Last week, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) director, joined the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing to break down a video of a reported UFO frame by frame.
The newly released video shows a UFO flying over South Asia earlier this year, which appeared to have a propulsion trail. Still, it was later determined to be a "sensor artifact," according to Dr. Kirkpatrick.
This was one of two videos shown at the hearing.
The first video showed an unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as a UFO, in an active conflict zone in the Middle East in 2022, which the government referred to as "unresolved."
Dr. Kirkpatrick asked lawmakers, "Why am I showing you this?"
This is the kind of data we have to work with and the type of analysis we have to do, which can be extensive when you have to pull these apart frame by frame.
Further, we're now matching all of this with models of all those imaging sensors so that I can recreate this. I can actually show how the sensor going to respond.
According to Dr. Kirkpatrick, there are over 650 cases the Pentagon is tracking of UFO sightings. Initially, these cases are sorted into typical objects such as airplanes or balloons, with those that cannot be classified in this way being given priority based on their specific location of sighting.
Are they attached to a national security area? Does [it] show some anomalous phenomenology that's of interest?
If it's just a spherical thing that's just floating around with the wind and has no payload, that's less important than something with a payload on it, and that's less important than something that's maneuvering.
Although Dr. Kirkpatrick started his presentation by stating no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial technology or alien life, an in-depth report on UFO reporting is expected to be released in July.
In recent years the stigma of UFO sightings has decreased while the number of sightings has increased. So, now that we can talk about it without our tinfoil hats, the government is ramping up its efforts to identify and prepare for potential safety risks associated with unexplained objects flying around in the sky.
To effectively close "unresolved cases," Kirkpatrick emphasized the importance of providing the AARO with additional information and data.
In the last 50 years, there have only been TWO public hearings where lawmakers openly discussed UFOs. The first was in May, and last week's hearing was the second in 50 years.
We're working with the joint staff to issue guidance to all the services and commands that will then establish what are the reporting requirements, timeliness and all the data that is required to be delivered to us and retained from all the associated censors.
Military personnel have been at the forefront of many of these unidentified sightings – Ryan Graves, the former Navy pilot whistleblower, has come out publically to discuss his experience with UFOs.
We need to be able to agnostically, as a media, accept that there is uncertainty and look at it from a first principles approach. Because if we wrap it into all that context about little green men, we're going to be barking up the wrong tree.
Jeremy Corbell was the only civilian named during Congress' historic UFO hearing last May. He is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker and told Fox News that "no single video of a UAP will make the case for the UFO reality."
That case has been consistently made over the decades when civilians and military pilots alike have reported or recorded objects, events and experiences that defy our current understanding of what's possible.
It's important to remember that consensus reality is what dictates our beliefs, and time and time again, consensus reality has shifted to accommodate discovery and actual reality. We must change and adapt when we learn new truths.
The acknowledgment of the UFO presence is likely one of those formative moments for humanity.
