People with phones and video gear were able to capture the strange sights in the sky.
Satellites, technology deployed by foreign governments, falling space junk, or even floating specialty balloons could be what these unexplained aerial phenomena are.
They could be aliens. What if extraterrestrials speeding in from Alpha Centauri crashed into New Mexico because they lacked brake fluid?
Many of the objects are identified. Others are still mysterious.
UAP will get more attention from both the scientific community and the federal government in the years to come, according to experts.
9 things we learned about aliens in 2021.
The effort was co-ordinated.
A report on UAPs was issued by the U.S. military and intelligence community. It was followed by congressional urging to establish a formal office to carry out a "coordinated effort" on collection and analysis.
Our national security efforts rely on aerial supremacy, and these phenomena present a challenge to our dominance over the air. Staying ahead of UAP is critical to keeping our strategic edge and keeping our nation safe.
The new office within the Pentagon, called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, will not focus on the search for alien life, but will provide a full spectrum of intelligence, as well as scientific and technical assessments, related to UAP.
Gillibrand said that one of the new UAP office's responsibilities will be to implement a plan to test scientific theories related to UAP characteristics and performances.
What now?
There is a concerted effort to build UAP-spotting hardware and to decide where it will be stationed. This year could be a turning point in the study of UAP/UFOs.
The government looked for flying saucers 8 times.
UAP-spotting gear. The image is from the data acquisition project.
The detection of unexplained phenomena.
Mark Rodeghier is the scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago.
Rodeghier told Space.com that the effort to detect, track and measure the UFO phenomenon in the field has recently entered a new phase. The technology has gotten better, software tools have improved, and the current interest in UFOs has attracted new, qualified professionals.
"While one can't predict how soon we will gain new, fundamental knowledge about UAPs, I believe that these efforts are very likely to succeed and set UFO research onto a new foundation of reliable, physical data," Rodeghier said. As a result, we will have more evidence that the UFO phenomenon is real and can be studied scientifically.
The Galileo Project will search for extraterrestrial equipment. There are two branches. The first goal is to identify the nature of objects that don't look like comets or asteroids. Similar to the U.S. government, the second branch targets UAP.
The Galileo Project's data will be open to the public, and its scientific analysis will be transparent, said Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who is spearheading the project. The related scientific findings would expand humanity's knowledge.
The first telescope system for the Galileo project will be built on the roof of the Harvard College Observatory.
The system will record video and audio of the entire sky, as well as track objects of interest. Artificial intelligence will differentiate birds from drones. The Galileo Project will distribute copies of the first system in many locations once it is successful.
The truth is out there.
The possibility that aliens are actually human time travelers is attracting some attention within the scientific community.
Michael Masters, a professor of anthropology at Montana Technological University, said that the human time travelers model to explain unexplained phenomena has been gaining traction over the last couple years.
Masters is the author of the book "Identified Flying Objects," which examines the idea that aliens may be our distant human descendants using time travel to visit and study us, as members of their own hominin evolutionary past.
"I think people are starting to realize that it makes a lot of sense in the context of how these ships operate, how they can achieve such incredible accelerations and decelerations if they are manipulating space-time in their own reference frame in and around these craft, and if we can take
The topic of the unexplained phenomena is being taken seriously by a broader group of professionals.
The more we eliminate the stigma that has surrounded this subject for so long, the quicker we can begin to understand the nuances of this mysterious phenomenon. "Lowering the stigma will hopefully mean that more scientists and scholars will continue to enter the conversation without fear of retribution or shame being cast upon their existing research program, which can only help to advance our knowledge farther and faster."
The conversation can now move on from "Are these real?" to "What are they, and from where, or potentially when, are they coming?" thanks to the official acknowledgement of the reality of these objects.
Where are the aliens?
There is a lack of coordination.
Robert Powell, an executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies in Austin, Texas, said that there is a lack of coordination among organizations involved in UAP detection equipment.
"I believe that will improve as we go into 2022," he said.
SCU members are involved with the Galileo Project, as well as several other groups, including the UFO Data Acquisition Project (UFODAP) and UAPx.
Powell told Space.com that the model that has been sold into the marketplace is reasonably priced in the $2,000 to $5,000 range, depending on the accessories desired. The group known as UAPx uses this system to collect data. Our goal is to coordinate these activities in a way that we use a system with standardized equipment to collect data.
Powell said that before that happens, the groups need to plot out what the equipment is trying to measure and verify that the system can achieve that goal.
Kevin Knuth, an associate professor of physics at the University at Albany and vice president of UAPx, said that there are a growing number of groups focused on UAP detection and study.
He said that there are some challenges involved with the interaction of various groups.
Knuth said that the potential for discovery is higher if the groups begin by working independently, trying different equipment and procedures and watching in different places.
The various groups will begin to use equipment and procedures that have been proven to work when the results are made public.
Knuth said that it was probably not wise to coordinate the groups at this time. Communication across groups will lead to improvements in general as we learn more about how to best observe and study UAPs. Independent scientific studies benefit from this.
Knuth said the scientific groups are planning on publishing peer-reviewed scientific papers. He said that the upshot will be further advancement of the scientific studies of UAPs, while encouraging and compelling more scientists to get involved in studying what could very well be among the most important discoveries in human history.
Leonard David is the author of "Moon Rush: The New Space Race". David has been reporting on the space industry for more than 50 years.
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