The US Department of Defence says it will establish a new group to investigate reports on the presence of UFOs in restricted airspace.

The formation of the group comes after the government released a report in June, encompassing 144 observations, which said there was a lack of sufficient data to determine the nature of mysterious flying objects.

The new group is called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group.

Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks said in a separate statement the presence of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) in restricted airspace poses a potential safety of flight risk to air crews and raises potential national security concerns.

The new group will succeed the US Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, and will work to detect, identify and attribute objects, and assess and mitigate any associated threats, the Pentagon said.

The US military has spent decades deflecting, debunking and discrediting observations of unidentified flying objects and “flying saucers” dating back to the 1940s.

-Reuters