To Research Unclassified Sightings, NASA’s UFO Panel Meets
On Monday, a groundbreaking group convened by NASA began a study of what the government refers to as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UFOs. The panel included experts from disciplines as diverse as physics and astrobiology.
According to NASA, the 16-member team, which met quietly, will limit its investigation to declassified sightings and other information gathered from the civilian government and commercial sectors.
The team’s probe is independent of a recently formalized Pentagon-based investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, which military aviators have reported and which have been examined by American defense and intelligence officials.
NASA will establish a research team to examine UFOs
After decades of denying, refuting, and discrediting reports of UFOs dating back to the 1940s, the parallel NASA and Pentagon initiatives signal a turning moment for the American government.
The term “UAP” has taken the place of “UFOs,” which has long been used to refer to theories about flying saucers and extraterrestrial spaceships.
There is no proof that UAPs are alien in origin, NASA stated when it announced the formation of its panel in June.
Insufficient data made it impossible to assess the nature of more than 140 credible sightings recorded by military observers since 2004, largely Navy personnel, according to a Pentagon analysis published a year earlier.
Senior defense and intelligence officials stated before Congress five months ago that there had been 400 documented UAP sightings, however many of them continue to defy explanations as either advanced human technologies, atmospheric phenomena, or extraterrestrial life.
A video showing mysterious aerial objects that outperform known aviation technology in terms of speed and maneuverability while being devoid of any discernible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces is one of them.
Prior to recommending “a roadmap of future UAP data analysis by the agency moving ahead,” NASA stated its panel would spend nine months coming up with its own plan on how to compile and analyze sightings. Midway through 2023, the public will receive its first report.
To help us come to scientific conclusions about what is occurring in our sky, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate NASA administrator, emphasized that it is essential to comprehend the data we have about mysterious aerial occurrences. The inexplicable becomes explicable thanks to data, which is the language of scientists.
David Spergel, who formerly oversaw the astrophysics department at Prince University, serves as the panel’s chair.
Other members include Anamaria Berea, a research associate at the SETI (Search for Intelligence Life) Institute in Mountainview, California, Scott Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut and test pilot, Paula Bontempi, a biological oceanographer from the University of Rhode Island, and Shelley Wright, an astrophysicist from the University of California at San Diego.
