Peter L. BERGEN / CNN’s National Security Analyst
Last month, the US National Intelligence Centre published a report called “Unidentified Weather Phenomena”, in which they actually referred to UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). The US military shot down a Chinese balloon on 4 February.
In last Friday and Saturday, the United States and Canada announced that they had shot down two “unidentified objects”. Finally, on Sunday, the USA shot down the fourth object… Following these events, let us take a careful look at the report published by the US intelligence in order to better understand what is happening.
An interesting point is made in the UFO report in January: Between March 2021 and August 2022, the number of “I saw a UFO” cases visibly increases. During this period, 247 cases were recorded, mostly by US Navy and Air Force pilots. In the 17 years between 2004 and 2021, the total number of cases was 144! The report also makes the following comment about this increase: “No one is embarrassed anymore because the Pentagon says to report all anomalies you see in the air, and this may be the reason for the increase in UFO cases.” Last July, the Pentagon even set up an “Office of Anomaly Resolution”… which investigates UFO cases reported by the US military and intelligence.
Let Congress get to the bottom of this.
According to the report, 171 unidentified objects were seen for which no explanation could be found, and some of these objects “exhibited unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” The report also stated that UFO sightings “continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns about flight safety”.
It added that the observations could indicate “enemy collection activity” and suggested that UFOs in the vicinity of sensitive US military installations could be a foreign power spying on them. There is no doubt that much remains to be learnt about these 171 UFO sightings, for which there is still no good explanation. Is it the work of a foreign power investigating US air defences? Or are they relatively harmless, like faulty balloons? The US Congress should organise hearings to get to the bottom of this. The public has a right to know why objects unidentified by the Pentagon and the US intelligence community are flying in American airspace.
