In 2020, the Pentagon revealed the existence of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), with the program tasked with gathering all info the military has on UFO sightings which cannot be rationally explained. The Pentagon is expected to brief Congress on its findings on 1 June, with the widely anticipated report to be made public.
In the United States, public interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has its origins in the immediate post-WWII era, with increasingly advanced aerospace technology, the sci-fi craze of the 1950s, and exaggerated Red Scare fears of radically advanced Soviet technology. All of this contributed to burgeoning UFO sightings and gave birth to theories that we’re not alone in the universe.
The US government and military were not immune to the speculation, and in 1948 formally tasked the US Air Force with officially studying and documenting UFOs, with the initiative codenamed Project SAUCER, and later renamed Project Sign.
In 1949, the Air Force issued its final report under Project Sign, concluding that the vast majority of UFOs could be explained away by mundane phenomena like aircraft, weather balloons, clouds, sun dogs, stars, and other phenomena that were not out of this world.
The same year, the Air Force initiated a new investigation, dubbed Project Grudge, and like its predecessor, determined that most of the evidence at its disposal pointed to manmade technology or ordinary cosmic and earthly events. Project Grudge’s final report, issued in August 1949, concluded that on the basis of its data.
“There is no evidence that objects reported upon are the result of an advanced scientific foreign development; and, therefore they constitute no a direct threat to national security. In view of this, it is recommended that the investigation and study of reports of unidentified flying objects be reduced in scope.”
The report also determined that “all” of the evidence at its disposal led it to determine that the sightings were the result of “misinterpretation of various conventional objects,” “mass-hysteria,” and “war nerves,” hoaxes deliberately perpetrated by individuals seeking publicity, and “psychopathological persons.
The Truth Will Soon Be Out There: History of DoD’s UFO Files Amid Looming Release of Tell-All Report