The embargo is lifted. New ABC News article detailing the invite-only AARO press briefing.
Phillips emphasized that individuals with previous links to the U.S. military or the U.S. government who have stepped forward with some of these claims discounted by the review did so “without malice or any effort to mislead the public.”
“Many have sincerely misinterpreted real events, or mistaken sensitive U.S. programs for which they were not cleared as having been related to UAP or extraterrestrial exploitation,” he said.The report highlights several incidents where individuals named authentic classified programs but “the interviewees mistakenly associated these authentic USG programs with alien and extraterrestrial activity.”
For example, AARO reviewed a report of a person “overhearing a conversation about a technology test at a military base where “aliens” allegedly were observing, and AARO judges that the interviewee misunderstood the conversation.
“The report also details the testing of a sample from an alleged extraterrestrial crash that AARO acquired from a private UAP investigating organization and the U.S. Army that was determined to be “a manufactured, terrestrial alloy” of magnesium, zinc, bismuth, with trace elements of lead that “does not represent off-world technology or possess any exceptional qualities.
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“Nobody got in our way and said no,” said Phillips of how even secretive government agencies provided their historic information to AARO. “When we had people who were slow to agree, the door was eventually opened.”