The new high-level attention was announced by Lue Elizondo, who was involved in a former Pentagon UFO research program, known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Intelligence Program, or AATIP, which was wounded in 2012.
Elizondo resigned in 2017 in part over frustration that senior Pentagon officials did not take seriously a series of unexplained meetings, including those experienced by pilots flying USS Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt pilots in 2004 and 2015 who reported that unknown aircraft maneuver in ways that appear to defy aerodynamics.
“This is exactly the intended result of what we were trying to achieve under AATIP,” Elizondo told POLITICO after the announcement.
POLITICO, along with the New York Times, first reported on the existence of AATIP and the Nimitz incident in 2017.
The Navy said last year that it was updating its reporting reports for such observations to gather more data. And earlier this year, it officially released three videos of the Nimitz and Roosevelt incidents.
The Pentagon’s announcement on Friday also comes several weeks after the House of Representatives’ version of the Intelligence Authorization Act required the director of national intelligence and secretary of defense, working with a variety of agencies for enlightenment and law enforcement of a public report of government findings on the UAP issue.
“We have things flying over our military bases and places where we do military exercises, and we do not know what it is and it is not ours, so that is a legitimate question to ask,” he said. Marco Rubio (R-Fla), acting chairman of the information panel, told WFOR-TV in Miami last month.
“Honestly, if it’s something from outside this planet, that may actually be better than the fact that we’ve seen some technological leap on behalf of the Chinese than the Russians or another opponent,” he added.
Rubio’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, Elizondo told POLITICO that he believes the combination of a stiff stream of new UAP reports in recent months and the pressure of Congressional military leadership has forced him to be more aggressive on an issue that has historically carried a significant stigma , but is now much more mainstream.
“They can no longer ignore it,” Elizondo said. “They look like they’re hiding something from the American people. Not taking this seriously is now a liability.”
The plans for the new task force were first reported by CNN on Thursday.
Gough, the Pentagon spokesman, said Friday that she could not provide specifications on how many personnel or from which agencies will be assigned to the new operation.
But she explained that it was an outgrowth of research efforts carried out by the Navy’s intelligence arm and that the service would continue to play a leading role.
“The Department of Navy will, under the awareness of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, lead the UAPTF,” she said in a statement.
In a follow-up email, she added that “since the majority of recent reports on UAP sightings came from naval observers, since about 2018, the Navy Department has been leading the UAP invasion assessments. [Department of Defense] training range and designated airspace. ”
“Over the past year, DoD has made efforts to formalize the good work done by the Navy for DoD,” she added. “Deputy Secretary Norquist approved the establishment of the UAPTF on August 4, 2020.”
In the official announcement Friday, Gough also stated that “the safety of our personnel and the safety of our operations are of paramount importance.”
“The Department of Defense and the military departments take all incidents by unauthorized aircraft in our training areas or designated airspace very seriously and investigate any report,” the statement added. “This includes investigations of incidents that are initially reported as UAP if the observer is unable to directly identify what he or she is observing.”
