One object, described as a plane-sized metallic cylinder floating in air before disappearing, was sighted near a U.S. facility.
Jon T. Kosloski, the new director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which studies unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)—formerly known as UFOs—testified to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 19 and discussed cases that the military believes it has solved and others it has not.
The hearing, hosted by the Senate Armed Services Committee under Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), addressed the national security concerns of UAPs, several cases that AARO has investigated, and questions about transparency with the American public.
Kosloski detailed a group of seemingly solved UAP cases and others for which the Pentagon has no explanations.
One of the most famous cases, shown in the Pentagon’s “GOFAST” video—filmed in 2016 off Florida’s east coast—initially appeared to be a rapid-moving object flying close to the water. It was one of the first UAP videos that the Pentagon released in 2017, reigniting public interest in the topic.
“Through a very careful geospatial intelligence analysis and using trigonometry, we assess with high confidence that the object is not actually close to the water, but is rather closer to 13,000 feet,” Kosloski said, adding that calculations now estimate that the object was moving at roughly 45 mph.
The director also explained a lesser-known case, referred to as “Mt. Etna.” In 2018, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was flying in the Mediterranean while observing Mount Etna as it was erupting in Sicily. The UAV—or drone—caught what appeared to be a UAP flying through the plume of superheated gas and ash on video.
“This was a rather difficult case to resolve,” Kosloski said. “We had to pull in support from a number of IC and S&T partners and even reach out to a volcanologist. And through very detailed remodeling and pixel-by-pixel analysis of the object as it’s traversing across the clouds, they assess that the object was actually 170 meters away from the plume and not flying through it.”
Unexplained UAP Sightings
However, some cases remain unsolved by the Pentagon. The Pentagon has received scrutiny recently from both lawmakers and the public for suggesting that most UAP cases are birds, balloons, UAVs, or meteorological phenomena, or would have mundane explanations if enough data were available.
But Kosloski said, “We do have some very anomalous objects, it’s just the nature of resolution.”
One sighting, observed from two cars of government contractors leaving a U.S. facility at about 9 a.m., defied all explanations.
“They looked up in the sky and saw a large metallic cylinder about the size of a commercial airplane, and it was stationary,” Kosloski said. “They observed that there was a very bright white light behind or around the object.
“They saw it stationary for 15 to 20 seconds, and then it disappeared. Obviously, an object that large, stationary, unless it’s a blimp, is unusual. But then disappearing, we can’t explain how that would happen.”
Another occurred when a law enforcement officer observed a large orange orb floating several hundred feet above the ground a couple of miles away. The man headed to the orb’s approximate location, a well-lit area. He then saw a “blacker-than-black object” about four feet to six feet wide.
As he was about 130 feet to 200 feet from the black object, it tilted up about 45 degrees before shooting vertically into the air many times faster than any drone that the man had seen before.
“It did that without making a sound,” Kosloski said. “And just as it left his field of view through his windshield, then it emitted very bright red and blue lights that illuminated the inside of his vehicle as brightly as if someone had set off fireworks just outside.”
The director said the case remains anomalous because of the object’s size, its rapid acceleration, and the lack of any disturbance on the ground beneath it after the UAP disappeared.
Those are just a few of the more than 1,600 UAP reports that AARO has received to date.
Issues With Transparency
The Pentagon created AARO in 2022 to review government, military, and public UAP/UFO sightings. Before AARO, the Pentagon had started several UFO investigation efforts since the 1940s, including Project Blue Book, which operated from 1952 until 1969, and the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, which ran from 2009 until 2012. Before 1952, Blue Book operated under other code names, including Project Sign and Project Grudge.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have urged the Pentagon and AARO to share information about UAPs more transparently and openly with Congress and the public. Last week, the House Oversight Committee invited four witnesses to testify about the phenomena, with journalist Michael Shellenberger describing a culture of secrecy at the Pentagon.
He suggested that the Department of Defense could be using off-the-books exemption criteria to deny certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, describing efforts made by government researcher John Greenewald Jr. in appealing to Pentagon FOIA refusals.
“[The Pentagon] is stating that anything AARO does is involved in law enforcement investigation, which allows AARO to not release it,” Shellenberger said.
Typically, the Pentagon refers to its UAP Security Classification Guide, which allows it to deny requests for UAP materials that were recorded or collected via classified systems or platforms, such as certain U.S. drones and military equipment.
Greenewald told The Epoch Times that he had tried for more than a year and a half to get the Pentagon to comment on whether it was using a law enforcement exemption.
If the Pentagon is going beyond its official classification guide to refuse requests for information from the public, that’s a blow to anyone who wants transparency, Greenewald said.
That would indicate not only overclassification but also purposely “stonewalling the legal process through FOIA,” he said.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.