The Department of Defense announced it’s launching a website to provide information about all declassified records on UFOs.

UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are also called UAPs (before Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—now Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)—the official term the U.S. government uses. The term refers to unidentified objects in any medium—whether in space, in the air, on land, in the sea, or under the sea.

The website, www.aaro.mil, will be a “one-stop shop” for all publicly-available information related to the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and UAP, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said at a press briefing on Aug. 31.

AARO was established in July 2022 to “detect, identify and attribute objects of interest” in all domains, including air, ground, sea, or space, to help address “any associated threats to safety of operations and national security.”

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), AARO is the “single focal point” for all efforts from the Pentagon regarding UAP. AARO is leading a “whole-of-government approach to coordinate UAP collection, reporting, and analysis efforts” throughout the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and other government agencies.

The new website “will provide information, including photos and videos, on resolved UAP cases as they are declassified and approved for public release,” according to a Pentagon press release.

“The website’s other content includes reporting trends and a frequently asked questions section as well as links to official reports, transcripts, press releases, and other resources that the public may find useful, such as applicable statutes and aircraft, balloon and satellite tracking sites.”

Brig. Gen. Ryder said that AARO will regularly update the website as new information is cleared for public release.

Lawmakers Seek Info on Secret Programs

The website’s announcement comes amid increased demands from Congress for greater transparency from the U.S. government on UAPs.

On Aug. 21, six members of Congress sent a letter calling on the intelligence community to provide more details about programs that retrieved UAPs and reverse engineered them.

“During the UAP hearing, David Grusch testified he could not provide specific details about UAP crash retrieval programs or reverse engineering programs, but said the Intelligence Community Inspector General could. So my colleagues and I wrote to him to ask for details,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said on X, formerly Twitter.

Mr. Burchett sent the letter to Thomas A. Monheim, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC IG), seeking a response in September. The other five signatories of the letter were Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn).

Retired Maj. Grusch, a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency who served on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, made statements under oath on July 26 at a House hearing on UAPs that the U.S. government has recovered UFO vehicles as well as the non-human “biologics” of the pilots.

He also told lawmakers that he believes the U.S. government has probably been aware of “non-human” activity for nearly 100 years and affirmed to Ms. Mace that he believed there was an “active disinformation campaign within our government to deny the existence of [unidentified anomalous phenomena].”

Mr. Grusch shared that he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force’s mission. At the time, Mr. Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.

“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” he said.

Mr. Burchett and his colleagues are not alone in wanting more information. In early July, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced bipartisan legislation (pdf) to declassify records related to UAP.

“For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time they get some answers,” the majority leader said in a statement.

“The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public.”

The DNI said in January that the U.S. government had received 366 new reports of UAPs since March 2021—marking a total of 510 such reports in the 17 years spanning 2004 to 2021. While more UAPs are being reported and sent for analysis, many cases “remain unresolved,” the office stated.

Savannah Hulsey Pointer and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

President Joe Biden said in a White House statement that the final munition in the country’s stockpile was “safely destroyed.” The disarmament milestone brings the country “one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons,” the president said.

The Defense Department announced that the final M55 rocket filled with sarin nerve agent was destroyed on Friday at the Blue Grass Army Depot—a U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command storage facility in Richmond, Kentucky. Sarin nerve agent, also known as GB nerve agent, is a deadly toxin. Some 51,000 such rockets had been held at the depot since the 1940s.

The final munition—more than 100,000 mustard agent and nerve agent-filled projectiles and nerve agent-filled rockets—was destroyed via “neutralization and explosive destruction technologies” at the depot, the Pentagon announced.

Efforts to destroy chemical agents at the Blue Grass Army Depot began in June 2019, according to the Pentagon. All up, more than 523 U.S. tons of chemical agents were safely destroyed there.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised the latest move.

“Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always be a stain on history, today our Nation has finally fulfilled our promise to rid our arsenal of this evil.”

Self-Imposed Deadline Met

The milestone meets the United States’ self-declared commitment to destroy all chemical weapons by Sept. 30, 2023.

Chemical weapons were first used in modern warfare in World War I, where they were estimated to have killed at least 100,000 people. The United States began assembling chemical weapons during World War I and continued producing them until the late 1960s.

By the end of the Cold War, the stockpile had reached over 30,000 tons, held at eight facilities in continental United States and one site on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Congress mandated the destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile in 1986, and the efforts to eliminate the stockpiles started in 1990 on Johnston Atoll.

“While those stockpiles were under destruction, additional legislation required the Defense Department to assess and demonstrate alternative technologies to destroy chemical weapons by means other than incineration,” the Pentagon said.

“Successful implementation of alternative technologies resulted in the safe destruction of the remaining chemical weapons stored at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado and at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.”

The Colorado and Kentucky sites were the last among where the nation’s chemical weapons had been stockpiled and destroyed. The other locations included facilities in Alabama, Arkansas, Oregon, and Utah.

Michael Abaie, the executive officer of the Pentagon’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program, said the facilities that were storing the chemical weapons will enter a closure phase for the next three to four years.

“This includes disposal of secondary wastes, decontamination and decommissioning of facilities and equipment, disposition of property, demolition of some facilities, and close-out of contracts and environmental permits,” Mr. Abaie said in a statement. “During closure, the safety of the workforce, the public and the environment will remain the program’s top priority.”

Chemical Weapons Convention

Mr. Biden said in his statement that eliminating the final chemical weapons “not only makes good on our long-standing commitment under the Chemical Weapons Convention” but also “marks the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction.”

The Chemical Weapons Convention is an international arms control treaty ratified by the United States in 1997, and was joined by 193 countries. The treaty bars members from developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, retaining, or transferring chemical weapons.

Mr. Biden urged Russia and Syria to “return to compliance” with the convention and “admit their undeclared programs, which have been used to commit brazen atrocities and attacks.” He also called on any holdout nations to join the convention.

Friday’s announcement came as the Biden administration has also decided to provide so-called “cluster munitions” to Ukraine. These munitions, after they are fired, open in midair and release small bombs (bomblets) over a wide area to strike several targets simultaneously. They can be delivered by planes, artillery, and missiles.

Two-thirds of NATO countries have banned such weapons because they can cause many civilian casualties.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the decision will enable the Ukrainians to continue their war effort with the ordinance they need, and that Ukraine has promised to use the munitions carefully.

 Michael Clements and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

Article by Mimi Nguyen Ly from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

The shooting took place a little before 10 p.m. along the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, just as the fireworks display was getting started after a music concert celebrating the July 4 holiday had ended.

One of the officers, with the Philadelphia Police Highway Patrol, sustained a graze wound to the head, while the other officer, who was with the Montgomery County Bomb Unit, sustained a gunshot wound to the shoulder, reported WTXF-TV.

“For those looking to reunite with loved ones on the Parkway, please meet at 1901 Vine Street in front of the Free Library of Philadelphia. All others, please avoid the area,” the Philadelphia Police Department said on Twitter late Monday after shots were fired that sent crowds scattering.

Police have not said what had prompted or triggered the gunfire and no arrests have been reported as of late Monday. July 4 is a national holiday across the United States that marks when Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The shooting that injured the two police officers came just hours after a shooting in a Chicago-area suburb that killed six people and injured at least 24 others. A suspect has been taken into custody.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Twitter thanked law enforcement and wished the two injured police officers a speedy recovery.