By Tim Binnall
The Department of Defense office tasked with investigating UFOs has issued their annual report on the effort and it indicates that, while a considerable number of new cases have been collected, their analysis to date has found that the phenomenon is largely prosaic rather than alien in nature. Released by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the update states that a total of 291 unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) reports were received from August 2022 to April 2023. Having now analyzed a significant number of cases, the report observes that the "majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate ordinary characteristics of readily explainable sources."
Of the reports that cannot be explained to date, they stressed that "a large number of cases in AARO's holdings remain technically unresolved because of a lack of data." Interestingly, the office goes on to posit that, as data collection becomes more refined, "the unidentified and anomalous nature of most UAPs will resolve to ordinary phenomena" and, in turn, result in a decrease in cases. To that end, the update notes that 100 of the reports came by way of the FAA via commercial pilots and, in those instances, most involved "unidentified lights" and that none of the incidents involved objects "exhibiting anomalous characteristics."
Despite what may be a dispiriting analysis to those who believe that UFOs are otherworldly visitors, there is something of a glimmer of hope in the update as it concedes that "a very small percentage of UAP reports display interesting signatures such as high-speed travel and unknown morphologies." That tantalizing handful of cases, the report says, are being looked at with "objectivity and analytical rigor" which includes "physical testing" as well as computer simulations which they hope will provide some answer as to how or why the UAPs seem to be behaving unusually or appear to be unique in design.
A particularly interesting detail found in the report is that, despite expanding their scope to include unidentified submerged objects as well as transmedium anomalies, the office only received a single USO case among the 291 incidents collected during the period covered in the update and there were no events wherein something traveled between the air and water. AARO also indicated they have found no instances wherein a witness suffered "adverse health-related effects" from their experiences. While UFO enthusiasts may find themselves disappointed with the annual report, its very existence serves as something of a victory for those who have long called for the government to investigate the phenomenon and, in turn, tell the public what they discover.