Callum Jones
The Pentagon has revealed its investigated nearly 300 UFO sightings this year, leading to some concern from experts.
In a report released on Wednesday (18 October), the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office revealed there had been 274 apparent sightings April 31, 2022 through April 30, 2023.
Furthermore, the agency has been looking into a further 17 sightings that happened between 2019 and 2022, making the figure a mammoth one.
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These UFOs - now referred to as 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' - had 'concerning performance characteristics' including 'unusual maneuverability', according to the new report submitted to Congress.
Physicist Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, told CNN ahead of the release of the report: "I am worried from a national security perspective.
"There are some indicators that may be attributed to foreign activity, and we are investigating those very hard."
He went on to express concerns that foreign nations who are not exactly best pals with the US may be designing espionage drones to evade American radar.
However, the recently released report states 'none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities'.
The report goes on to state that most of the sightings and observations came from near restricted military airspace, where high-tech radar and detection systems are in place to pick them up.
About a quarter of the UFOs detected were described as being 'orb, round, or sphere' shaped, with 53 percent of sightings not including details surrounding shape.
Furthermore, the majority of sightings were said to have no visible lights, as 21 percent said they saw signs of lights from the supposed UFOs.
"For the few objects that do demonstrate characteristics of interest, AARO is approaching these cases with objectivity and analytic rigor," the report stated.
"This approach includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer-reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions."
The report comes after a Las Vegas family doubled down on claims they saw aliens in their backyard.
Local TV channel 8 News reported an object spotted in the sky was picked up on the bodycam footage of a police officer at around 11.50pm local time on 30 April - with its flash being seen as far as Utah and California.
Less than 40 minutes after that initial sighting, a man who lives around 80 miles from Area 51 made a rather chilling phone call.
After ringing 911, the man claimed there were two unknown entities in his backyard shortly after he and his family spotted a similar object from the sky.
"There’s like an 8-foot person beside it and another one is inside us .. and it has big eyes and it’s looking at us — and it’s still there," the terrified man told the police dispatch.