NYT: In new report, intelligence officials can't explain most UFO sightings

The truth is still out there.

U.S. intelligence officials have investigated more than 120 incidents involving flying objects of unknown origin, and they write in a new classified government report that while they didn't find any evidence these are alien spacecraft, they also cannot explain how they are able to accelerate so quickly, change direction in a split second, and submerge, senior administration officials briefed on the matter told The New York Times.

The unidentified aerial phenomena were witnessed mostly by Navy pilots, and the report says most of the events did not involve objects that were made by the U.S. military or used advanced government technology, the officials said. Intelligence officials tested different explanations, and found that most didn't fit when looking at every incident. The objects couldn't be weather balloons, for instance, because of changes in wind speed during the interactions.

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It is possible that these objects have been developed by a foreign country. One senior U.S. official told the Times that intelligence and military officials are concerned about Russia's and China's experiments with hypersonic technology, and if that's what the Navy pilots are witnessing, it suggests the Russians and Chinese are far ahead of the American military's research.

The sightings mentioned in the report include one-off events and recurring interactions. From the summer of 2014 to March 2015, Navy pilots over the East Coast reported seeing odd objects nearly every single day, including one that looked like a spinning top going against the wind. The objects were able to move at hypersonic speeds, fly up to 30,000 feet, and stay in the air for 12 hours.

Congress is expected to release an unclassified version of the report by June 25.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.