Physicist Seán Kirkpatrick, director of the U.S. government's UFO analysis office, recently disclosed what he said is evidence of unidentified flying object (UFO) activity "in our backyard."
Kirkpatrick, who leads the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), proposed that the source of this activity could either be a foreign power or extraterrestrial beings, reported The Hill in an opinion piece.
Despite Kirkpatrick's assertion, none of the hundreds of military UFO reports analyzed by his office have been positively linked to foreign activities. Senior defense officials have also ruled out the possibility of secret U.S. programs or experimental aircraft.
Kirkpatrick's retirement after a 27-year career in defense and intelligence adds intrigue to his statements. Though still under investigation for foreign links, the prevailing evidence seems to align more with the startling explanation of extraterrestrial involvement.
This revelation reflects a broader shift in the government's tone on UFO phenomena. Former presidents, senior defense officials, and members of Congress have departed from historical practices of obfuscation and ridicule, openly considering extraordinary explanations for perplexing UFO incidents.
Earlier this year, Kirkpatrick collaborated with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb on a draft scientific paper suggesting that extraterrestrial "parent craft" could release "many small probes" to explore Earth-like planets. This paper aligns with Kirkpatrick's recent statement that U.S. government sensors and servicemembers have observed "metallic orbs" displaying unique maneuvers worldwide.
An intelligence source speaking to the Daily Mail indicated the existence of unreleased videos recorded by surveillance drones, capturing "metallic orbs" conducting remarkable maneuvers, including sudden disappearances from the screen. Described as both "metallic" and "translucent," these objects travel at speeds up to Mach 2 with no detectable thermal exhaust, contributing to a distinct UFO profile actively investigated by Kirkpatrick's panel.
The historical context of military encounters with mysterious "metallic orbs" dates back to World War II, with American aviators reporting sightings of "silver spheres" exhibiting semi-translucent qualities. Captain Edward Ruppelt, the first director of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, documented encounters with metallic spheres in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In late 1944, the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, and Stars and Stripes published stories concerning the orbs.
As early as 2014, former U.S. Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves and his fellow aviators reported frequent observations of anomalous objects off the East Coast. The descriptions align with historical accounts of encounters with "transparent spheres." Videos and images of "metallic orbs" and a "semi-translucent" sphere, recorded by U.S. servicemembers, have surfaced in recent years.
In response to the evolving discourse on UFOs, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced legislation to enhance government transparency. The proposed bill addresses claims of surreptitious UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs, seeking to define terms such as "non-human intelligence" and compelling private contractors to surrender recovered UFOs or biological evidence of non-human intelligence to the U.S. government for the "public good."