NASA opens its UAP, aka UFO, research with public meeting

The independent study team assigned by NASA to investigate the ever-changing acronym once referred to as UFOs held a public meeting Wednesday to lay out its progress toward its final report expected this summer.

UFO, as in unidentified flying object, is a term the U.S. military began referring to as UAPs, as in unidentified aerial phenomena, which has since been further relabeled as unidentified anomalous phenomena, meaning it could be some sort of aircraft or something natural.

The study team commissioned by NASA last fall consists of 16 experts, including former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, university physics professors and officials with the Federal Aviation Administration. The panelists laid out their approach, noting the panel’s purpose isn’t to delve into the unexplained sightings of the past but instead create a scientific plan on how to assess future sightings.

“Above all … from a scientific perspective, we do not come in with an agenda,” said Daniel Evans, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for science research.

“We come in needing a roadmap. Indeed, the primary objective of this incredible team of experts is not to go back and look at grainy footage of UAPs but rather to give us a roadmap to guide us for future analysis.”

While UFO sightings have been in the collective public mindset since the end of World War II, unclassified military footage taken in the past two decades of naval aviator encounters, including one off the coast of Florida, swelled more public and government interest.

That prompted NASA administrator Bill Nelson to call for a scientific evaluation to ensure keeping the skies safe, no matter the explanation.

Panelists explained the challenges they were facing with the data they’re assessing while hearing from government officials that have a vested interest in UAPs.

A big key is that since the panel is public, it’s not looking at classified footage, so the majority of the data is coming from civilian observations. Another hurdle facing not just this panel, but the military as well, is the stigma associated with those reporting unexplained phenomena.

Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the federal government’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), presented examples of the UAP sightings reported, and what sort of conclusions can be drawn, as well as the challenges behind it.

AARO’s job after its creation in 2022 under the National Defense Authorization Act is to synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense with other U.S. federal departments and agencies like NASA to detect and identify objects such as UAPs and mitigate potential threats to national security.

In one recently declassified video, Kirkpatrick showed a spherical metallic object seen from an MQ-9 reconnaissance aircraft over the Middle East in 2022.

“This is a typical example of the thing that we see most of,” he said. “We see these all over the world and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers. This one in particular, however, I would point out demonstrated no enigmatic technical capabilities and was no threat to airborne safety.”

He said it remains unexplained, with no other data from which to draw any conclusions.

Kirkpatrick showed more footage reported by a training flight pilot that looked like three objects in the sky in fixed positions that turned out to be just airplanes on an approach corridor farther away than what the pilot thought.

“This is the kind of thing that can spoof and provide misperception of both very highly trained pilots as well as sensors,” he said.

“When they’re not sure, they’re reporting it now, and that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. And then we have to go look at it.”

Kirkpatrick emphasized that most of the reports his office receives feature “mundane characteristics of readily explainable sources.”

And while the office’s queue of what he called “technically unresolved” observations has climbed to more than 800, he said it’s “primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases.”

The NASA study group’s report aims to nail down which data sources can be leaned on to better explain UAPs as they are reported. The goal would be to explain the things that can be explained quicker and clear the path for further investigation into those that cannot be explained.

They also don’t want to duplicate the DOD efforts but complement them. And to do it transparently.

“NASA prides itself on making its data and images available to the public to learn and explore on their own,” the agency posted ahead of the meeting.

“By holding public meetings like this one, we aim for open and honest dialogue with the public.”