Why the Pentagon shut down one of the programs that investigated Unidentified Flying Object sightings, and then recently changed the rules regarding the way the Armed Forces reports a UFO sighting is interesting, to say the least. The original program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program run by Luis Elizondo, a military intelligence official, spent $22 million to investigate UFO reports.

Now, the new rules are designed to get more information on flying objects that are unidentifiable. While technically UFOs, it seems the Pentagon wants to keep the “unidentified” out of the name in an effort to not “confuse” civilians.

Iain Boyd, former science advisor to the Air Force and a current professor at the University of Michigan in Aerospace Engineering, writes that the Pentagon needs to do this because:

“During a military mission, whether in peace or in war, if a pilot or soldier can’t identify an object, they have a serious problem: How should they react, without knowing if it is neutral, friendly or threatening? Fortunately, the military can use advanced technologies to try to identify strange things in the sky.”

In other words, the pilot or soldier won’t have the proper situational awareness needed to assess the situation and make a sound decision on what to do. This can be extremely dangerous, as it could theoretically result in friendly fire, or even start wars.

At present, with more than 8,000 “UFO” sightings per year globally, this presents a serious problem, especially since any time a pilot sees something, they need to check with ground control and other pilots, who don’t always have answers.

Strange sightings, whether a UFO sighting or otherwise, are well-known throughout human history. From sailors’ sightings of what they thought were mermaids, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot to grey alien beings and flying saucers – and more even – we’ve struggled as humans to identify the alleged beings and flying crafts.

Often, the things reported have realistic explanations, such as the manatee being mistaken for a mermaid, driftwood being mistaken as the Loch Ness Monster, and stealth fighter planes during flight tests being mistaken as alien crafts, among other explanations. Boyd writes that humans mistakenly report these things as strange or UFOs because we don’t interpret what we’re seeing correctly.

However, there are some things that are truly still unidentifiable. For example, the Scientific Coalition of UFOlogy, also known as the Scientific Coalition of UAF Studies (SCU and SCUS respectively), reports that in 2004, the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Strike Group Eleven detected about 20 anomalous aerial vehicles (AAV) during training exercises off of California’s coastline.

This group included a nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, and a missile cruiser, the USS Princeton. Two F/A-18F Navy jets were sent to intercept the AAVs because they were determined to be a safety hazard to the training group’s air exercises. The full report of the incident documents witnesses testimony, a video, and data from the ships that caught the objects on radar.

Another well-known UFO sighting is one from Mexico, involving the Mexican Air Force. The Mexican Defense Department confirmed the sighting, saying the pilots saw 11 flying objects that they’ve yet to identify while flying a mission over Mexico’s Southern Campeche state.

The interesting thing about this report is that only 3 of the 11 objects showed up on their radar, despite the crafts surrounding the Air Force pilots. The Mexican Defense Department released video shortly after their press release announcing the incident.

The SCU documented many more UFO sightings, many of which are still unexplained to this day.

What does the future of UFO identification hold? According to the U.S. Navy:

“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. For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.”

This statement might make you think that the military and Pentagon have changed their minds on the UFO sighting reports, but you’d be wrong. All the Navy is doing is admitting that enough credible sailors and pilots have reported strange things that the Navy feels they should be documented officially instead of dismissed out of hand.

The Navy’s statement continued to say that:

“As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in the draft.”

In the future, determining what UFOs actually are could involve artificial intelligence that interprets the information that various military sensors and radars gather, such as heading, range, size, shape, and speed, among other things. Using this information, the AI could theoretically identify hard to identify objects and spit out a list of those that it doesn’t recognize.

For now, however, the Navy and Air Force will be stuck with this new process for reporting a new UFO sighting. While it is better than ignoring the credible reports, time will only tell if the Pentagon will take the information seriously and step up their game in the future.

Featured Image: Screenshot via YouTube Video