Pentagon Launches Portal for UFO Sightings

The Pentagon this week launched a secure portal for receiving information from U.S. military personnel about UFO sightings.

The portal allows current or former government employees, contractors or service members to report “direct knowledge of U.S. Government programs or activities related to” Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, the formal government name for objects that had previously been known as UFOs.

An option for the public to submit reports is coming soon, officials say. The move signifies that the government is slowly moving closer to fulfilling its promise of complete openness about what it knows, or doesn’t, about everything from strange flashes in the sky to the possibility of alien life and sightings of unusual flying craft.

The US has shared reports about them in recent years. Some of these sightings still have no clear explanation, while others have been linked to things like balloons, drones, birds, weather events, or even floating debris like plastic bags.

Pentagon: Hundreds of UFO sightings have been reported in 2023

More than 270 reports of UAPs were made to the U.S. government in a recent eight-month period, the Department of Defense said in a report to Congress in October.

The launch of the tool follows the appointment last month of former Pentagon liaison Mark McInerney as NASA’s first director of UAP research, and the space agency’s promise to harness a worldwide army of citizen sky-watchers to improve its observations and analysis of the unfamiliar.

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office says it will use the information submitted through its website in a report on UAPs. The AARO, which was established through the annual defense policy bill approved by Congress in 2021, is considered the leading federal agency for UAP efforts.

The AARO says classified information should not be submitted through the form, but notes that reporting through the site would not be considered a violation of a non-disclosure agreement.

People should also not submit secondhand information, and only people who were U.S. government or contractor personnel with direct knowledge of “U.S. government programs or activities related to UAP” should contribute. However, in the future, the reporting eligibility will be expanded, the agency says.

After the reports are reviewed, AARO staff may reach out for more details or an interview, according to the form. Submitting false information “can be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both,” the form says.

In July, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing featuring testimony from a former military intelligence officer and two former fighter pilots, who said they had first-hand experience with the mysterious objects.

In the wake of the hearing, a bipartisan group of House members called on then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to form a select committee tasked with investigating the federal response to UAPs.