US UFO report: Officials reveal inside scoop of report ahead of its release

Ahead of the submission of the United States Report on the findings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and the possible explanation behind them, two US officials have ruled out the possibility of extraterrestrial beings behind the sightings. The two officials, who were briefed on the US report on UFOs which is to be submitted any time this month, stated that the report found no proof of an extraterrestrial link and does not rule out that what pilots have seen might be new technologies developed by other countries. 

Having not authorised to speak on the issue, the two officials spoke on conditions of anonymity. One of them said, the expected public release of an unclassified version of the UFO report this month will amount to a status report, but not the final word.

Speaking on the development, Associated Press (AP) reporter Nomaan Merchant said, "Basically, we're in the same place we always were before this report."

"People who believe in UFOs will find something to hold on to. People who are sceptical about UFOs will find something to hold on to. But the fact remains that this is a national security concern and it's being taken seriously by all elements of government," he added.

US Government's interest in UFOs

US Government expressed interest in knowing whether Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) - in military parlance - indeed exist and whether they could potentially pose a threat as adversaries on earth. An unclassified version of the report will be made public while more detailed and classified findings will remain secret.

John Ratcliffe, director of National Intelligence for the last eight months of Donald Trump's administration had also earlier said that there have been a lot more sightings than what has been made public. The Congress in December had assigned Ratcliffe to summarize and report on the US government's knowledge of UAPs. The effort has included officials on a Defense Department UAP task force established last year.

However, the purported report is required by the US Administration to identify if rival countries are deploying advanced aerial technology in American airspace than to understand if the UAPs and aliens exist.

Speaking on the developments, Mick West, a prominent researcher of unexplained phenomena and debunker of conspiracy theories, told AP, "We have very, very real issues now with drones and increasingly other nations and other bad actors are going to be using drones to try to get into our airspace to spy on us and possibly even attack us. So that's something that needs to be dealt with."

"But people are conflating this issue with the idea that these UFOs demonstrate amazing physics and possibly even aliens," West added. 

"The idea that this is some kind of secret warp drive or it's defying physics as we know it, there really isn't any good evidence for that. And if you look at the videos, the videos do not support that advanced physics argument," he further contended.

"I'm not saying there are no aliens anywhere in the universe," said Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine.

"They're probably out there, they probably haven't come here. That is my conclusion although we have no evidence one way or the other for either of those questions," a rather sceptic Shermer contended.

"Before you say something is out of this world, first, make sure it's not in this world, so let's not jump to extraordinary claims until we have the ordinary ones ruled out," Shermer said.

"And then the ECRE principle, we call it. Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence," he said.

UFO sightings

However, the fact remains that Pentagon officials have confirmed previously that sightings of UFOs in the past are legitimate. According to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) data, sightings of UFOs registered have increased a lot more during the Coronavirus pandemic compared to the last year with 480 new reports submitted just in March 2021. 

These unconfirmed sightings have jumped by 1000 compared to last year when the centre dedicated to the Collection and Dissemination of Objective UFO Data registered over 7,200 instances of possible UFOs in the skies. It alleged that in 2020, the instances of UFO sightings registered with the agency increased by 31%. In December, last year NUFORC reported at least two alleged sightings of probably authentic UFOs by airline crew members.

(WITH INPUTS FROM AP)