Flying saucers, little green men…? Americans are divided over alien life

On the night of August 31, at exactly 10.13, an American couple caught sight of a mysterious, shining object in the night sky above Montana, US.

“Is that a shooting star?” one of them exclaimed.

However, when they moved to get a clearer view, both were astonished by the ‘jaw-dropping’ sight of an enormous craft with blinking lights and an orange-red glow swirling at its base.

This extraordinary Reddit entry post from two weeks ago – describing what is known as ‘close encounters of the third kind’ from the eponymous Hollywood hit – adds to a growing list of UFO sightings reported in the US ahead of a congressional hearing on what is officially called ‘unexplained aerial phenomena’.

According to media reports, the hearing is expected to take place in the coming weeks.

The incident detailed in the post occurred in Choteau, a small and quiet city nestled in the heart of the US state of Montana —just 60 miles from a US Air Force nuclear weapons base.

In May, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who confirmed the upcoming hearing, had expressed concern about unidentified drones near military sites.

“It is deeply concerning that they are spyware by adversaries, and so we want to have more information on that,” Gillibrand said during an interview with the Ask a Pol podcast, where the point of discussion was on the implications of a declassified All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) report.

“We also want to try to continue to build credibility within this office (AARO) so more of the public can feed in sightings and have a place and a platform to send information and inquiries,” the New York Democrat was quoted as saying.

“Because that's eventually what this office is supposed to do.”

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was established in 2022 following a 2021 Pentagon report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), which documented 144 sightings, but could only explain one, attributing the lack of conclusions for the remaining 143 to insufficient data​.

AARO’s aim has not only been to address security concerns arising from the frequent encounters between military facilities or aircraft and unidentified flying objects, but also to explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Under the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, the office was required to issue a report to Congress detailing the government's historical record relating to “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) since 1945.

It delivered the first of two volumes of that to Congress in March, which found “no evidence” linking sightings to aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, instead attributing most incidents to “ordinary objects and phenomena” or cases of misidentification.

“AARO recognizes that many people sincerely hold versions of these beliefs which are based on their perception of past experiences, the experiences of others whom they trust, or media and online outlets they believe to be sources of credible and verifiable information,” the report said.

However, the AARO report has been a point of contention since its release, with critics arguing that it is riddled with numerous errors and omissions and fails to adequately address the historical and scientific aspects of UAP phenomena.

“While I appreciate AARO's efforts, their recent report lacks depth and transparency,” Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, an astronomer at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Stockholm, tells TRT World.

“For example, their downplaying of the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO event was particularly notable”.

In July 1952, a series of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings were reported over Washington D.C., in an event often called the “1952 Washington Flap.”

Following the reports, the US government scrambled fighter jets to intercept the objects, but the UFOs reportedly outmanoeuvred and outran the jets.

Although the Air Force later attributed the sightings to possible radar glitches from temperature inversions, the incident, which prompted widespread public attention at the time, remains one of the most debated UFO cases in history.

Villarroel also pointed out a broader issue within the scientific community, saying that many journals remain reluctant to publish research on UFOs, with papers often being rejected outright before they even undergo peer review.

This lack of academic engagement, she believes, leads to “a gap in knowledge” where governments are expected to provide answers without proper scientific engagement.

Ever since the 2021 Pentagon report documented numerous sightings of UAP without ruling out extraterrestrial possibilities; more and more people have started to believe in the existence of UFOs, according to statistics.

In 2022, a YouGov poll indicated that the percentage of Americans who believe that UFOs are likely alien ships or life forms has increased from 20 percent in 1996 to 34 percent in 2022, a year after the Pentagon report was published.

A Gallup poll from 2021 also supports these findings, with figures indicating that over 40 percent of Americans believe alien spacecraft have visited Earth, up from 33 percent in 2019.