THE NEW YORK Times reports that the Pentagon's secret UFO unit will soon have to publish their research.

Although the Pentagon claimed to have disbanded its secret UFO identification program back in 2012, the program appears to have been relocated and renamed. The very existence of its predecessor, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, was also revealed by the New York Times in 2017, five years after it was reportedly discontinued. The program was launched in 2007, and one of its main initiators was Harry Reid, Senate majority leader at the time.

The program was replaced by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, which appeared in a report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last month. The report states that the task force's task is to "standardize the collection and reporting of unidentified aerial phenomena, their possible connection to foreign governments, and the threat they pose to US military installations and resources."

The Pentagon's secret program will soon have to publish its findings

What is particularly interesting is that they will have to publish at least a part of their findings within 180 days of the passing of the Intelligence Authorization Act.

While some people involved in the program hope they will find evidence of alien aircraft that have been speculated to exist for decades, the main focus of the program is still on discovering if rival military forces are using advanced aviation technology, writes the NY Times.

Senator Marco Rubio, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, commented for CBS that he was particularly concerned about UFOs seen flying over US military bases – especially if Russia or China made "some sort of technological leap" that "allows them to conduct this sort of activity."

"Maybe there is a completely boring explanation for it. But we need to find out," added Rubio, known as the "hawk" among American representatives, that is, as the advocate of military interventions, as well as of the upholding of the American military supremacy.

However, former UFO program director and former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo confirmed that he and several other former government officials and government scientists believe objects of unidentified origin actually crashed on Earth and that their remains were retrieved for analysis.

Elizondo, who resigned in 2017 after ten years at the helm of the UFO program, believes the program will no longer "have to hide in the shadows" and will "gain new transparency."

The Pentagon has already released official footage of close encounters with UFOs

Theories about UFOs, which have until recently largely fallen into the realm of "alternative" and pseudo-scientific research, gained new momentum and public attention when the Pentagon officially released footage of US military pilots encountering UFOs.

These recordings were published in 2017 and 2018 by the American company To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, founded by former member of the rock band Blink-182 Tom DeLonge. The US Navy confirmed their authenticity last year, but also pointed out that they have no information about the unidentified object. At the time, a Navy official told CNN that the Navy did not believe it was an alien aircraft.

It is important to emphasize that a UFO does not necessarily mean an alien aircraft, but simply an aircraft whose nature and origin have not been identified – as the name suggests.

Former Senator Harry Reid: If we found the remains a crashed aircraft, we need to study them

Former Senator Reid also told the NY Times that he believes UFO crashes may have already been recorded, as well as that the remains of those aircraft need to be studied if they exist.

"After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports – some were substantive, some not so substantive – that there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession," Reid added.

"It is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out," the former senator emphasized.

No such remains of a crashed aircraft have been publicly presented for an independent analysis. Some retrieved metal fragments were analyzed and confirmed to be of human, not alien, origin, the NY Times writes.

In addition, some unexplained encounters with UFOs have subsequently received explanations, and astrophysicists point out that even the lack of explanations does not mean that they are necessarily, or even likely, alien aircraft.

Astrophysicist working for the Pentagon program: We found the remains of an alien aircraft

However, Eric W. Davis, an astrophysicist who has worked as a subcontractor and then as a consultant for the Pentagon's UFO program since 2007, argued that the analysis of some of the retrieved materials found failed to identify their origin.

"We couldn't make it ourselves," concluded Davis, who now works for the defense subcontractor Aerospace Corporation. He believes that the retrieved fragments were not made by humans.

Moreover, Davis says he briefed the Defense Department agency in March about the discovery of the remains of "off-world vehicles not made on this earth".

Fascinating rumors about UFOs and aliens also drew in US President Donald Trump, who told his son Donald Trump Jr in a June interview that he knew some "very interesting" things about Roswell, a city in New Mexico that was, according to the so-called UFO hunters, the first site of UFO crashes.

However, when asked about whether he would release that information, Trump replied, "I'll have to think about that one."