blind testing" new technology against the US Navy had been considered a possibility.
Advanced Chinese or Russian drones are increasingly being considered as a possibility by defence officials. Both countries' militaries have been investing in hypersonic technology including weapons.
Hypersonic is generally accepted as an object that travels over five times the speed of sound.
Last year Donald Trump touted a US hypersonic weapon, calling it the "super duper missile".
But the US has been trying to catch up with rival programmes in China and Russia.
The Pentagon confirmed last year that a series of leaked videos taken by US Navy pilots were authentic.
They showed several encounters with unusual aircraft.
Senior officials with access to classified intelligence on sightings have stoked anticipation around the report.
Last month, former president Barack Obama said: "What is true, and I'm actually being serious here, is that there's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are."
The report will be unclassified so that the American people can know more about sightings.
However, there will also be a classified annex which can only be read by US senators on the intelligence committee.
That will inevitably fuel speculation about what information has been withheld.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the UAP task force was set up to "improve understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP incursions into our training ranges and designated airspace."
Such incidents were of concern because of safety and national security implications, she said.
The report is expected to include detailed analysis of several sightings that have already been made public.
That includes the so-called "Tic Tac" incident in which US Navy aviators, based on the USS Nimitz, saw a large white oblong object off the coast of southern California in 2004.
