The Pentagon said on Friday that it has received hundreds of reports of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, since establishing an office dedicated to the phenomenon in July.

But the new reports do not point to evidence of alien life, officials said.

"I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that," said Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Pentagon to investigate all new reports

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was created in July to investigate unidentified objects in the sky, underwater or in space.

Its establishment followed more than a year of renewed interest in unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed but have sometimes been reluctant to report.

The AARO is headed by Sean Kirkpatrick, who said the Pentagon received "several hundred" reports into the phenomenon this year.

"I would just say that we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all," Kirkpatrick said. "As a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes."

Historical UFO reports under the microscope

Meanwhile, in the annual defense policy bill passed by Congress earlier this week, the Pentagon has also been directed to prepare a report looking at the historical record of the US government related to UFOs going back to 1945.

The bill will ensure the AARO researches all records, including those so highly classified that few people know about them.

"That is going to be quite a research project," Kirkpatrick said.

As for the new reports from 20202, the Director of National Intelligence is set to provide an update with the exact number of reported sightings by the end of the year.