What’s That in the Sky?

Some people believe that aliens in flying saucers have visited Earth and connected with humans. The idea has long been popular with science fiction writers and conspiracy theorists. But recently, the topic has gone mainstream. Even the government has weighed in.

Over the decades, Americans have filed thousands of reports about these mysterious sightings. In them, people claim to have seen aircraft in the sky with unusual shapes or unexplainable movements. The military’s original term for the phenomena is Unidentified Flying Objects, or U.F.O.s. Over the summer, U.S. intelligence officials responded to a call from Congress to explain the sightings. That led to the release of the first unclassified government report on the topic in two decades. The report didn’t find that there are extraterrestrials hovering about. Still, it couldn’t explain many of the 144 sightings it examined. And most of these reports came from highly trained Navy and Air Force pilots.

“This is a very positive development,” Mark Rodeghier, scientific director at the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), an independent U.F.O. research organization, says of the report. “We haven’t had much success over the years getting what I call the establishment—politicians, the media, top main scientists—interested and supporting U.F.O. investigation. We didn’t think it would happen this time, but it did.”

Reports of unexplained aerial objects go back to ancient times (see Key Events, below). But these reports multiplied after the development of modern rocketry in the middle of the 20th century. Alien sightings quickly became a major subject of interest in books and movies.

The first well-known U.F.O. sighting in the U.S. occurred in 1947. That year, a private pilot reported seeing nine circular objects traveling at supersonic speeds near Mount Rainier in Washington State. Newspapers described them as “flying saucers.” The term caught on.

In 1947, some mysterious wreckage of rubber, tin, wood, and paper appeared near an Army airfield in Roswell, New Mexico. Some newspapers reported it as the remains of a flying saucer. The U.S. government said it was a weather balloon. Still, the discovery fueled conspiracy theories that proof of an actual alien landing had been kept hidden from Americans.

As sightings multiplied, the U.S. Air Force in 1948 began an investigation. During the Cold War (1947-91), tension grew between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. U.S. officials indicated that at least some U.F.O.s were probably advanced Soviet spy aircraft.

But the number of U.F.O. reports climbed. There have been other government efforts to address the question over the years. Among them is the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The program ran from 2007 to 2012 and documented alleged U.F.O. sightings over multiple decades.

In the meantime, astronomers and cosmologists have become increasingly convinced that alien life of some kind does likely exist somewhere in the universe. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies. Each of them is filled with billions of stars and planets. That’s why scientists find it hard to believe Earth is the only planet where life exists. This has added to the interest surrounding U.F.O.s.

But scientists are quick to point out that when we talk about extraterrestrial life, we don’t know what form it might take. It could be anything from a micro-organism to an intelligent creature. It might even be something we can’t imagine.

“[There] is something unknown in our skies,” says Ravi Kopparapu, a scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “We should be investigating it. We should be collecting data and then try to understand what they are.”

The recent increase in interest about U.F.O.s began in 2017. That year, The New York Times revealed that for more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Defense had secretly listed and investigated scores of odd sightings of U.F.O.s (also known as U.A.P.s, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). These sightings were mainly reported by the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Videos of strange encounters between military pilots and unexplained objects in the sky were leaked to the public. In 2020, Congress demanded the Pentagon produce a report explaining what was going on.

Pentagon officials examined 144 incidents from the past two decades. The report found “no clear indications” of extraterrestrial life being behind the sightings. But the report also left most questions unanswered. It clarified only one case—“a large, deflating balloon.” In 18 of the incidents, unusual movement patterns were observed. These included speeding up quickly and the capacity to change direction and submerge.

The report offered only possible explanations for some of the U.F.O.s: common aerial objects, such as drones or birds; atmospheric phenomena; and secret deployments by the U.S. or foreign governments. The uncertainty of the findings dissatisfied many who are eager to find out more.

“The report is inconclusive,” André Carson, a congressman from Indiana and chairman of the House Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, said on CBS News. “My hope is . . . that we will have a series of hearings and possibly a public hearing in the very near future.”

Despite its limitations, the report has made the topic of U.F.O.s and extraterrestrials safe for anyone to discuss, even those who aren’t academics or people who believe the government is hiding the truth. NASA’s Kopparapu says that this should make it easier for the public and officials to find answers.

“If you don’t understand something,” Kopparapu says, “if you see something that is unknown or unexplainable, don’t hesitate to ask questions because you never know what you’ll find.”

The report offered only possible explanations for some of the U.F.O.s: common aerial objects, such as drones or birds; atmospheric phenomena; and secret deployments by the U.S. or foreign governments. The uncertainty of the findings dissatisfied many who are eager to find out more.

“The report is inconclusive,” André Carson, a congressman from Indiana and chairman of the House Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, said on CBS News. “My hope is . . . that we will have a series of hearings and possibly a public hearing in the very near future.”

Despite its limitations, the report has made the topic of U.F.O.s and extraterrestrials safe for anyone to discuss. Now even those who aren’t academics or people who believe the government is hiding the truth can be part of the conversation. NASA’s Kopparapu says that this should make it easier for the public and officials to find answers.

“If you don’t understand something,” Kopparapu says, “if you see something that is unknown or unexplainable, don’t hesitate to ask questions because you never know what you’ll find.”

^{*The program was officially shut down in 2012 according to the Pentagon, but some participants said the program has continued in other forms.}

^{*The program was officially shut down in 2012 according to the Pentagon, but some participants said the program has continued in other forms.}