Pentagon starts new (immediately controversial) institute for UFO research

The group is under the control of the US Department of Defense and the combined intelligence services and given the somewhat limited name of the Airborne Object Identification and Synchronization Management Group (AOIMSG). The creation follows the US government’s official report in June on so-called Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena (UAPs), the modern name for what were once called Unidentified Flying Objects.

In the public section of that report, investigators cite 144 unexplained UFO sightings recorded by the US Navy. Think of fighter pilots who suddenly saw strange moving places with their infrared cameras. In the report, 143 unexplained views remained. One of them turned out to be a large, deflated balloon.

Many UFO enthusiasts and UFO skeptics found the report disappointing because it did not contain specific case descriptions or verifiable analyzes. As part of the US intelligence community was disappointed with the report, Writes New York times Based on anonymous sources. These sources are particularly concerned that the lack of explanations offered will provide fertile ground for theories that the phenomena refer to extraterrestrial visits. It is a choice the newspaper wrote that “very few in the US government take seriously”. The AOIMSG should now provide more clarity.

Undermine the Senate

However, many UFO enthusiasts view the new research group with suspicion. Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Servants Earlier this month, an amendment to a new defense law was introduced, calling for more ambition for the UFO Institute. One obliges the Department of Defense to publish public research reports on UFOs, to which a research committee also links to independent scientists from NASA and Harvard University, among others.

The proposal is supported by prominent senators from both political parties, including Republicans Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham and Democrat Martin Heinricht. “I don’t see any opposition to this proposal,” Gillibrand said last week. website Politico.

So some see the new Pentagon plan as “a direct and egregious attempt to circumvent and undermine the Senate,” as Luis Elizondo put it on Twitter. Elizondo is the former head of the originally secret and now-defunct Pentagon UFO Research Program, and is now active as a television producer on the UFO phenomenon.