9 interesting UFO claims the Pentagon just debunked as fake

The Pentagon has firmly refuted claims that the U.S. government covered up evidence of aliens and extraterrestrial materials following a sweeping new investigation.

A persistent theme in popular culture since the 1940s is the belief that the government, or a secret program within the government, has collected alien corpses and spacecraft and attempted to reverse engineer alien technology while hiding it from Congress of this effort.

Most Americans associate conspiracy theories with strange sightings of UFOs, short for UFO: things that cannot be easily explained by nature, aircraft or other existing technology. Over the past few years, the Department of Defense has adopted a new term—unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP)—to clarify the topic and the stigma attached to UFOs, sometimes stereotyped as tinfoil hat delusions.

Following a push from Congress, the Pentagon released an initial, unclassified version of the report on March 8. NASA, meanwhile, is tasked with studying the unclassified material in its own investigation.

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The military study, led by the Office of Global Anomaly Resolution, covered 80 years of reports on government offices and special access programs, examining both classified and unclassified records. It also includes the results of interviews with approximately 30 current and former government employees who allegedly participated in these activities or heard stories about them.

“We believe most people who repeat these claims have no malicious intent and are not engaging in any attempt to mislead the public,” AARO Acting Director Tim Phillips said in a statement. “Many people have sincerely misrepresented true events. or mistaking sensitive U.S. programs as related to UAP or extraterrestrial exploitation without these programs being clarified.”

Here are some of the myths debunked in the new 63-page Pentagon report.

1. Confidentiality Agreements Used to Cover Up the Facts

Pentagon investigators said they found no evidence of confidentiality agreements or death threats related to potential UAP information leaks.

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2. CIA officials managed UAP experiments

The “whistleblower” interviewed accused a former CIA officer of transferring alien technology. The former official signed a memorandum saying he did not oversee the transfer of extraterrestrial material or any experiments with extraterrestrial technology.

3. Testing of alien observation technology

One interviewee claimed to have overheard a conversation via electronic communications between two military bases regarding a test of technology being observed by aliens. After reviewing the account, investigators speculated that the person had misunderstood the conversation.

4. An officer touched the alien spacecraft

One interviewee mentioned a former military officer who, around 1999, allegedly spoke of an experience he had touching an alien spacecraft. The former officer denied that on the record, saying the interviewee may have been confused by the story about a retired Lockheed stealth fighter, the F-117 Nighthawk. The former police officer also stated that he did not recall having that conversation with the respondent.

5. Testing of alien technology occurs

One interviewee said he witnessed the testing of alien technology at government facilities. Investigators said the interviewees “almost certainly” saw a real test of the technology, but that the demonstration had nothing to do with UAP. They came to this conclusion because the interviewees’ accounts were closely related in time, location, and description to known tests of the technology.

6. The White House considers disclosing alien information

Two interviewees claimed that the White House hired the Northern Virginia research institute during the administration of President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2007 to study the possible impact of the United States, Russia or China disclosing their possession of extraterrestrial evidence. Investigators confirmed that the study did take place for a day but was not requested by the White House.

7. Experiments performed on spacecraft samples

Investigators obtained material purportedly from a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft from a private UAP investigative organization and the Army. They determined the sample was a man-made alloy of magnesium, zinc and bismuth, with trace amounts of other elements such as lead. It “does not possess any special qualities,” they said.

8. A program called “Kona Blue” saves UAP information

Respondents believe the government is hiding a Department of Homeland Security program they believe is linked to the UAP, codenamed Kona Blue. If Kona Blue ever existed, it would be a recreation of a Defense Intelligence Agency program begun back in the 2000s to conduct UAP investigations, paranormal research, and reverse-engineer any acquired alien technology. The report said the former DIA programs, which had the unwieldy names of the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Applications Program and the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, were canceled in 2012 for lack of value. Backers of the original plan proposed Kona Blue to the Department of Homeland Security, but it was never approved. In short, there is no Kona Blue.

9. A program to reverse engineer alien technology

The scope of the covert intelligence community program was expanded in 2021 to protect potential UAP reverse engineering. But the plan neither recovered the intended research materials nor reverse-engineered anything, the report said. The program was canceled “due to lack of merit.”

So far, the Pentagon has not confirmed any claims that the government possesses extraterrestrial evidence or that any UAP sightings are indeed from another world. Investigators will release more findings in another part of the report later this year.