The US government has acknowledged its decades-long search for evidence of extraterrestrial visitors to Earth has ended in failure, following a review by the Pentagon that debunked claims of UFO sightings.
The bombshell Pentagon review, released on Friday, confirms earlier reports that the government had become fixated on chasing UFOs, with no concrete results. The report, conducted by the Defense Department's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) at the request of Congress, examined all US government investigations into "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" (formerly known as UFOs) since 1945.
It concluded that there is no evidence to support the existence of aliens or their technology on Earth.
The review, which analyzed both classified and unclassified government archives, revealed that no official investigation or academic-sponsored research has confirmed any sighting of extraterrestrial technology.
It attributed the sightings of strange airborne objects to "ordinary objects and phenomena" and misidentification.
Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder reiterated these findings in a statement, stating that there is no verifiable evidence to support claims of government access to or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology.
The Pentagon report also addressed the public's fascination with UFOs, tracing it back to the 1950s and linking it to classified government programs like the Manhattan Project.
However, it highlighted the Pentagon's own involvement in the pursuit of UFOs since 2008, when the Defense Intelligence Agency launched the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Application Program (AAWSAP) at the urging of former Sen. Harry Reid.
The $22 million program, awarded to Robert Bigelow's company Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), aimed to research future aerospace technology trends but veered off course into investigating UFOs, ghosts, and werewolves at Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.
The Pentagon terminated the program in 2012 after discovering its unsanctioned paranormal activities.
In December 2017, The New York Times published a report about the program without mentioning its paranormal investigations. Instead, it focused on claims by Pentagon official Lue Elizondo that UFOs were real. However, the Pentagon's recent report refutes these claims, stating that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial visitors on Earth.
The report also dispels long-held conspiracy theories about government reverse-engineering of alien technology, stating that claims involving specific people, locations, and documents related to such activities are inaccurate.
Elizondo, who could not be reached for comment, slammed the report as "intentionally dishonest, inaccurate, and dangerously misleading." He accused Pentagon leadership of attempting to diminish whistleblowers and undermine the truth.
