The Atlantic

Just Don’t Call Them UFOs

The U.S. military wants pilots to report strange sightings in the sky, but doesn’t want any of the stigma that comes with it.
Source: Kurt Strumpf / AP

Pilots are about to receive a new memo from management: If you encounter an unidentified flying object while on the job, please tell us.

The U.S. Navy is drafting new rules for reporting such sightings, according to a recent story from Politico. Apparently, enough incidents have occurred in “various military-controlled ranges and designated airspace” in recent years to prompt military officials to establish a formal system to collect and analyze the unexplained phenomena. Members of Congress and their staffs have even started asking about the claims, and Navy officials and pilots have responded with formal briefings.

The Washington Post provided more details in its own story:

In some cases, pilots—many of whom are engineers and academy graduates—claimed to observe small spherical objects flying

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