The expansive measures come two weeks after the Pentagon announced a new group aimed at analyzing UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) incidents.
www.military.com
Teams of Pentagon and intelligence community experts would rapidly respond to military UFO sightings and conduct field investigations under newly unveiled defense legislation set to pass Congress.
Lawmakers also want scientific and technical experts to analyze data about the objects, or what the military calls unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, as well as any recovered materials or medical effects, according to the text of the annual defense authorization bill released Tuesday.
The bill requires all of the findings to be collected under a new joint UAP office and delivered to Congress in annual reports and biannual briefings to defense committees, marking the most significant UFO legislation ever passed in the U.S. following high-profile encounters with unknown objects reported by the
Navy.
Protecting our national security interests means knowing who and what are flying in U.S. airspace," Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement to Military.com. "Right now, our system of tracking and identifying UAPs is scattered throughout the Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the federal government."
The expansive measures come just two weeks after the Pentagon announced a new group aimed at collecting and analyzing UAP incidents, sending a clear message that Congress felt the department's response was inadequate.
The Navy confirmed the authenticity of three infra-red videos showing unknown objects recorded during training exercises off San Diego in 2004 and off the East Coast in 2015. Over the past four years, fighter jet pilots and crew members have publicly said they witnessed unexplainable maneuvering, including a "Tic Tac"-shaped object with no visible means of propulsion and a flying cube inside of a sphere.
Theories on UAP range from drones or unmanned aircraft built by China or Russia to extraterrestrial or interdimensional visitors.
The new legislation to collect and analyze data on such incidents was sponsored in separate bills by Gallego and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and was cosponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
In addition to the rapid response field investigators, Congress also wants the Pentagon and intelligence community to create a science plan to understand UAP that exceed the "known state of the art in science or technology."
The bill says the information could be used to justify requests for funding in the future to "replicate any such advanced characteristics and performance" -- or reverse-engineer the UAPs.
Incidents around nuclear facilities are also noted for special attention.
Congress has never before passed legislation on UFOs, and certainly nothing near the scope of the defense bill language, said Douglas Dean Johnson, a researcher who closely follows UAP-related developments in government, and who has reported extensively on the Gallego and Gillibrand proposals.