# Brussels Has Quietly Been Watching the Skies for UFOs Since at Least 2023, Documents Show > Internal letters seen by Euronews suggest the European Commission has been tracking unidentified aerial phenomena further than it has ever admitted publicly, after a father and son duo of amateur astronomers in Malaysia sent officials dozens of strange sky images. - Source: Belgium Crown - Canonical URL: https://belgiumcrown.com/article/brussels-has-quietly-been-watching-the-skies-for-ufos-since-at-least-2023-documents-show - Author: Belgium Crown Staff - Section: Europe - Published: 2026-08-18T11:30:09.898Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T11:30:09.898Z - Tags: European Commission, UAP, UFO, defence, space --- The European Commission appears to have been quietly monitoring unidentified aerial phenomena, once known simply as UFOs, since at least 2023, according to internal documents reviewed by Euronews. A letter from the Commission's defence department, dealing with sky and space observations made in Malaysia, suggests the EU executive is tracking the phenomenon more closely than it has publicly let on. It reads that officials are getting better at spotting and identifying these objects as their technological capabilities improve, while acknowledging there is still further to go. The term now used, unidentified anomalous phenomena, replaced the older UFO label after the United States defence department set up a dedicated task force in August 2020 to look into unexplained sightings in restricted airspace. Interest in the subject grew further after a 2017 New York Times report revealed that US defence files included footage from military flights that the Navy had released. ## A father and son with a telescope, and 37 strange images Euronews traced the Commission's interest in part to a Malaysian father and son duo, amateur astronomers recognised internationally for earlier discoveries about the surface and activity of the moon. In October 2022, the pair wrote to the Commission describing captures made with their own ultraviolet infrared telescope, sending 37 images of sky and space footage that included what they believed were unidentified objects, and asking Commission President Ursula von der Leyen directly about their origin. The two said governments they approached tended to offer no opinion on the objects, which they described as sometimes flying unusually close to aircraft and to sensitive sites such as military and nuclear facilities. They also told the Commission they had picked up unusual signals through local Wi-Fi networks. Because the sightings were recorded over Malaysian territory, the Commission replied that it had no authority to investigate directly. It said instead that it planned to propose that the twenty seven EU member states work to improve their collective ability to detect objects in the space environment around Earth, partly to help identify both unexplained phenomena and the growing amount of space debris, while cautioning that this would not resolve every case reported to it. The Malaysian duo also reached out to NASA, Malaysia's Nuclear Agency, its Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and Canada's defence ministry, all of which declined to take the matter further. Former Canadian MP Larry Maguire was more encouraging, telling the pair in an email that public attention to the skies was only likely to grow, and that as more data was collected it would lead to greater public awareness, since the skies themselves are not classified. The correspondence adds to a broader wave of official interest in the subject, including a United States congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena held by the House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee in July. --- Originally published by Belgium Crown. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://belgiumcrown.com/article/brussels-has-quietly-been-watching-the-skies-for-ufos-since-at-least-2023-documents-show.