By Tim Binnall
The Pentagon office devoted to studying the UFO phenomenon will soon have a new leader as the current head of the program, Sean Kirkpatrick, plans to step down from the role next month. In a press release from the Department of Defense, they indicated that the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) chief would be retiring in December following a "distinguished 27-year career of public service." After decades of working for the DoD and US intelligence community in relative obscurity, Kirkpatrick was thrust into the national spotlight last year when he was tasked with leading AARO and subsequently became the face of the office to the public by way of Congressional hearings wherein he presented their findings.
In reflecting on his decision to step down, Kirkpatrick mused to Politico that "I'm ready to move on. I have accomplished everything I said I was going to do." To that end, the DoD lauded him for not only establishing the office in the first place but also investigating "more than 800 unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) cases" as well as developing "the department's first public-facing website" aimed at greater transparency and collecting additional UFO reports from government witnesses. AARO deputy director Tim Phillips will now lead the effort until a permanent replacement for the position is hired by the Pentagon.
Throughout his tenure as head of AARO, Kirkpatrick was the subject of considerable scrutiny from UFO enthusiasts who contend that the Pentagon office served as merely a public relations effort aimed at keeping the 'true nature' of the phenomenon a secret. Remarkably, in response to these assertions, Kirkpatrick told Politico that "the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens" as, otherwise, "what we're finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard and that's not good." Time will tell whether the change in leadership at AARO will lead to any substantial differences in the office's findings or if it will continue to put forward largely prosaic explanations for the phenomenon to the chagrin of the UFO community.