The US government is notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.
But in a possible bid for transparency, the Department of Defense has released a new document disclosing the ‘world’s UFO hotspots’.
It includes a map disclosing where the most sightings of unidentified objects have been recorded, based on reports between 1996 and 2023.
The map comes shortly after a Pentagon chief admitted that hundreds of mysterious objects have been spotted ‘all over the world.’
Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), said: ‘We see these [‘metallic orbs’] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent manoeuvres.’
The map discloses where the most sightings have been recorded based on reports between 1996 and 2023 – naming Japan and the coasts of the US as particular hotspots
The US government is notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing information about UFOs, but the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which was set up last year, now has a website with updates
The map reveals Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the east and west coasts of the US including California, as well as parts of the Middle East are all hotspots for UFO sightings.
Revealing that Japan and a region of the Middle East – including Iraq and Syria – are UFO hotspots may surprise enthusiasts who commonly associate sightings with the US.
In particular, the map identifies a region in the south-west of the country, covering the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima – which were famously the targets of US nuclear strikes in 1945.
Another one of the Japanese hotspots is the small community of Iinomachi in Fukushima Prefecture, which has been referred to as ‘UFO Town’.
Iinomachi has been decked out with extraterrestrial-themed decorations in an effort to drawn fans and promote itself as a ‘home to aliens‘.
It is also the base of a research institute called the International UFO Lab, opened in 2021 and headed by alien enthusiast Takeharu Mikami.
In June this year, the International UFO Lab released six images of ‘likely UFOs’, the Japan Times reported, taken in Kobe and Fukushima among other regions.
They were narrowed down from a total of 494 reports it received from people in Japan and abroad in one year, although most appeared to be of drones, birds or just reflections.
A flying object near Japan’s Senganmori mountain, highlighted by the International UFO Lab
An alleged unidentified flying object sighting in the night sky over Japan
Five ‘glowing orbs’ spotted over a Japanese sports stadium in 2020
What is AARO?
The map and other data has been released in a document from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
AARO was formed in July 2022 within the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (part of the Department of Defense).
It is specifically tasked with investigating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and other unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
The US government’s map features in a five-page document called ‘UAP Reporting Trends’, published on the new website of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a dedicated UFO department formed in July last year.
The website will provide the public with information about AARO and its ‘efforts to understand and resolve unidentified anomalous phenomena’.
‘This website will provide information, including photos and videos, on resolved UAP cases as they are declassified and approved for public release,’ it says.
The unveiling of the website may reflect increased efforts from the US government to be less secretive about UFO activity.
In a statement last week, Department of Defense officials said the site would shows how ‘committed’ the Pentagon is to ‘transparency with the American people’
It comes not long after a prominent UFO whistleblower delivered a bombshell testimony before Congress.
In July, former intelligence official David Grusch claimed the Pentagon was covering up evidence related to extraterrestrials.
He testified under oath that the Pentagon had first-hand encounters or knowledge about secret government programmes involving technology that is ‘non-human’.
‘My testimony is based on information I’ve been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy,’ he said.
‘[They] have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony to myself and many various colleagues.’
He also claimed the US government has ‘intact and partially intact’ extraterrestrial vehicles, although he provided no evidence to support that or any of his other assertions.
His remarks, however, were condemned by the head of the Pentagon’s UFO office, Sean Kirkpatrick, who is a laser and materials physicist.
Kirkpatrick slammed Grusch’s claims about alleged secret programs that retrieve crashed UFOs and reverse engineer the technology as ‘insulting’.
Former intelligence official said the DoD is covering up evidence related to extraterrestrials
The US government has been forced to take the presence of unidentified flying objects more seriously in recent months.
Former intelligence official David Grusch testified under oath in July that the Pentagon had first-hand encounters or knowledge of secret government programmes involving technology that is ‘non-human’.
‘My testimony is based on information I’ve been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy… whom have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony to myself and many various colleagues,’ Grusch said, adding that he was driven to share by a ‘commitment to truth and transparency.’
Its release comes come roughly a month after David Grusch claimed the Pentagon is covering up evidence related to extraterrestrials in a bombshell testimony before Congress
‘I am asking Congress to hold our government to this standard and thoroughly investigate these claims,’ he told lawmakers at the time. ‘But as I stand here under oath now, I am speaking to the facts as I have been told them.’
He told the committee that he and more than 30 aircrew members and veterans had experience of UAPs, unidentified anomalous phenomena, along with members of Congress who have confided in him.
He also claimed the government has ‘intact and partially intact’ extraterrestrial vehicles, although he provided no evidence to support that or any of his other assertions.
Suggesting the American people had been left in the dark for nearly a century, he claimed the first recovery of a UFO was in Magenta, Italy, in 1933.
An artist’s impression of the alleged 1933 UFO crash outside Magenta in northern Italy shows a craft shaped like a saucer
He said Mussolini’s Italian government held it until 1944 through 1945 when Pope Pius XII tipped America off about it.
When asked if he firmly believes the government had UAPs, Grusch responded: ‘Absolutely.’
He said his view was based on interviews with at least 40 witnesses.
Asked where the craft are, he said: ‘I know the exact locations and those locations were provided to the inspector general … I actually had the people with the first-hand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the Inspector General.’
He further claimed he has faced brutal retaliation after coming forward about his firsthand accounts of UFOs.
‘I do have knowledge of active planned reprisal activity against myself and other colleagues,’ Grusch said.
‘There were certain colleagues of mine that were brutally administratively attacked. It makes me very upset as a leader to see that happen to other co-workers and superiors of mine in the last three years.’
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