Here’s a look at the development of UFO sightings throughout history and how this year could be a turning moment in the investigation of extraterrestrial life, with Nope, the next major film from Academy Award-winning director Jordan Peele, entering theatres in India on August 18. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun, Nope is a sci-fi horror movie that follows two ranch-owning siblings as they try to find proof of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).

The “Third Kind” has been a major theme in film since its creation, with crowds gathering to watch films about space, flying saucers, and of course, extraterrestrial life. The sci-fi genre has historically spawned a universal love of and fascination with alien and UFO films, which have come to define and be an indispensable aspect of the genre. Examples include the ground-breaking films ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg, Signs by M. Night Shyamalan, Arrival by Denis Villeneuve, and even The X-Files by Fox, the most influential sci-fi conspiracy series ever.

2020

According to Live Science, the US Navy released three UFO sighting recordings in April 2020. The videos, dubbed “FLIR,” “GOFAST,” and “GIMBAL,” revealed what seemed to be spaceships traveling at hypersonic speeds without any discernible means of propulsion.

2021

In 2021, there were more sightings because more people were becoming bored and using their smartphones to scan the skies. But towards the start of 2022, events took an interesting turn. There were 1,500 pages of UFO-related paperwork in the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Operation (AATIP), a clandestine US Department of Defense operation that ran from 2007 to 2012. The Sun subsequently filed a FOIA request to obtain access to these private documents.

The trove of documents, according to The Sun, also includes research on cutting-edge technologies like invisibility cloaks, accounts of the psychological effects of UFO experiences, and blueprints for deep space travel and colonization. Some portions of the information were “withheld in part” for grounds of confidentiality and privacy. As a result of UFO encounters, there have been claims of “unaccounted for pregnancy,” “apparent abduction,” paralysis, and the perception of telepathy, teleportation, and levitation.

The report’s conclusions state that there is sufficient information “to justify a premise that certain sophisticated systems are currently deployed, and opaque to complete US understandings.”

2022

Later in June 2022, the US Department of Defense (DoD) was compelled to release an unclassified study outlining everything the US government had ever known about UFO encounters. Despite the report’s lackluster material, it did provide five possible UFO explanations,

Important factors include

  • airborne debris
  • a common atmospheric occurrence
  • US-made domestic technology
  • foreign or hostile technology, and
  • “Other,” which effectively means “Yeah, could as well be aliens.”

The “All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office” was established, according to a July announcement by the US Department of Defense. Finding anomalous, unlabeled space, airborne, underwater, and trans medium artifacts of interest is the goal of this office. In other words, a new UFO office was being established by the Pentagon. The Scottish Ministry of Defense has kept the “world’s clearest UFO photo,” which was taken in the Scottish Highlands 30 years ago by two hikers, a secret until yesterday.

Even though the future of UFO studies appears to be much more certain than it was 50 or so years ago, and at the very least, those in power have moved on from a state of perpetual rebuttal or denial, there is still a way to go before we receive some conclusive answers regarding these unexplained phenomena.

But if there’s one thing that can be counted upon, it’s that Earth is the only planet where aliens seem to have exhibited any interest, most recently in Jordan Peele’s Nope.

 

Nope has been released in India on August 18th.