Pentagon Establishes 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force'

The Pentagon recently announced the creation of a task force whose mission is to “detect, analyze and catalog [unidentified aerial phenomena] that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security."

"Unidentified aerial phenomena” is the current government nomenclature for UFOs.

According to a statement released by the Pentagon:

On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF). The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the UAPTF.
The Department of Defense (DOD) established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.
As DOD has stated previously, the safety of our personnel and the security of our operations are of paramount concern. The Department of Defense and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report. This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing.

This announcement follows a recent bill introduced by the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by chairman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), which included a directive ordering the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)—in consultation with the Secretary of Defense—to create a report regarding unidentified aerial phenomena. The bill mentioned the newly announced task force by name, saying within it that "The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations."

Sen. Rubio later told CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede during a July 16th interview that the UFO phenomenon represents a "national security risk, and one that we should be looking into,” because “we don’t know what it is and it isn’t ours.”

The bill was preceded by the Pentagon’s official release last April of three unclassified UFO videos shot by Navy fighter pilots, and continues an interest in UFOs shown by several senators—including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee—that has developed after years of testimony by defense and intelligence personnel.

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