Congress moves to expand UFO definition for Pentagon-led investigation ( Washington Examiner )

 

 Congress is working to expand the definition of UFOs beyond those seen flying in the sky, citing increasing threats to national security.

An addendum included in a draft of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which was approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this summer, aims to broaden the horizons of a recently established Pentagon-led group meant to investigate UFOs to examine objects moving between space, air, and sea in mysterious ways.

“At a time when cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially, the Committee is disappointed with the slow pace of DoD-led efforts to establish the office to address those threats,” the report from Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) reads. “Identification, classification, and scientific study of unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena is an inherently challenging cross-agency, cross-domain problem requiring an integrated or joint Intelligence Community and DoD approach.”

Transmedium objects or devices are defined by lawmakers as those being observed transitioning "between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water," as noted in an op-ed by Marik von Rennenkampff, who was an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation and an Obama administration appointee at the Defense Department.

The Defense Department, in coordination with the director of national intelligence, announced the creation of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group last November to investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. This office aims to “synchronize efforts across the Department and with other Federal departments and agencies to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests in SUA, and to assess and as appropriate, mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security,” according to a memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

To "accelerate progress" in addressing "structural" problems cited in his report, Warner wrote in his report that the intelligence committee renamed the group to the Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office to better reflect "the broader scope of the effort directed by the Congress."

With the addendum to the budget, if it is ultimately approved, the Defense Department would not only be instructed to expand its definition of UFOs but also categorize its findings as objects that are “positively man-made” or as objects with origins that have not yet been identified. Once an object is deemed to be man-made, the department is instructed to transfer its findings to the appropriate office for further inspection, according to the addendum.

The addendum appears to have been first reported by researcher Douglas Johnson, who noted that the budget legislation for fiscal year 2023 still could be adjusted as it makes its way through Congress and could be enacted as early as this fall.

In May, Congress held its first hearing focused on UFOs for the first time in decades. More than 140 U.S. government personnel reported UFO sightings between 2004 and 2021, according to an assessment from the office of the Director of National Intelligence released last year.

Of those sightings, 80 were observed with multiple sensors, and most reports described the UFOs as objects that interrupted pre-planned military training or other military operations.

Cami Mondeaux 

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