Pentagon: Nothing to See Here About Extraterrestrials

For at least two years, the Defense Department's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has been reviewing nearly eight decades of government probes into alleged sightings of UFOs (also called UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena) and other alleged extraterrestrial happenings, and on Friday, the office released a lengthy, 60-page-plus report on its findings. The upshot? "AARO has found no verifiable evidence that any UAP sighting has represented extraterrestrial activity," said AARO acting chief Tim Phillips before the report's Friday release, per ABC News.

The report—put together over time by about 20 AARO staffers who reached out to all federal agencies involved in past UAP investigations—also found there was no credible evidence that the US government or any private firms have ever gotten their hands on alien technology that they then reverse-engineered, or that there was any kind of cover-up to keep such information from Congress, including via secret UAP programs. "We assess that claims of such hidden programs are largely the result of circular reporting in which a small group of individuals have repeated inaccurate claims they have heard from others over a period of several decades," Phillips notes, adding that said individuals weren't acting maliciously or with an intent to deceive.

Phillips says that the government review was its most sweeping one yet of both classified and unclassified files regarding possible alien activity, stretching as far back as the end of World War II. The New York Times notes, however, that the report's release likely won't do much to stem Americans' alien obsession—and the Pentagon acknowledges that part is a tough nut to crack. "Misinformation and disinformation is more prevalent and easier to disseminate now than ever before," the report says, citing "today's advanced photo, video, and computer-generated imagery tools." Investigators also noted that American culture, rife with TV shows, movies, books, and social media posts about aliens, also likely helps fuel conspiracy theories about ETs. (More aliens stories.)