XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.military, alt.ufo.reports   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: jacobscott@gmail.com   
      
   Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security   
   analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at   
   Arizona State University. The views expressed in this commentary are his   
   own. View more opinion on CNN.   
      
   CNN   
    —   
   Last month, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence   
   released a report about “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” — in plain   
   English, unidentified flying objects or UFOs.   
      
   The US military on February 4 shot down a Chinese spy balloon (which   
   Beijing said was a weather balloon), followed by the downing of two   
   unidentified flying objects on Friday and Saturday in US and Canadian   
   airspace, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC were likely   
   also balloons.   
      
   Then on Sunday, the US military shot down a fourth flying object, this   
   time over Lake Huron in Michigan.   
      
   In the wake of those actions, the report by America’s intelligence   
   community is worth examining since it may shed some light on what is   
   happening here.   
      
   January’s UFO report had a striking finding: The number of UFO sightings   
   significantly increased between March 2021 and August 2022, during which   
   time 247 new sightings were reported, mostly by US Navy and Air Force   
   pilots and personnel. That’s almost double the 144 UFO sightings reported   
   in the 17-year period between 2004 to 2021.   
      
   The report suggested that the increase may be because there is less   
   “stigma” associated with reporting UFO sightings, now that the Pentagon is   
   actively pushing service personnel to report any “anomalies” seen in the   
   sky.   
      
   Indeed, in July, the Pentagon established a new entity, the All-domain   
   Anomaly Resolution Office, to investigate credible sightings of UFOs by   
   the US military and intelligence community.   
      
   This is part of a relatively new push by Congress and the Pentagon to make   
   sense of more than 500 credible UFO sightings over the past couple of   
   decades.   
      
   The report by the US intelligence community found that a large number of   
   those sightings, 163, were balloons or “balloon-like entities,” while 26   
   were unmanned aircraft systems, i.e., drones. An unspecified number of   
   sightings were “attributable to sensor irregularities or variances, such   
   as operator or equipment error.”   
      
   There were 171 unidentified object sightings, however, for which no   
   explanation was found, and some of those objects “demonstrated unusual   
   flight characteristics or performance capabilities.”   
      
   The report also noted that UFO sightings “continue to occur in restricted   
   or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of   
   flight.” It added that the sightings could point to “adversary collection   
   activity,” suggesting that UFOs found around sensitive US military   
   installations could be a foreign power spying on them.   
      
   There is undoubtedly much more to learn about those 171 UFO sightings,   
   which still have no good explanations. Are they the work of a foreign   
   power probing US air defenses? Are they relatively innocuous, such as   
   errant balloons?   
      
   Congress should convene hearings to get to the bottom of this. The public   
   has a right to understand why objects are flying around in American   
   airspace that the Pentagon and the US intelligence community can’t   
   identify.   
      
      
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)