A U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson reportedly confirmed the Pentagon's interest in UFO's, citing the agency's investigation of 'unidentified aerial phenomena.'

According to a report from The New York Post, a representative confirmed that the U.S. government studied and investigated the occurrence of mysterious and unexplained aircraft as a part of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that was made public in 2017.

Media commentator and former British defense official Nick Pope told the Post that the specific choice of words marks a major step in the way that the government talks about unidentified aircraft.

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In a major precedent, a U.S. Department of Defense official has admitted that the Pentagon studied 'unidentified aerial phenomena.'

'This new admission makes it clear that they really did study what the public would call ‘UFOs,’ he told the Post.

'It also shows the British influence, because UAP was the term we used in the Ministry of Defence to get away from the pop culture baggage that came with the term ‘UFO.'

The shift in terminology comes just weeks after the U.S. Navy unveiled new guidelines on collecting information about UFO sightings.

As reported by Politico, the guidelines are designed to make it easier for sailors to report UFO sightings amid fears that mysterious unidentified flying objects could actually be 'extremely advanced Russian aircraft.'

The Navy has reported an uptick in the number of 'highly advanced aircraft' encroaching on its air space.

'There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years,' a spokesperson for the Navy said to Politico in April.

The change in terminology comes just weeks after the Navy rewrote guidelines on how it reports UFO's.

Throughout the last several years, the U.S. Government has shown an increasing willingness to acknowledge its investigation and interest of UFO's.

In 2017, former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo made headlines when he detailed the existence of the UFO-focused Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program - a $22 million government operation that studied UFOs.

The secretive program sought to identify UFO sightings through U.S. surveillance and eyewitness reports and then 'ascertain and determine if that information is a potential threat to national security.'

Among the sightings were reports from pilots of two U.S. Navy Super Hornet fighters who spotted a UFO on a training mission.

The pilots reportedly spotted a mysterious vehicle, around 40ft long, oval-shaped and whitish, hovering erratically above the ground.

The craft 'had no plumes, wings or rotors,' but traveled at a mile per second. When pilots approached the object, it easily outran the military jets.

Elizondo resigned from his post in 2017 in protest over what he has termed excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the project.

Although the Pentagon officially stopped funding the project in 2012, reports from the New York Times suggest the program is still operating.