Defense Department Creates New Task Force To Investigate UFOs
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Today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, in close collaboration with the Director of National Intelligence, directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security to establish within the Office of the USD(I&S) the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) as the successor to the U.S. Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The AOIMSG will synchronize efforts across the Department and the broader U.S. government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests in Special Use Airspace (SUA), and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security. To provide oversight of the AOIMSG, the Deputy Secretary also directed the USD(I&S) to lead an Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Council (AOIMEXEC) to be comprised of DoD and Intelligence Community membership, and to offer a venue for U.S. government interagency representation.
The New York Post: The new outfit comes after the intelligence community verified a series of unexplained aerial phenomena sightings by the military earlier this year, but said it could not identify the mysterious vehicles, in a report to Congress detailing the government’s knowledge of UFOs.
The Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group will succeed the Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, an arm of the military started last year to “improve its understanding of, and gain insight into” UFOs, according to a press release.
“Incursions by any airborne object into our SUA pose safety of flight and operations security concerns, and may pose national security challenges,” the department wrote. “DOD takes reports of incursions – by any airborne object, identified or unidentified – very seriously, and investigates each one.”
Earlier this year, officials confirmed they had investigated 144 UFO sightings reported by government sources since 2004, including unexplained vehicles that traveled at speeds of up to 43,000 miles per hour and changed direction on a dime.
Most of the incidents — such as the near daily sightings of UFOs harassing a warship near San Diego in 2017 — were not part of US programs that it meant to keep under wraps, according to the task force’s Congressional report.
While the report offered little extraterrestrial insight, it did recommend that the government improve the policies, training and tech needed to further investigate and understand unexplained aerial phenomena.
