NASA’s independent research team long awaited release report About UFOs on September 14, 2023.
In part, The stigma often associated with UFOsUFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, although military pilots fear ridicule or disciplinary action if they report them.
Conclusion: The research team found no evidence that the reported UAP observations were extraterrestrial.
I professor of astronomy someone who has written extensively about astrobiology And that scientist People searching for life in space.I’ve been doing that for a long time be skeptical of that claim UFOs are said to represent aliens visiting Earth.
From sensationalism to science
inside Press conferenceNASA Administrator bill nelson He pointed out that NASA has science programs to explore. Signs of life on Mars And that traces of biology In the atmosphere of an exoplanet. He said he wants to change the UAP conversation from one of sensationalism to one of science.
Now: Discussion of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Report (UAP) report by the independent research team.
— NASA (@NASA) September 14, 2023
In this statement, Nelson alluded to some outlandish claims about UAPs and UFOs.in July Congressional Hearingformer Department of Defense intelligence officer Testimony by David Groush The US government is hiding evidence of the crashed UAP and alien biological specimens. Sean KirkpatrickThe Pentagon director responsible for investigating UAPs denied these claims.
And in the same week, a NASA report was released. mexican lawmaker Journalist Jaime Morsan showed two small bodies from 1,000 years ago and claimed they were the remains of “non-human” beings.Scientists call this Unauthorized billing And they claim the mummy may have been looted from a cemetery in Peru.
Conclusions from the report
The NASA research team’s report reveals little about whether some UAPs are extraterrestrial. In a comment, the astronomer who chairs the research team said: david spagel “There is no evidence to suggest that UAPs are of extraterrestrial origin,” the research team said.
Of the more than 800 unclassified sightings collected by the Department of Defense, Old Main Anomaly Resolution Office Reported on NASA panel first public meeting Back in May 2023, there were “only a handful of cases that could not be immediately identified as either known human-caused or natural phenomena.” report.
Many of the Recent sightings Weather balloons or aerial clutter may be the cause. Historically, Most UFOs are celestial bodies meteors, etc. fireballand planet venus.
Some sightings are monitoring activities by a foreign power and that’s why the US military is considering this national security issues.
This report provides recommendations to NASA on how to proceed with these investigations.
Most of the UAP data the research team considers comes from U.S. military aircraft. Analysis of this data is hampered by “poor sensor calibration, missing multiple measurements, missing sensor metadata, and missing baseline data.” “It’s been done.” An ideal measurement set would include optical imaging, infrared imaging, and radar data, but few reports include all of these.
In their report, the NASA research team described the types of data that can shed more light on UAPs. The authors point out the importance of reducing the stigma that causes military and civilian pilots to feel unable to freely report sightings.Prejudice has developed over decades Conspiracy theories related to UFOs.
NASA researchers propose using the Federal Aviation Administration to collect sightings by commercial pilots and combine them with confidential sightings not included in the report. Team members did not have security clearance, so they could only see some unclassified military sightings. At this time, there is no anonymous national UAP reporting mechanism for commercial pilots.
With access to these confidential sightings and a structured mechanism for commercial pilots to report sightings, Old Main Anomaly Resolution OfficeThe military, tasked with leading the analysis effort, may have the most data.
NASA also announced Appointment of a new research director on UAP. This position will oversee the creation of a database containing resources for evaluating UAP sightings.
looking for a needle in a haystack
Parts of the briefing resembled an introduction to the scientific method. Officials likened the analysis process to finding a needle in a haystack or separating the wheat from the chaff. Officials said a consistent and rigorous methodology for characterizing sightings is needed as a way to pinpoint what is truly unusual.
Spergel said the research team’s goal is to characterize haystack, or everyday phenomena, and subtract them to find needles, or potentially exciting discoveries. He pointed out that artificial intelligence can help researchers comb through huge data sets to find rare and unusual phenomena. AI is already being used in this way many areas of astronomical research.
Speakers pointed out the importance of transparency. Transparency is important because UFOs have long been associated with humans. Conspiracy theories and government cover-ups. Similarly, much of the debate during Congress UAP hearing In July, we focused on the need for transparency. All scientific data NASA collects is publicly available on various websites, and officials said they intend to do the same with unclassified UAP data.
in The beginning of the briefing session, Nelson opined that there are perhaps a trillion lives beyond Earth. Therefore, there is a good chance that intelligent life forms exist. But the report states that when it comes to UAPs, extraterrestrial life must be a hypothesis of last resort. Quoting Thomas Jefferson. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That evidence doesn’t yet exist.
Chris ImpeyUniversity Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona. This article is republished from conversation Under Creative Commons License.read Original work.
