UFOs Remain Unexplained, Say "Senior Administration Officials" in Advance of Upcoming Unclassified UFO Report

"Senior administration officials briefed on the findings" of an upcoming report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which is the current government nomenclature for UFOs, reportedly told The New York Times that "American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military."

According to the unnamed senior administration officials, the report determined that "a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology."

Some are interpreting this to mean that the Navy pilots who reported seeing UFOs couldn't have been witnessing aircraft developed as part of secret government programs. However, research by UFO investigators has shown the levels to which the Pentagon will go to obfuscate any information they don't necessarily want to be public.

In an article published early last year in Popular Mechanics, Tim McMillan traced a path through a byzantine maze of government documents and insider testimony that show the Pentagon’s Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was interested in studying UFOs, despite denials by Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough.

According to McMillan’s research, the Pentagon’s denial was part of a campaign of confusion involving “a dizzying shell game that’s entirely consistent with how black budget intelligence programs are run.”

“What you’re dealing with is the very core of government secrecy and how things they absolutely don’t ever want to discuss are kept hidden away,” said one former AATIP contractor.

Documents retrieved from Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, LLC (BAASS), along with the testimony of former AATIP contractors, show that the company was contracted by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to produce technical reports on "exotic and potential 'game-changing' aerospace technologies, and the manner of determining what areas these radical airborne breakthroughs might emerge was through the research of UFOs."

The Pentagon sidestepped the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by outsourcing the research to a private company. Because the information contained in the reports generated by BAASS "is proprietary and cannot be disseminated or used without prior written consent from the Operating Manager of BAASS," government officials were afforded the ability to deny any and all connection between themselves and the research performed by the company.

According to McMillan, "The DIA may have had extensive access to the UFO materials, but because all of the data technically belonged to BAASS, under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, disclosing or releasing proprietary materials provided to the government in confidence is a federal crime."

As a result, the Pentagon was able to maintain that the AATIP did not investigate UFOs, because that duty was largely outsourced to BAASS.

This showed the government denial to be a technicality, rather than an explanation offered in good faith, and there can be no guarantee that something similar isn’t happening with the information present in the upcoming UFO report.

While no one will admit to the possibility that any of the unexplained craft might be American, there is concern that some might represent advances in foreign military technology.

According to The New York Times, "Intelligence officials believe at least some of the aerial phenomena could have been experimental technology from a rival power, most likely Russia or China. One senior official briefed on the intelligence said without hesitation that U.S. officials knew it was not American technology. He said there was worry among intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology."

The report's findings were ultimately ambiguous, said the officials, who "conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings meant the government could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft."

Much about the observed phenomena represented in the report remains difficult to explain, including their ability to quickly accelerate and change direction during flight, along with reports of their "transmedium" capabilities, such as submerging underwater from the air. At least one mundane explanation—weather or other research balloons—is not supported by the evidence, the officials said, because of changes in wind speed at the times of some of the interactions.

The final, unclassified report is due out June 25th, although it will include a classified annex.

That annex will reportedly "not contain any evidence concluding that the phenomena are alien spacecraft," although "officials acknowledged that the fact that it would remain off limits to the public was likely to continue to fuel speculation that the government had secret data about alien visitations to Earth."

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