Hundreds of UFOs have been spotted “around the world,” the Pentagon chief admits

Unidentified metal orb UFOs have been spotted “all over the world,” a Pentagon chief admitted today at NASA’s first-ever public hearing on the phenomenon.

Physicist Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), said: “We’re seeing these [‘metallic orbs’] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.”

Dr. Kirkpatrick presented AARO’s latest findings to NASA’s independent team of scientists and other experts charged with studying the UFO phenomenon – which has become less and less stigmatized after several high-profile congressional hearings and military sightings.

Scientists and policymakers from NASA’s independent panel also discussed their own proposed recommendations to the Federal Space Agency, including: an active effort to remove the stigma surrounding UAP research, as well as a hunt for extraterrestrial “artifacts” in our solar system.

Meanwhile, during today’s NASA hearing, it was also revealed that the space agency will work closely with the Pentagon’s official UFO investigators on top secret UFO matters.

Dr. Kirkpatrick said the Pentagon is working closely with “NASA embeds,” scientists who have been given permission to work on classified UAP cases where their expertise could help military investigators identify the mysterious craft or events.

Kirkpatrick added that AARO plans to deploy “specific sensors for typical UAP” sightings, equipment that is independent of the existing military defense sensors that have so far picked up UAP evidence during their normal duties.

Both NASA’s chief of science, space and atmospheric physicist Dr. Nicky Fox, as AARO’s Director, Dr. Kirkpatrick, also took the time to reprimand unnamed individuals for harassing members of the NASA panel.

Both said this attitude, online and among officials, has contributed to the lingering social stigma surrounding UAP.

Karlin Toner, a member of the NASA UAP study group, senior advisor for data policy integration to the FAA’s Office of Aviation Policy and Plans, recommended that the space agency “make it safer to explore data” for scientists dealing with the ‘negative stigma’ surrounding UAP.

Toner suggested that the independent panel “consider advising NASA to more fully assess the cultural and social barriers to UAP study and reporting,” effectively working hard to end the stigma on UAP research among the scientific community.

NASA, she said, should “implement a plan to leverage its brand image to remove these obstacles.”

But, as the chair of NASA’s independent UAP panel, theoretical astrophysicist David Spergel, described it, their group’s ultimate goal is to answer this one question: “How can NASA contribute to understanding the nature of UAPs?”

He summarized the current state of data collection efforts on UAP as “unsystematic” and “dispersed across agencies” often using tools appropriate to their security or safety mandate but “not calibrated for scientific data collection.”

Spergel added that some of the work done in this area has gained the admirable status of “citizen science.” He cited earlier anomalies, such as the fantastic reports of upward red lightning, or sprites, first reported by shocked pilots and initially dismissed by atmospheric scientists.

“If it’s something that’s abnormal. That makes it interesting and worth studying,” Spergel said.

But study group member Mike Gold, NASA’s former associate administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships, went even further.

Gold, who currently works at private space infrastructure company Redwire, called on the agency to “establish a permanent office within NASA to support this activity,” UAP’s serious study.

NASA’s study group, a collection of 16 experts ranging from physicists to astronauts, was formed last June to investigate unclassified UFO sightings and other data collected from the civil government and commercial sectors.

The study group represents the first research ever conducted by the U.S. space agency on a subject the government previously entrusted to military and national security officials, if it received respect or attention at all.

Today, these parallel efforts by NASA and the Pentagon, both undertaken with some semblance of transparency, mark a turning point in the government’s public stance on UFOs or UAP.

After decades spent defusing, debunking and discrediting sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, dating back to the 1940s, Pentagon officials now say their recent effort to investigate such sightings has led to hundreds of new reports currently under investigation.

AARO Director Kirkpatrick told the NASA panel today that about 2 to 5 percent of AARO’s current database of about 800 UAP cases constituted genuine and baffling anomalies.

Kirkpatrick’s report, as well as a presentation by a consultant to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Surveillance Services Office, Mike Freie, were the first major presentations at today’s public panel by NASA’s UAP study group.

While NASA’s science mission was seen by some as a promise of a more open-minded approach to a subject that had long been treated as taboo by the defense establishment, the US space agency said from the start that it rarely jumped to conclusions.

“There is no evidence that UAPs are of extraterrestrial origin,” NASA said last June when announcing the formation of the panel.

In its more recent statements, the agency presented another potential wrinkle for the UAP acronym itself, referring to it as an abbreviation for “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” This suggested that observations other than those appearing in the sky may be included.

Still, announcing Wednesday’s meeting, NASA said the space agency defines UAPs “as observations of aerial events that cannot be identified from a scientific perspective as aircraft or known natural phenomena.”

However, there were indications that NASA could extend its interest in the subject well beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

One panel member, astrobiologist David Grinspoon, a NASA consultant on space exploration strategy, made far more cosmic recommendations than his colleagues at today’s public meeting.

Grinspoon noted that his and his colleagues’ search for “biosignatures” and “technosignatures” of extraterrestrial life in the wider universe could play an important role in assisting and collaborating with local UAP research.

“While there is currently no evidence to suggest an extraterrestrial source for UAPs,” Grinspoon said, “these existing NASA programs are relevant to the question.”

Grinspoon told the panel it would be “plausible” to find “alien artifacts” created by an alien civilization in our solar system. NASA, he said, should make efforts to search for and identify such artifacts in future planetary exploration missions.