An independent group of scientists and experts convened by NASA to study unidentified anomalous phenomenaknown as UAPs or UFOs, said Wednesday that there is “absolutely no compelling evidence” of extraterrestrial activity in any sightings so far.
That’s not to say the panel has ruled out aliens, military adversaries, or any other explanation, just that of the 800 or so sightings of strange flying objects or other phenomena that defy easy explanation, the data simply isn’t enough to draw definitive conclusions. .
However.
The 16-member group stressed the need for better data on encounters at its first and only public meeting on Wednesday. The group was formed last October to “lay the groundwork for a future study of the nature of UAPs for NASA and other organizations,” the agency said at the time, and will produce a report of its findings.
NASA defines UAPs as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective.”
Widely reproduced Navy UFO fighter pilot video Maneuvering at high speeds in a way that no known aircraft can, along with other unexplained sightings in recent years, have added fuel to the UFO fire, generating widespread public interest and strong feelings on both sides.
Panel members said they have faced online harassment since the study was announced by NASA last year from those who believe UFOs in the traditional sense are, in fact, behind of some of the unexplained incidents, and similar objections from those who believe that the investigation is complete. waste of time.
“We’re heading between the rocks and the cyclone,” said panel chairman David Spergel, a well-respected cosmologist. “We have a community of people who are completely convinced that UFOs exist. And we have a community of people who think that addressing this question is ridiculous, everything can be explained away.”
Nicola Fox, director of NASA’s space science directorate, said it was “really disheartening to hear the harassment our panelists have faced online, all because they are studying this issue”.
“NASA stands behind our panelists and we do not tolerate abuse,” he said. “The harassment only leads to further stigmatization of the UAP field, significantly hindering scientific progress and discouraging others from studying this important subject. Your harassment also obstructs the public’s right to know.”
Spergel said one of the panel’s goals is to help reduce that stigma by encouraging airline pilots and others to come forward when they see a UAP, so they don’t fear ridicule or embarrassment.
“Despite NASA’s extensive efforts to reduce the stigma, the origins of UAP remain unclear,” Spergel said. “And we feel that many events remain unreported. Commercial pilots, for example, are very reluctant to report anomalies. And one of our goals, and for NASA to play a role, is to remove the stigma and get data high quality
“In fact, if I had to sum it up in one line, what I think we’ve learned is that we need high-quality data.”
The Independent Study of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena was chartered by NASA to evaluate available detection techniques and technologies and to develop recommendations to improve detection of UAPs, ensuring the collection of reliable data needed to better understand what they might be.
Unlike the Pentagon’s Office of All-Domain Anomaly Resolution, which has access to classified UAP data and focuses more on national security, the NASA study is based on unclassified reports and sightings to improve transparency and communications between agencies.
“Sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena are not classified, it is often the sensor platform that is classified,” Fox said. “If a fighter jet took a photo of the Statue of Liberty, that image would be classified, not by the subject of the image, but by the plane’s sensors.”
The group plans to issue its report at the end of the summer. As for what might be recommended, Spergel offered an interesting possibility: a mobile app that would allow users to collect and send valuable data.
“There are three to four billion cell phones in the world,” Spergel said. “Cell phones don’t just record images, we’re all used to cell phone cameras, but they measure the local magnetic field, they’re gravimeters, they measure sound, they encode an enormous amount of information about the environment around them.”
Not to mention accurate GPS location data and time stamps. He said someone capturing a UAP could use a custom app to feed that data to a central website where it could be compared to similar observations.
“If you have something seen by multiple cellphones, with good timestamp data, at multiple angles, you can infer the location and velocity of that object,” Spergel said. “Most of the time that will tell you it’s a plane, it’s a balloon, whatever. And if it’s something new, you’ve got high-quality, uniformly selected data that could be used.”
This data could be combined with radar and information gathered by other sensors to help “remove the normalcy,” leaving the true UAP for analysis with more detailed data than is available now.
“I think that’s the way a lot of us think about how we might approach this,” he said.
As for the extraterrestrials, David Grinspoon, a senior scientist at the Houston Planetary Science Institute, put it this way:
“We have seen no evidence to suggest that UAPs have anything to do with extraterrestrial phenomena,” he said. “If the data leads us to realize that it does … of course we’re going to be captivated and fascinated by it and want to pursue it. But at this point, we really don’t have any explicit data to suggest that there’s a connection between UAPs and Extraterrestrial Life”.
Stefan Becket contributed to the report.
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