WASHINGTON – Nearly three months after the Department of Defense spent at the very least $1.6 million to shoot down three unidentified objects later deemed harmless, the Senate Post Committee has learned nothing.
“There are objects in our airspace and near military facilities that we cannot discover. Worse yet, our government has spent too a few years ignoring or downplaying the threat,” the only Republican Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in an interview with the Post on Friday.
“Fortunately, that is starting to vary, but as we saw earlier this 12 months, the defense and intelligence communities are still struggling.”
Congress in December ordered the Pentagon to bolster its relatively latest “All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office” (AARO), which investigates unidentified aerial phenomena – military jargon for UFOs – as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023, which sets out policy and spending priorities for this 12 months.
In it, lawmakers called for the office to change into a “national information center and analytical center of gravity” for UFOs in order that it could “keep each the intelligence community and U.S. Department of Defense leaders informed about the UAP and avoid taking strategic intelligence by surprise,” Rubio and committee chairman Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) wrote in a Thursday letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
![Marco Rubio](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009885165-1.jpg?w=1024)
“Almost 4 months after the FY23 NDAA was passed, we’re concerned that we now have not seen more tangible evidence of implementation [UFO office parameters prescribed]they said, calling the Pentagon “slow” to implement AARO guidelines.
For instance, the 2023 NDAA promoted the Director of the UFO Office to report on to the Chief Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Assistant Secretary of Defense.
But that hasn’t happened yet, the committee said.
![Warner brand](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000010047047.jpg?w=1024)
“Despite assurances that there is a proposed plan to implement this variation to in-circulation reporting, we now have not yet received any final guidance,” the commission told Austin.
“Please provide us with an update on the proposed plan, including a timeline for final guidance.
It was also specified that the U.S. Director of National Intelligence would appoint an AARO Deputy Director from inside the intelligence community – but none have been identified.
![Inflated balloon](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009665793.jpg?w=1024)
“The Deputy Director of AARO is to be the point of contact [intelligence community] integration and be fully authorized by [Office of the Director of National Inteligence] to convene the IC regarding the UAP,” the commission wrote, asking for “a timetable for the appointment of a deputy director.”
While the NDAA became law before the military identified – and later shot down – a Chinese spy balloon hovering in U.S. airspace in late January, lawmakers said the incident was a “wake-up call” for the defense and intelligence communities.
But when President Joe Biden ordered the military to shoot down three more UFOs lower than two weeks later, without knowing whether or not they posed a malicious threat, the need for a totally staffed office dedicated to identifying the unidentified became more clear, Rubio said.
“It is important to do not forget that in February, the Biden administration shot down three UAPs in Alaska, Canada, and over Lake Huron,” Rubio told The Post.
“Senior Pentagon leaders have said publicly that two of the UAPs were almost definitely not balloons, but Congress has received no rationale or sensor data to support this unprecedented motion.”
Over three days, the military fired 4 $400,000 value of missiles to shoot down three UFOs that were later believed to be hobby or weather balloons unrelated to a foreign government.
“On this case, we shot down quite a bit of UAPs, and to at the present time it’s unclear if we all know obviously what they were,” Rubio said.
“We arrange an AARO office to take care of just such a case; quickly aggregate and analyze data and apply the scientific process.”
Most of the Pentagon’s difficulty identifying UFOs has been attributed to a scarcity of data, in response to a 2021 Congressional ODNI report.
“The limited amount of high-quality reports of unidentified aerial phenomena makes it difficult for us to attract firm conclusions about the nature or intentions of the UAP,” the ODNI wrote.
To assist gather more data and attract more UFO reports, Congress directed AARO to establish a public website and other “communications mechanism”[s] to stipulate a secure process whereby witnesses can provide relevant information.”
But that did not occur either, though this created a Twitter account in July that it has not yet been used.
“To this point, we now have not seen any try to inform the public of the existence of a secure trial,” the committee wrote in its letter. “… We [also] seek to know why AARO has did not capitalize on its social media presence and future plan to teach the public on missions and arrangements [the office.]”