UFO Sightings Are on the Rise in the US

An unclassified report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2021 revealed there had been 144 sightings of what the government refers to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) since 2004. On Thursday, a revised version of that same report was made public: the office has since archived nearly 400 additional sightings to its catalog.

In short, there have actually been more than 500 UFO sightings in the last 17 years, 366 more than originally reported, which begs the question: where did all the new sightings come from?

Per a report from The New York Times, apparently there are a few reasons. To start, some are of the sightings are new…others, however, are just newly discovered in the files. Further, as the the assessment notes, there may not actually be an uptick in sightings so much as a stigma reversal surrounding reporting sightings. In fact, the bulk of the new sightings apparently came from U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aviators and operators who have used official channels to report various UAP sightings, predominately for safety purposes.

As far as the new sightings go, an office within the Department of Defense has determined that around half showed “unremarkable characteristics.” Another 26 have been categorized as drones, 163 as “balloon-like objects” and six as aerial clutter.

Of course, if you’re keeping up with the math, that still leaves 171 unaccounted for, some of which allegedly displayed “unusual flight characteristics or performance, and require further analysis.” That said, intelligence officials would urge you not to fall victim to the conspiracies that are sure to arise from this.

At a Defense Department briefing last month, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Ronald Moultrie, was asked if there existed any “affirmative evidence” that any of the unexplained sightings might be “a space alien,” The Times reported. Moultrie replied: “At this time, the answer’s no, we have nothing,” adding that they hadn’t seen anything “that would lead us to believe that any of the objects that we have seen are of alien origin, if you will.”