The Chinese military are using artificial intelligence to track unidentified flying objects.

Human analysis in the country have apparently been overwhelmed in recent years by the high number of sightings from the military and civilians, according to Chen Li from the Air Force Early Warning Academy, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

“The frequent occurrence of unidentified air conditions in recent years … brings severe challenges to air defence security of our country,” Chen wrote in a 2019 report to Beijing scientists. The organisation is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence because it can “think outside the box”, Chen reportedly stated, meaning that it can link information from different times and locations in a way the human brain cannot.

The Independent has contacted the Chinese embassy for more information.

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, collects a huge amount of raw data from military radar stations, air force pilots, police stations, and observatories; that is then processed by the regional military, transferring it to a national database where it is analysed based on behaviour, design, materials, radioactivity, and more.

The artificial intelligence can then correlate data, such as whether UFOs appear during political or military events, weather satellite information, or natural phenomena, to better determine possible origins of the unidentified objects.

The only time when China has officially confirmed a UFO sighting was in 1998, when two military jets had to intercept a low-flying object that looked like a “short-legged mushroom” with two beams of lights from its centre; when approached, the object increased speed until it reached over 20,000 metres before disappearing in a “ghostlike” manner.

While China is investigating possible extra-terrestrial crafts, the United States is also set to release a report into its own examination of strange objects spotted by Navy pilots.

Nasa’s chief administrator Bill Nelson has said that the space agency is looking into videos released by the US Department of Defense, which showed pilots attempting to track a rapidly speeding object across the water. 

“I have talked to those Navy pilots, and they are sure that they saw something real. And of course, we’ve seen their video from their jets. What is it? We don’t know”, Mr Nelson said.

“So now that I’m here at Nasa, I’ve turned to our scientists and I’ve said: ‘Would you, looking at it from a scientific standpoint, see if you can determine, so that we can have a better idea?’

“We don’t know if it’s extra-terrestrial, we don’t know if it’s an enemy, we don’t know if it’s an optical phenomenon. We don’t think so, because of the characteristics that those Navy jet pilots described as they saw it move around”, Mr Nelson continued, adding: “The bottom line is we want to know, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”