SCEPTICISM ABOUT NEW PENTAGON OFFICE TO DEAL WITH UFO'S

A new office in the Pentagon will investigate sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) — but long time experts on the subject are said to be sceptical. 

According to NBC, putting the new "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" program in the purview of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence & Security has left many in the field upset, as they don't exactly trust the military to reveal whatever truth is out there. 

"This is a subject with a proven history of secrecy, and anything that lacks transparency about the information is subject to more, possibly inappropriate control," Ron James, a MUFON spokesperson, which investigates such sightings, told NBC News. 

The creation of the new office was codified in the National Defence Authorisation Act, passed in December, which simply calls for the "establishment of office, organisational structure, and authorities to address unidentified aerial phenomena." The topic has received renewed interest in recent years after the publication of videos taken by U.S. military pilots which show objects moving at impossible speeds and executing complex aerial manoeuvres.

Whether these sightings are really unexplained technology is up for (strenuous) debate. U.S. officials are mostly concerned about non US threats, worrying that foreign governments might be making advances in flight technology right under the U.S. military's nose. 

"Our national security efforts rely on aerial supremacy, and these phenomena present a challenge to our dominance," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who spearheaded the bipartisan measure. "The United States needs a co-ordinated effort to take control and understand whether these aerial phenomena belong to a foreign government or something else altogether."

• On the other hand, there are also possible non-technological explanations for many of the sightings. For example: A report of a "bright green" UFO over Canada in July 2021 could be as a result of the Perseid meteor shower, which is occasionally known to produce bright-green streaks as meteorites burn up in the atmosphere.
  
  •A glowing "doughnut" UFO photographed by a skywatcher in Switzerland could be an out-of-focus shot of a star.
  
  •And the physics-defying videos from U.S. Navy pilots which shows incredibly swift UFOs could be the result of an optical illusion called parallax, in which a video of a moving object taken by a moving camera accentuates the apparent movement of the object, making it seem to be going much faster than it actually is.

The public has long been treated to a variety of alternative explanations for such phenomena, and each time, authorities appear desperate to avoid speculating on the elephant in the room, i.e: could it really be something else?

Professional UFO debunker Mick West told NBC News that Skywatch enthusiasts may have inadvertently provided Pentagon officials with the open door they needed in order to do what they probably wanted to do anyway — but not necessarily because officials believe there really is an exotic space presence in our atmosphere. 

"If you read the text of this legislation, it seems to reflect concerns made by some well placed believers in the whole extra-terrestrial hypothesis." West told NBC News. "Whether they really believe what they appear to say they believe is open for debate."

In short, professional UFO debunkers, faced with the uncomfortable sight of US defence chiefs appearing to seriously examine this issue, are now reduced to peddling the notion that they might not really be taking seriously what they say they are taking seriously. An incredible position.

According to the Pentagon, the new effort to investigate such claims will be called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).

"The AOIMSG will synchronize efforts across the Department and the broader U.S. government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests [sic] in Special Use Airspace (SUA), and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security," Department of Defence (DOD) officials wrote in the announcement of the program. "DOD takes reports of incursions — by any airborne object, identified or unidentified — very seriously, and investigates each one."