With New Study, NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs

NASA held a press conference on June 9th to announce a study on aerial phenomena. The term "unidentified flying objects" is used to refer to the topic of government conspiracy theories. The question on the public's mind was why one of the U.S.'s premier scientific agencies was getting involved in something that was considered to be at the furthest fringes of respectability.

It fit in with the more open minded Zeitgeist regarding UAPs. The release of first-person accounts and video from U.S. fighter pilots claiming to show encounters with strange objects in the skies led to the publication of a report by the Department of Defense. The matter has remained in the public eye because of high-profile coverage in the media. The Galileo Project was announced by a former chair of Harvard University's astronomy department a month after the Pentagon's report.

It's not clear what NASA can bring to this discussion. The $100,000 the agency has set aside for the nine-month study is less than typical funding for exploratory studies of unconventional technologies such as space telescopes with kilometer-scale mirrors. The investigation will identify existing and future data sets that scientists can use to better understand UAPs. The existence of the study suggests that something the agency once shied away from discussing is on the verge of becoming an appropriate topic of inquiry.

Greg Eghigian, a historian at Pennsylvania State University, says there are more voices in scientific circles who are willing to be public about the existence of aliens.

In retrospect, NASA's UAP announcement is a bit less shocking. Nelson told reporters last year that he was certain that U.S. pilots saw something and locked their radars onto it. The Pentagon's UAP task force and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had previously spoken about involving multiple branches of government in their investigations. He says that NASA was mentioned.

It makes more sense for the military to explore incursions into American airspace than it does for a civil space agency. If they exist, they might be proof of advanced Russian or Chinese technology rather than anything from beyond Earth. NASA is studying the data from Earth-observing satellites and other monitoring instruments to see if there is anything that can be said about the phenomena. NASA collects extensive information about the atmosphere using a suite of probes, which may have picked up data that could help identify UAPs.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA, stated in an official statement that they have the tools and team who can help improve our understanding of the unknown. It is the very definition of what science is. We do that.

The most high-profile researcher currently pursuing such inquiries is Zurbuchen. Last summer, Zurbuchen received a proposal from Loeb to use telescopes and other instruments to look for events that might be related to the existence of unknown aircraft. He was annoyed by the fact that the agency had set up its own commission.

It's a contradiction to me. Why wouldn't you collaborate with someone who's studying the research agenda?

NASA told him that it would be a conflict of interest for him to be involved in the agency's new endeavor since he is the head of the Galileo project. He was able to come to an agreement with the issue. The truth is what matters. It doesn't matter who says it. I'm happy that I'm not the only one.

The Galileo Project recently finished assembling its first telescope instruments on the roof of the Harvard College Observatory, which will begin capturing data in the coming weeks that may speak to the reality of UAPs. The collaboration held its first in-person conference earlier this month, where they presented their plans for the future. 10 scientific papers about the workings of their telescope will be made public after they go through peer review.

The fragments of a roughly breadbox-size meteorite that crashed off the coast of the Philippines in the summer of 2014) are currently being pursued by a group of people. Based on the speed at which it entered Earth's atmosphere, a scream 162,000 kilometers per hour, Loeb and his student proposed that the space rock came from another star system. The pieces of the small object that didn't burn up were made of a material that was tougher than iron.

It makes me wonder if it was natural or not. He wants to lead an expedition to the ocean floor to look for alien debris.

It shows how much the scientific landscape has changed in the last few years. Kate Dorsch is a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. The agency went to great lengths to make clear that no credible evidence exists for a link between UAPs and aliens, and even the level of funding dedicated to its new study suggests that it is not ready to do more than dip a toe in the murky waters. I don't know what you can do with $100,000.

Talking about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe doesn't seem as preposterous as it used to be. Scientists of all stripes draw up plans for probes to look for organisms on planets and moons in the solar system, and they use their telescopes to look for chemical evidence of life on distant stars.

In a climate where we are already discussing life in the universe in a new way, the UAP stuff is emerging. It is possible that this makes it easier for people to discuss UAPs since theiggle factor has gone down.

Jacob Haqq-Misra is an astronomer at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. He says that he sees why some scientists dismiss it all. He has been able to recognize that there might be something concrete for scientists to investigate even if the culprit is not a real problem.

It's fine if you don't care about it personally as a scientist. Haqq-Misra made the statement. To pretend that it is not interesting.

NASA's reputation could be sullied if it becomes associated with a pseudoscientific subject or if nothing the agency says about this matter will ever satisfy true believers. People will think that NASA is involved in the conspiracy if they don't find anything. Frank says NASA isn't telling them what's true. He thinks there is a chance for the study to spark a teachable moment about the process of science.

He says that science only works because we have rigorous means of evaluating our own biases.

By their nature, UAPs point to things that we don't understand. They exist at the edges of the known. The proliferation of projects to investigate UAPs suggests that some researchers are willing to take a more relaxed attitude towards a subject that used to be off limits. Increased scrutiny isn't likely to completely remove the questions surrounding them.

Some of these UAPs are going to evade knowing until someone builds a perfect system that captures all data at all times.