Military authorities in the United States have admitted running a programme to investigate mysterious flying objects across the country.

Unidentified Flying Objects, UFOs, have been a subject of conspiracy theories amongst Americans for decades as many hold the view the objects could be aliens who regularly visit or wander into the Earth.

The New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Defense Headquarters has been coordinating a programme to confirm if some of the reports about aliens sightings were genuine.

Several documents and interviews with officials at The Pentagon revealed that authorities started the programme in 2007 after a former Senate Leader, Harry Reid, requested funding for it.

The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme received funding from 2007 until 2012 when The Pentagon shut it down, but the paper believes some officials are still running it till now.

Until now, The Pentagon had strictly kept mum about what it knew of alleged alien sightings on Earth, and the programme’s existence was said to have been restricted to only a few officials.

Mr. Reid, a Democrat, served as a senator from 1987-2017 from the Nevada, a state long believed to be holding the mysterious ‘Area 51’ U.S. Air Force Base.

“I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going. I’ve done something that no one has done before,” Mr. Reid told The New York Times.

Later on, the lawmaker said on Twitter that no one has been able to clarify the mystery surrounding alleged sightings of UFOs.

“This is about science and national security. If America doesn’t take the lead in answering these questions, others will,” Mr. Reid said.

But some scientists expressed strong doubts, telling The New York Times that Unidentified Flying Objects are not necessarily aliens.