Now that we’ve all had some time to absorb the release of the long-awaited UAP Task Force report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), it’s probably a good idea to try to wrap our heads around what the report actually said. Perhaps even more to the point, we should make note of what it did not say, this being a subject that seems to elude some of the reporters who are relatively new to the entire UFO phenomenon. And yes, many of us are going to stubbornly continue to use “UFO” no matter how hard the U.S. government tries to get us to say “UAP” so everyone won’t sound quite so crazy.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the public version of the report was short. Painfully short when compared with some of the aspirational dreams of the faithful in ufology. The classified report given to appropriate congressional committees (Intelligence and Armed Services) is reportedly ten times longer and contains all manner of goodies, but we may never see those. Reliable testimony from former Defense Department officials suggests that even getting that slim report out of the Pentagon for the public was an exercise in pulling teeth. They really don’t like talking about this subject.

None of this should be taken to mean that the report was a dud. There were important admissions made by the ODNI on Friday. One of the first was that the vast majority of “UAP” incidents they studied “probably do represent physical objects.” They draw this conclusion from the fact that most were picked up using multiple avenues of sensory data, in addition to testimony from pilots and technicians who watch the skies for a living. So it’s not just swamp gas, “ball lightning,” or birds. And if you’ve seen one, you may not be crazy. (Or if you are, it’s not because of this.)

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