Methodology

“If and when individual UAP incidents are resolved, they likely fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. Government or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, or an other bin that allows for a holding bin of difficult cases and for the possibility of surprise and potential scientific discovery”

“The triangular appearance is a result of light passing through the night vision goggles and then being recorded by an SLR camera”

“Navy and Air Force crews now have step-by-step procedures for reporting on a UAP on their kneeboard in their -- in the cockpit and in their postflight debrief procedures”

“In this example, we accumulated sufficient data from two similar encounters from two different time periods in two different geographic areas to help us draw these conclusions”

“As detailed in the ODNI report, if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved, they likely fall into one of five potential explanatory categories”

“Our main objective was to transition UAP efforts from an anecdotal or narrative-based approach to a rigorous science and technology engineering focused study”

“We also made a concerted effort to assemble subject-matter experts from across the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community and other U.S. Government agencies and departments”

“Subject-matter experts from a wide variety of fields, including physics, optics, metallurgy, meteorology, just to name a few, have been brought in to expand our understanding in areas where we may not have organic expertise”

“This often limited amount of high-quality data and reporting hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP”

“It is why we have endeavored to concentrate on this data-driven process, to drive fact-based results”

“We instituted a data-driven approach to the investigations where we could collect as much data as possible and use all available resources to analyze and make informed decisions on the best ways to address our findings”

“We forged partnerships with the research, development, and acquisition communities, with industry partners, and with academic research labs”

“Any given observation may be fleeting or longer. It may be recorded or not. It may be observable by one or multiple assets. In short, there is rarely an easy answer”

“I am confident that the task force under Navy leadership has forged a path forward that will allow us to anchor assessments in science and engineering vice anecdotal evidence”

“But this is a great example of how it takes considerable effort to understand what we are seeing in the examples that we are able to collect”

“We recognize that that can be unsatisfying or insufficient in the eyes of many”

“However, understanding can take significant time and effort”

“Future analysis of complicated issues, of UAP issues, will greatly benefit from the infrastructure of the process and the procedures that we have developed to date”

“We remain committed to that goal, as I know the USDI organization does as well”

“We have also made progress in resolving the character of a limited number of UAP encounters”

“The team has made a lot of progress, but we really are just establishing”

“By nature, we are all curious. And we seek to understand the unknown. And, as a lifelong necessary professional, I am impatient. I want immediate explanations for this as much as anyone else”