Here’s an interesting development in the UFO story: Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick has told podcaster Peter Bergen the UFOs are not extraterrestrial, but top-secret U.S. weapons and new types of spherical drones that could be foreign.

Here are two articles about the interview, one published by a media company called Futurism, and the other in the Daily Mail newspaper.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-alien-hunter-ufos-military

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12992321/UFOs-ex-CIA-scientist-dubbed-Dr-Evil-Pentagon-AARO-cube-sphere-UFO-drone.html

I found these comments (bolded and in brackets) in the Futurism article to be especially relevant:  

[“There [are] a lot of observations of real, advanced US programs,” Sean Kirkpatrick, the now-former director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), told CNN’s Peter Bergen in a new podcast interview. “But none of that is extraterrestrial in nature.”

As Kirkpatrick put it during his appearance on Bergen’s Audible podcast “In The Room,” lots of the initially unidentified crafts folks have historically spotted, from Roswell to those weird Chinese spy balloons, were the result of various secret military, intelligence, or even commercial projects.

“There are a number of advanced technologies that are being commercialized that people don’t recognize,” the veteran Defense Department official, who retired from government service in December, told Bergen.

There’s long been speculation — and some official confirmation — that there are military explanations for UFO sightings, and Kirkpatrick’s recent interviews after leaving the AARO and Pentagon have all but confirmed those suspicions. In his discussion with Bergen, he even explained the dynamics of some of the stranger sightings he’s aware of.

“There’s a large number of people, pilots, and others, who you know, have said, ‘Hey, I saw this giant sphere. It had a cube in it, I don’t understand it, it must be an alien.’ Well, actually, no,” Kirkpatrick said. “The next generation of drones that are being built are spherical drones.”]

Bergen is the host of the Audible podcast “In the Room” and a CNN national security analyst.

So, there you have it. The UFOs are still NOT E.T.