For thousands of years ancient cultures depicted ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ (UAP) on rock art, but if these are not Ancient Aliens, as some popular media outlets would propose, what were the strange lights in the sky that perplexed mankind’s ancestors?

Classic Vernal Style petroglyph by Fremont culture, Utah. With its anthropomorphic trapezoidal torso and broad shoulders with a narrow waist it may be susceptible to the pseudoscientific, Ancient Astronaut Theory.

The term ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ is a contemporary term, much more accurate than ‘ UFO’ when used to describe something witnessed in the sky, or air, without entertaining ideas about extraterrestrial visitors. Furthermore, not everything in the sky is flying and if something is unidentified then it cannot at the same time be called an object. The words ‘aerial’ and ‘phenomena’ more accurately describe the unknown nature of what may be observed in the skies and the term UAP opens up the discussion from “Alien or not,” to include studies into unknown geological, chemical and piezoelectrical phenomena which all may appear as objects in the sky. Thus, with the self imposed restriction of not mentioning Ancient Aliens, what then were mankind’s ancestors observing seeing zipping around in ancient skies?

Petroglyphs from Val Camonica, Italy, which Ancient astronaut proponents believe represent intelligent extraterrestrial life that visited the Earth in prehistory and altered the course of human civilization.

Pentagon UAP Releases

On December 16, 2017 the United States admitted that the Pentagon has in its possession several videos showing anomalous flying craft. The US Navy confirmed that three controversial leaked videos were actual Pentagon films and not hoaxes. The first two films were first released by  The New York Times depicting Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and another was later published by  The Washington Post which showed another apparently quick-moving flying object, the first having been filmed in November 2004 and the other two in 2014 and 2015. All three Pentagon films were recorded by US Navy fighter jets based on the Pacific carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015, and the U.S. Navy confirmed the authorized release of these unclassified videos because they “ do not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems and they do not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena .”