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What we know so far about UFOs, according to government records

An official report is expected later this month, officials say

Pentagon confirms authenticity of UFO videos, including one off of Jacksonville coast

Well, it’s official — your uncle and Joe Rogan no longer need to take off their tinfoil hats. Pentagon officials have admitted to seeing Unidentified Flying Objects for years.

However, you probably won’t see the acronym “UFO” in a report by the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force expected later this month.

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Pentagon officials are using the acronym UAP, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, to describe instances of strange and oftentimes unexplainable lights, patterns, and flying objects in the sky.

According to an Associated Press report, two officials briefed on the report said they have found “no extraterrestrial link to the sightings reported and captured on video.”

However, the AP report continues, “the report won’t rule out a link to another country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it.”

One stipulation of Congress’ $2.3 billion relief package in December was that the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence needed to deliver a report of UAP events and explain to the country what government officials knew about them.

The task force was formed on Aug. 4 by Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist.

According to the Pentagon, “the mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”

The DOD said it would utilize the information developed by the task force to “improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs.”

On April 27, DOD officials released three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017.

“The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos,” DOD officials said in a news release. “After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena.”

DOD officials said that they were “releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos.”

The list of videos compiled by the DOD remains characterized as “unidentified.”

“The DOD and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report,” Pentagon officials said in a news release. “This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been outspoken about the report and its interest in national security.

“There is stuff flying in our airspace,” Rubio told Fox News on June 1. “We don’t know what it is. We need to find out.”

The former Senator of Nevada Harry Reid also issued a statement on the report, saying officials needed to take “a serious, scientific look” and any “potential national security implications.”

If you want to learn more or see the documents for yourself, click here and here.

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About the Author
Jakob Rodriguez headshot

Jakob Rodriguez is a digital journalist at KSAT 12. He's a graduate of Texas State University, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the student-run newspaper, The University Star.

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