Yes, we may not be alone: The Pentagon releases video footage of UFOs

On Monday, the Pentagon released three declassified videos of naval pilots encountering unidentified flying objects

Are we alone in the universe? Do alien life forms exist and are UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) real? These questions, often a theme in Hollywood films and for science fiction writers, may not seem as implausible now as they used to.

The latest video release from the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) will only make UFO or space enthusiasts, science fiction writers sit up and revise their theories. On Monday, the Pentagon released three declassified videos that had US Naval pilots bumping into UFOs. The Pentagon calls them “unexplained aerial phenomenon”.

These encounters took place in 2004 and 2015. 

These are not new videos and two of them have been published by New York Times in 2017. The Pentagon had confirmed their veracity in September, 2019 and released these three declassified videos after a “thorough review” and ““to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos.”

"After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorised release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems," said Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough in a statement, "and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena."

UFOs, also called ‘flying saucers’ in the past, are aerial phenomena that cannot be immediately identified. UFO sightings have been reported through the twentieth century. While science fiction writers wrote about alien life forms visiting earth in these flying saucers, conspiracy theorists talked of a cover-up by governments when it came to the existence of UFOs. Studies over decades established that most of these UFO sightings were a case of misidentification, some were hoaxes while a very small percentage was left unexplained.

In 2007, the Pentagon had launched a programme that studied recordings of such aerial encounters. The programme ended in 2012, apparently because it didn't have high enough priority for funding.

In 2017, the former head of this programme, Luiz Elizondo had told CNN that "there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”

This release by the Pentagon may be a step towards bringing greater transparency in official research into alien life forms and UFOs. They also add legitimacy to theories about the presence of extra terrestrial life forms.