What The Hell Is Going On With UFOs And The Department Of Defense?

Tyler Rogaway
The Drive

Few stories have garnered more requests from our readers for commentary than the recent news that the Navy has decided to very publicly change its reporting rules and procedures for when its personnel observes an unexplained phenomenon like a UFO and a USO. 

There have been wildly varying takes on this sudden change, but the truth is that it is very hard to know what to make of it considering how absurd it sounds-the Navy now wants to know about unidentified craft that can penetrate airspace over its installations and around its most capable naval vessels with impunity? Shouldn't that be a default position for a service tasked with defending American interests and controlling vast swathes of area above, below, and on the surface of the Earth? 

Politico was first to report on the Navy's new directions for reporting unexplained objects operating in the same environment as its vessels and aircraft. Politico's Bryan Bender writes:

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from POLITICO. "For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report."

"As part of this effort," it added, "the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

To be clear, the Navy isn't endorsing the idea that its sailors have encountered alien spacecraft. But it is acknowledging there have been enough strange aerial sightings by credible and highly trained military personnel that they need to be recorded in the official record and studied - rather than dismissed as some kooky phenomena from the realm of science-fiction.

The Washington Post did their own follow-up to Politico's story, stating:

Recently, unidentified aircraft have entered military-designated airspace as often as multiple times per month, Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for office of the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Citing safety and security concerns, Gradisher vowed to "investigate each and every report."

He said, "We want to get to the bottom of this. We need to determine who's doing it, where it's coming from and what their intent is. We need to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again."

In recent years, from what we can tell, in part by the reporting done by The War Zone itself, is that there is no real way to distinctly classify something like a UFO or USO in such a way that it gets reported and an investigation occurs on an official level within the military. This appears to be true for civilian government institutions, like the FAA, as well. 

The lack of a structured procedure and classification system, and the nebulous fear of being stigmatized by reporting things like UFOs-something that has long plagued the military and private sectors alike-has repressed the conveyance of information in unquantifiable, but hugely significant ways. 

This reality has led to much speculation, and rightfully so, that the military knows far more about these strange happenings than they are willing to let on, at least on the surface. Otherwise, why wouldn't they want to know more about intruders wielding fantastic technology that makes them impervious to existing countermeasures and defenses?

Now all this appears to be changing on a grand level, but why? 

Read more