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The Military United States Government Space

America's Defense Department Creates a New Office for Tracking and Analyzing UFOs (space.com) 43

Posted by EditorDavid from the identifying-flying-objects dept.
This week America's Department of Defense "created an office to track unidentified objects in space and air, [and] under water," reports Space.com, "or even those that appear to travel between these domains." UFOs, or as they are now known, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have been receiving newfound levels of government scrutiny not seen in decades. Multiple hearings and classified briefings have taken place in the halls of the U.S. Congress in recent months, and many lawmakers have expressed concern that America's airspace may not be as safe as we think due to the many sightings of unidentified objects military aviators and other armed forces personnel have reported.

With that in mind, the Department of Defense announced the creation of this new office in a statement published Wednesday (July 20). The office is known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, and was established within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security... The office has six primary lines of effort: surveillance, collection and reporting; system capabilities and design; intelligence operations and analysis; mitigation and defeat; governance; and science and technology.
A statement from the U.S. Department of Defense spells out its mission:
  • To synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies
  • To detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest
  • As necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security.

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 notes the office already has its own Twitter feed, providing "updates and information relative to our examinations of unidentified anomalous phenomena across space, air, and maritime domains."


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America's Defense Department Creates a New Office for Tracking and Analyzing UFOs More

America's Defense Department Creates a New Office for Tracking and Analyzing UFOs

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  • Not as crazy as it might sound (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Saturday July 23, 2022 @02:43PM (#62727706) Journal
    We now have the technology to create aircraft small and large that can appear to defy physics, fly in swarms and act as a unit, and otherwise not operate like conventional aircraft. Our own military uses some of these, and we know that other countries have this technology as well, which could be used, and likely is being used, for military purposes against the United States and against U.S. forces. It would be irresponsible to ignore them.

    • Agreed. TL;DR: UFOs don't have to be aliens.

      • That is the damn problem!
        We have to figure which of those UFOs are aliens (do they want to immigrate? Do they have a passport? Police record?)
        But for that we have to identify them first! You see? Crocodiles all the way down, or was it Elephants? Or Turtles?

      • How dare you sir! I had cases of hair gel ready to sell to that one guy.

    • > that can appear to defy physics

      Such as?

      We have multimodal instrumentation on a target that dropped from 60K ft to 50ft in 3 seconds and to a dead stop, with visual confirmation.

      That is currently inexplicable. Even China couldn't do it then. We don't have physics to describe it but we have observation (so obviously there is physics but we don't know it yet) .

      IMO space aliens is the least likely explanation. Soviets, Nazis, ancient humans - none of those require sidestepping relativistic constraints.

      Cou

      • IIRC, you exaggerate the distance. However, here's one way to do that, with no unknown physics. Line up a hundred or so small drones from 60k feet up (as I say, I think it was much lower than that) down to 50 feet. From a distance, they're invisible because they're too small. But they can communicate with each other by radio or laser or what-have-you. Starting at the top, each one flashes a light for a fraction of a second, and simultaneously emits a radio pulse on the frequency used by the aircraft (o

    • That's just counter surveillance.

    • You know this how?

      • He’s talking about current known technology like drones. He is not even talking about secret military technology.

    • It would be irresponsible to ignore them.

      I'm quite curious to hear how many UFO reports they get and what they eventually turn out to be. Honestly, I expect "marsh gas" more than I expect "foreign agent technology, details withheld for security reasons."

      A reasonable middle ground might just be a summary: "we got 47 reports, 21 turned out to be optical illusions, 13 were hobbiers with drones, 12 turned out to be advanced military technology from places we're not going to list, and one we can't explain."

  • You guys hiring? Asking for a friend.

  • Wigs (Score:5, Funny)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Saturday July 23, 2022 @03:06PM (#62727776)
    Will they have the uniforms [starburstmagazine.com] ?

  • It's lens flare (Score:4, Funny)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Saturday July 23, 2022 @03:15PM (#62727790)

    Can I have my $x million a year government contract now?

  • So which poor sod has to lose their broom cupboard?

  • UFOs, or as they are now known, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)

    What's the point of attempting to rename UFOs? And why choose a name that excludes space?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jovius ( 974690 )

      Perhaps because the phenomena are aerial (and not necessarily flying objects)? Or that by excluding space they are trying to shift the narrative, following conspiracy manual page 666 instructions?

      When they come up with a mundane scientific and rational explanation of the phenomena a lot of people will bypass it completely anyway, because "yeah that's what they would say".

      • Yes some previously debunked UFO sightings were not "flying objects" but caused by things like space junk, meteors, clouds, etc. Neil Degrasse Tyson told a story of a policeman who radioed in a sighting of moving UFO while driving. The UFO turned out to be Venus I think. It was "moving" because of the curvy road the policeman happened to be driving.

  • Serious Question (Score:4, Funny)

    by magusxxx ( 751600 ) <magusxxx_2000NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Sunday July 24, 2022 @12:05AM (#62728580)

    How many people working on this project are part of the serious UFO investigators which for decades were being ignored?

    It might be nice to hire some of them to do the digging.

    • You mean, those people who run paranormal websites and blogs? No thanks, we don't need those guys anywhere near the "investigation." Follow the money. Anybody who has "made a name" for themselves investigating UFOs, has a financial incentive.

    • There are serious UFO investigators?

    • Probably none of them as these people will most likely be professionals who will attempt to find a natural or man-made explanation first. For example, UFOs seen over [city]: first check commercial and military flights at the time.

  • Drown people in UFO material - people who otherwise might be looking at other conspiracies. These are harmless and entertaining, and there's little down side.

    • We don't appear to be drowning, in fact most of us are pretty much ignoring this (aside from occasionally posting to /., but I would never do that!).

  • A new office has also been created to determine, when the aliens are finally found, what exactly are their pronouns.

  • It seems that this "new" organisation will report to and be directly controlled by the military, so no independence from the military objectives or personalities, so we will continue to have anything of value classified and buried.

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