The Pentagon firmly discredited several claims that the U.S. government has covered up evidence of space aliens and extraterrestrial material following a sweeping new investigation.
A persistent theme in pop culture since the 1940s has been a belief that the government, or a secret program within it, has collected alien bodies and spacecraft and is attempting to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology, all while hiding the effort from Congress.
Most Americans associate the conspiracy theory with strange sightings of UFOs, short for unidentified flying objects: the things that can't be readily explained by nature, aircraft, or other existing technology. Over the past few years, the Defense Department has adopted a new term — unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP — to put daylight between the topic and the stigma that comes along with UFOs, sometimes stereotyped as tin-foil hat delusions.
At the prompting of Congress, the Pentagon released an initial unclassified version of a report on March 8. At the same time, NASA has been tasked with studying unclassified material in its own investigation.
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The military study, led by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, covers 80 years of reports on government offices and special access programs, researching classified and unclassified records. It also includes the findings from interviews with about 30 current and former government employees who were supposedly involved in these activities or heard stories about them.
"We believe most of the individuals repeating these claims did so without malice or any effort to mislead the public," AARO acting director Tim Phillips said in a statement. "Many have sincerely misinterpreted real events or mistaken sensitive U.S. programs, for which they were not cleared, as having been related to UAP or extraterrestrial exploitation."
Here are a handful of the claims the Pentagon has busted as myths in the new 63-page report.
1. Nondisclosure Agreements used for cover-ups
The Pentagon investigators said they didn't find any proof of NDAs or death threats associated with potential UAP information leaks.
2. A CIA official managed UAP experiments
Interviewed "whistleblowers" accused a former CIA official of moving extraterrestrial technology. That ex-official signed a memo saying he didn't oversee the relocation of extraterrestrial stuff or any experiments on off-world technology.
3. Aliens observed a technology test
One of the interviewees claimed to overhear a conversation over electronic communication between two military bases about a technology test that aliens were observing. After looking into the account, investigators surmised that the person misunderstood the conversation.
4. A military officer touched an alien spacecraft
An interviewee named a former military officer who allegedly around 1999 talked about a time he touched an extraterrestrial spacecraft. The former officer denied the claim on the record, saying the interviewee might have been confused about a story regarding an F-117 Nighthawk, a retired Lockheed stealth fighter aircraft. The former officer also said he didn't remember having that conversation with the interviewee.
5. An extraterrestrial technology test occurred
An interviewee said he witnessed the testing of extraterrestrial technology at a government facility. The investigators said the interviewee "almost certainly" saw a real technology test, but that the demonstration had nothing to do with UAP. They concluded this because the interviewee's account strongly correlated in time, location, and description with a known technology test.
6. White House looked into making alien info public
Two interviewees claimed the White House hired a Northern Virginia research institute to study the possible impacts of the United States, Russia, or China disclosing that they possessed extraterrestrial evidence between 2004 and 2007, during President George W. Bush's administration. The investigators confirmed that the study was indeed conducted for one day, but that the White House didn't request it.
7. Experiments conducted on a spacecraft sample
The investigators acquired material from a private UAP-investigating organization and the Army that was alleged to have come from a crashed off-world spacecraft. They determined the sample was a man-made alloy of magnesium, zinc, and bismuth, with traces of other elements, such as lead. It "possesses no exceptional qualities," they said.
8. A program called 'Kona Blue' holds UAP information
Interviewees who believe the government is hiding information named a program at the Department of Homeland Security they thought was related to UAP, codenamed Kona Blue. If it had ever existed, Kona Blue would have been the reestablishment of an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency program begun in the 2000s for the purpose of performing UAP investigations, paranormal research, and reverse-engineering any acquired extraterrestrial technology. That former DIA program (with the unwieldy names Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program and Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) was eliminated in 2012 for lacking merit, according to the report. Supporters of the original program proposed Kona Blue to Homeland Security, but it was never approved. In short, there is no Kona Blue.
9. A program reverse-engineers off-world tech
The scope of a secretive intelligence community program was expanded in 2021 to protect potential UAP reverse-engineering. But this program neither recovered prospective material to study nor reverse-engineered anything, according to the report. The program was disestablished "due to its lack of merit."
So far the Pentagon hasn't verified any accounts that the government has extraterrestrial evidence or that any UAP sighting was indeed from another world. The investigators will release more findings through another installment of the report later this year.
