the U.S. government is investigating 510 reports of UFO sightings in 2022, according to its report released Thursday 12th. That’s more than triple the number recorded the previous year, and while many were drones or balloons, hundreds remain unexplained.
The report by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) indicates that 247 “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) reports have been filed since June 2021, when 144 sightings of suspicious airborne objects were recorded and analyzed.
It adds that an additional 119 sightings archived over the past 17 years are being re-examined, bringing the total number of cases under investigation to 510.
Most of the new reports come from Navy and Air Force pilots, the report said.
Of these, about 200 were balloons, drones, or so-called air echoes, which include birds, weather phenomena, and plastic bags floating in the air.
But others lack an explanation, according to the DNI document, an unreserved version of a report submitted to Congress.
These are what the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and NASA are focusing their analysis on, not because of concerns that they are alien spacecraft, but because of unknown spying capabilities of rival countries.
“UAPs continue to pose a threat to flight security and pose a potential (intelligence) collection threat from adversaries,” the report said.
“Some of these UAPs (…) appear to have exhibited unusual flight characteristics or performance and require further analysis,” he notes.
He adds that some of these unexplained sightings could be due to weather phenomena, faulty sensors, or faulty analysis.
“Many reports lack sufficient data to assign them with certainty to UAP,” he stresses.
The DNI document was created after years of pressure from Congress to get the military and intelligence community to take what used to be called UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, seriously.
The US defense is concerned that some of the UAPs discovered by military pilots in the past may represent technology from strategic rivals unknown to US scientists.
In 2020, the Pentagon released video captured by Navy pilots of objects moving at incredible speeds, rotating, and mysteriously disappearing, something that remains unexplained.
“We take reports of intrusions into our designated space — land, sea or airspace — seriously and investigate every one,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement.