US space agency has seen ‘thousands of UFOs’ in one month: Report

The US Space Force (USSF)—a new military branch created under Donald Trump’s administration in 2019 to keep track of potential threats in space—has detected “thousands of UFOs in Earth's orbit”, DailyMail.com reported citing the classified document on Thursday (Nov 30).

The report, which was published this month, states the sightings have become such a recurrent feature lately that it is becoming difficult to determine whether the unidentified flying object (UFO), officially referred to as an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), poses any threat to humans.

The report was based on the findings of the USSF’s STARCOM, or Space Force's Space Training and Readiness Command, which has claimed to have found many UFO sightings in Earth’s orbit in the past month.

UFOs hiding among space junk 

Among the sightings were also man-made space junk and ‘natural debris’ like meteoroids launched by US “foreign adversaries” who “continue to launch spy satellites, like North Korea's new Malligyong-1, and other covert orbital platforms”, the report noted.

The Space Force expressed concern that these man-made space junk have cluttered the large unwatched area between Earth and the Moon, called ‘cislunar’ orbit, making it difficult to identify any potential threat and neutralise them.

Space Force's leadership emphasised the importance of finding these grave “threats” among mere “hazards” like space junk.

The report by the USSF also uses terms like 'abnormal observables' and 'patterns of life' multiple times, but it has failed to clarify what exactly they mean.

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The Pentagon officials have recently focused their attention on 'five observables' they say are unique features of serious unexplained phenomena.

'Abnormal observables' 

The officials have listed out five ways in which it can be confirmed whether these sightings fall under the UAP category:

1. Gravity-defying behaviour
2. Eerily low observability on radar or other sensors,
3. Sudden or instantaneous accelerations
4. Hypersonic speeds without signatures like 'sonic booms,' and
5. So-called 'trans-medium' travel between air, sea and outer space.

However, the document by Space Force STARCOM has not explained whether these established UFO identifications overlap with their own ‘abnormal observables’

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It is also unclear what 'patterns of life' have been detected from orbital unknowns.

(With inputs from agencies)