militarymedia.net : This article by Paul Szoldra and Jeff Schogol originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veteran issues.
The Pentagon is looking for pilots in the Alien Air Force.
David Norquist, the deputy secretary of defense, has formally formed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, which will focus on learning more about the nature and origin of what officials call UAP (as opposed to the more familiar UFOs).
"The mission of this task force is to detect, analyze and catalog steam that poses a potential threat to US national security," Pentagon spokesman Sue Gough said in a statement. The new office will be chaired by the deputy defense minister's office for Navy intelligence and security.
Sorry, Space Force.
"The safety of our personnel and the safety of our operations is a major concern," said Gough. “The Department of Defense and military departments take any attacks by unauthorized aircraft into our training areas or designated airspace very seriously and check every report. This includes an attack check that was initially reported as Steam when the observer was unable to immediately identify what he was observing.
The Pentagon in April publicly released an unclassified video showing the so-called unidentified aerial phenomenon, which confirmed three separate encounters between UFOs and American aircraft that took place in 2004 and 2015.
"DOD released the video to clear up public misconceptions about whether the footage that has been circulating is real or not, or whether there are more videos," Gough said at the time. "The aerial phenomena observed in the video remain marked as 'unidentified'."
Bryan Bender of Politico and Helene Cooper of The New York Times reported last year that Navy pilots had reported seeing unidentified aircraft flying near US warships in 2014 and 2015.
These otherworldly-looking glyphs have no visible engine exhaust, yet they can reach 30,000 feet and remain in station for 12 hours.
The Defense Intelligence Service inspected unidentified aircraft from 2008 to 2012 under the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which was intended to see if US adversaries had developed advanced technology.
Ultimately, the program was terminated after a 2009 review found that it was not producing valuable data. Retired Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Is responsible for most of program funding.
"I am delighted the Pentagon has finally released this tape, which further illustrates the need to study this phenomenon," Reid told Task & Purpose in April. "This is just scratching the surface of the research and material that is available and needs to be released. The United States must take a serious scientific view of this and its potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be told. "
The creation of the task force represents a growing concern among the Pentagon and some lawmakers that China and Russia have developed more technologically advanced aircraft than previously thought.
That is why the fiscal 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act includes provisions requiring the Director of National Intelligence and the secretary of defense to provide lawmakers with an unclassified report on whether an unidentified aircraft reported by Navy pilots "indicates a potential adversary may have reached. breakthrough space capabilities that could jeopardize the strategic or conventional forces of the United States. "
The Department of Defense is deeply jealous of China's advances in hypersonic technology, which the US military initially decided against use a few years ago. Defense officials accuse China of stealing US military data on hypersonics to develop their own program.
President Donald Trump has boasted that the US military is now developing a "super-duper missile" that can fly at 17 times the speed of sound.
However, many UFO enthusiasts have expressed hope that the Pentagon's new willingness to talk about unidentified aircraft is the first step toward the US government revealing what they know about alien visits to Earth.
Task & Purpose asked Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman on February 19 if the Department of Defense had evidence that aliens had visited the planet.
"I have nothing for you today," Hoffman replied.
However, the Pentagon's recent UFO disclosures have arguably been the weirdest part of 2020 and have so far failed to make much of a change in the news cycle.
It's just a sign of the times, said "X-Files" creator Chris Carter, Task & Purpose in May.
"We live in a tabloid culture, so UFO stories feel like tabloid stories that should be front page news," Cartier said.
