In the last year or so, the government has been unusually transparent when it comes to UFOs. While the U.S. military has long been “obsessed” with such objects, the government hasn’t always been upfront about exactly what’s happening with sightings of unidentified flying objects.

That’s begun to change of late. Retired U.S. Senator Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader, recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about his longtime interest in UFOs and shared that colleagues had long told him to leave the UFO issue alone—and that one such senator was his late colleague John Glenn, who has himself been to space.

Former President Barack Obama also addressed the subject, to much media reaction, in a recent TV interview. 

“What is true, and I’m actually being serious here,’’ Obama said, “is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are.”

More recently, the government has been upfront about plans to investigate recent aerial phenomena, including sightings of strange objects by Navy fighter pilots off the coast of California. Back in March, reports stated that the Navy and FBI were investigating mysterious incidents around California’s Channel Islands in the summer of 2019, in which Naval vessels appeared to have been “buzzed" by unidentified drone-like objects. 

“There are still those observations that defy explanation—observations by highly trained individuals such as fighter or airline pilots who would recognize aircraft shapes and aircraft movements,” according to Luis Elizondo, the head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, in an email sent to The National Interest in May. 

Now, the government is preparing an official report about some of the recent sightings-one that shows no signs that the objects are in fact alien spacecraft. 

According to The New York Times, “American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military.”

The report cited “senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report,” one which is classified. The full report is expected to be released to Congress by June 25. 

The Times also said that the report will state that “the vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology,” indicating that perhaps some of the objects are from foreign sources. 

Indeed, per the Times report, “intelligence officials believe at least some of the aerial phenomena could be experimental technology from a rival power, most likely Russia or China.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist, and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.