Last year, the issue became the bottom line of a Pentagon report which concluded that there was no "single explanation" for over 140 UFO-like occurrences recorded by military personnel since 2004, but that they posed a threat to flight safety and national security.

Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating the possible sightings of unidentified flying objects for the British Ministry of Defence, has said he is "confident" that 2022 "is going to be a seismic year for UFOs".

Such objects are also referred to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) or "anomalous aerial vehicles" (AAVs).

Referring to the US, where a Pentagon report on the matter was released in 2021, Pope told The Guardian that he senses "a genuine desire" from the country's Department of Defence (DoD) and Intelligence Community "to "grip the issue".

During the 1990s, American families gathered around their televisions on Sunday nights and watched The X-Files, where FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were part of secret government research into Unidentified Flying Objects.

Then in 2017, The New York Times revealed conspiracy theorists were right all along. The government for decades really did have secret agencies investigating UFOs and military pilots reported numerous contacts with flying objects.

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have appeared throughout human history and are typically associated with extraterrestrial life visiting Earth. As early as 1639, Massachusetts Bay Colony cofounder and governor John Winthrop reported a "sober, discreet man" named James Everell had seen a "great light" in the sky running back and forth over the Muddy River for several hours. By the time it vanished, Everell and the other men in his boat were a mile upstream from where they'd been and they had no memory of how they'd arrived there, according to an account in New England Today.

In modern times, "the first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947 when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane," reports History.com. Though Arnold described the shapes as being crescent-shaped, they were mistakenly reported as being saucer-shaped in the media, leading to the first usage of the term "flying saucer."

Utah, with its barren deserts and dark, starry skies has long been considered a hotbed for unidentifiable sightings.

Over the years, there have been more than 1,000 UFO sightings in Utah, according to journalistic data analysis website Stacker.com. Some of these sightings have a reasonable explanation, including recent reports of lines of lights moving across the night sky.

These trains of brightly lit objects, reportedly seen over Utah as recently as February 2021, turned out to be Starlink Satellites, a SpaceX project launched by Elon Musk, which aims to provide internet service everywhere on Earth, according to Space.com.

Other sightings, however, are not so easily explained.

From mysterious discs over Slemish Mountain in Co Antrim to strange images spotted on CCTV, unexplained sightings increased in Northern Ireland again last year.

Police received eight sightings in Northern Ireland during 2021, an increase from six such reports in 2020 and four in 2019.

These included a report of a space ship and flashing lights in the Downpatrick area on January 17.

In May, police received two sightings reports, one of white lights following a helicopter in the Maghaberry area and an odd disc seen in the sky in the Slemish area of Co Antrim at the end of the month.

In July, there was a report of "strange images" on closed-circuit television (CCTV) in a house in the Newtownabbey area and a dome-shaped object with eight lights in the sky reported in the Saintfield area.

An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any visible anomaly in the sky that cannot be identified as a known object or phenomenon. Although this definition covers any unexplained aerial phenomenon, in popular culture the term has become synonymous with extraterrestrial spacecraft.

UFO sightings throughout history

UFO sightings have been reported throughout human history and in different parts of the world, raising questions about life on other planets and whether aliens have visited Earth. They have become one of the main subjects of interest and inspiration for numerous films and books. Unfortunately, however, they are also the target of intense ridicule.

For decades, there have been attempts, whether deliberate or not, to downplay the significance of UFOs and create a public belief in society that UFOs are part of some elaborate hoax. Nevertheless, reports of unexplained UFO sightings from the air have been received throughout human history, from prehistoric times to the present day.

Some ancient images of objects flying in the sky were undoubtedly astronomical in nature, most likely comets, bright meteors and planets that can be seen with the naked eye, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as lenticular clouds.

An example is Halley's comet, which was first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC, and possibly as early as 467 BC. Throughout human history, such phenomena have often been viewed as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens.

However, we cannot simply assume that what our ancient ancestors saw and wrote on cave walls or in ancient texts was an astronomical or ecological phenomenon. As with today's phenomena, there is a small percentage of phenomena that are simply inexplicable. Many records from our ancient past certainly spark curiosity, such as the prehistoric cave paintings.

The rock paintings bear a striking resemblance to those painted hundreds of years later on the 16th century Triumph of Summer tapestry. The UFO images on this tapestry are also closely related to modern UFO stories. There are also Aboriginal rock carvings depicting Wanjin's celestial beings who appear to represent alien guests.

The federal government is embarking on a new attempt to explain the unexplainable.

The Defense Department is launching the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, a unit that will be charged with finding and identifying UFOs in restricted airspace, officials said Tuesday.

The new group will replace the U.S. Navy's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the military said in a statement, according to the New York Post.

The Navy's panel was created just last year, to "improve its understanding of, and gain insight into" UFOs, the statement said, according to the report.

UFO's buzzing warships and being reported by US pilots could be of alien origin, America's top spy chief has said in a stunning admission.

Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who oversees all 16 US spy agencies including the FBI and CIA, was speaking at the Our Future in Space event at the Washington National Cathedral.

Haines was quizzed about UFOs which have become a serious national security debate in the US after years of being consigned to the dustbin of conspiracy theories.

RT speaks to Ross Coulthart, the author of a new book, 'In Plain Sight', which records an array of mysterious UFO sightings around the world - and details officialdom's extraordinary efforts to deny them or cover them up.

There's been an explosion of UFO initiatives over the past 12 months, including the formation of the International Coalition for Extraterrestrial Research and the launch of the Galileo Project. And then there was the groundbreaking report by the Pentagon, in which it admitted there were incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) that couldn't be explained.

Yet a new book, 'In Plain Sight', by award-winning investigative journalist Ross Coulthart could be one of the most interesting developments yet. Coulthart has no reputation to uphold in the UFO community, but has long held a desire to tackle the big question: are we really alone?

A former nuclear missile base boss, who later developed backpacks for NASA Apollo astronauts, has claimed a UFO crippled ten of his nukes in their silos.

Retired US Air Force Captain David D Schindele yesterday alleged the bizarre incident unfolded in 1966, while he was a missile launch crew commander in the Minot Air Force Base missile field in North Dakota.

The unexplained UFO sighting in Chicago, Illinois left mum Aiyana "creeped out" and is just one of several reported in the US in recent weeks.

A woman was left in "total confusion" and "creeped out" after she saw a strange black shape floating in the skies.

Aiyana, who asked that her second name be withheld, recorded the surreal footage from the roof of her home in Chicago, Illinois.

Do you ever feel like...somebody's watching you?

Or maybe multiple somebodies? Extraterrestrial somebodies, maybe?

For whatever reason — you can pick your own theory — the Myrtle Beach area has been a hotspot for UFO sightings for years.

Tracked in a government database that keeps the identities of witnesses anonymous, dozens of stories recount first-hand experiences with mysteries in the sky. Some narratives are from tourists. Others identify themselves as former military members, cosmos enthusiasts or retired law enforcement officers.