Dan Vergano: You’re listening to Scientific American’s Science, Quickly. I’m Dan Vergano.
For the past decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have come from a surprising place: the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots.
These days, the objects are officially called UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena).
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on these objects, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believed that the U.S. possessed “nonhuman” spacecraft and possibly their “dead pilots.”
We’re talking today to physicist and former intelligence official Sean Kirkpatrick, who, until last December, headed the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office that Congress told to find some answers to all this. He recently published an op-ed in Scientific American called “Here’s What I Learned as the U.S. Government’s UFO Hunter.”
Hi, Sean. Welcome to the podcast.
Sean Kirkpatrick: I’m glad to be here.
Vergano: Can you talk a little bit about your office’s search through past records? What’d you find in—what did Congress ask you to look for?
Kirkpatrick: Sure. The Congress really gave us two main missions. There was an operational mission, which is to investigate contemporary sightings with military pilots, operators [and] sensors to understand what’s happening in our domain. You can think of that as the current time going forward.
The second mission was a historical mission, which was to look at everything the United States government has done on this topic, going…
Read the full article here
