Aliens? Spy drones? Trash blowing on the wind? Reflections? The takeaway message from NASA’s first Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) report is that it simply doesn’t always know.
But there is something out there, says Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the US Department of Defence’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Kirkpatrick told a UAP public address this week that seeing strange flying metallic orbs was becoming an almost everyday occurrence.
“We see these all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent manoeuvres,” he said.
“While we are still looking at it, I don’t have any more data other than that. Being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time, until we can get better-resolved data on similar objects that we can then do a larger analysis on.”
The US government has, in recent years, centralised its system for reporting UAPs (don’t call them UFOs!).
As a result, the Pentagon now receives between 50 and 100 reports every month. But only between 2 and 5 per cent of these are “really anomalous”, Dr Kirkpatrick said.
And that’s usually more to do with a lack of data than any strange behaviour, he added.
“For the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigour.
“AARO has shared these cases with the appropriately cleared NASA team members in order to discuss and help recommend potential scientific areas of study that NASA may want to take lead on.”
Science versus belief
The UAP expert panel seeks to apply more scientific rigour to the never-ending UFO mystery.
Put simply: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And if you have an alternative explanation to the simplest one, prove it.
“To make the claim that we’ve seen something that is evidence of non-human intelligence, it would require extraordinary evidence,” astrophysicist David Spergel, chair of the study group, said.
“And we have not seen that. I think that’s important to make clear.”
That’s not a popular message among UFO enthusiasts.
And that’s having real-world fallout.
“NASA stands behind our panellists, and we do not tolerate abuse,” said NASA Science Mission Directorate associate administrator Dr Nicola Fox.
“Harassment only leads to further stigmatisation of the UAP field, significantly hindering scientific progress and discouraging others to study this important subject matter.”
NASA’s Daniel Evans added that several of the 16-strong group of UAP investigators had been subject to severe harassment since the independent team had been formed in 2022.
“A NASA security team is actively addressing this issue,” Dr Evans said.
“We at NASA are acutely aware of the considerable public interest in UAP. However, it’s critical to understand any form of harassment towards our panellists only serves to detract from the scientific process, which requires an environment of respect and openness.”
Such harassment isn’t limited to NASA investigators.
“Commercial pilots, for example, are very reluctant to report anomalies,” Mr Spergel said.
“One of our goals in having NASA play a role is to remove stigma and get high-quality data.”
Proof is in the pudding
Former astronaut and UAP investigator Scott Kelly has had his own close encounter. He was piloting an F-14 Tomcat naval fighter when his Radar Intercept Officer reported an odd sighting.
“My RIO thought – the guy that sits in the back of the Tomcat – he was convinced we flew by a UFO,” he said.
So he turned the fighter around and had a closer look.
“I didn’t see it. We turned around. We went to look at it. It turns out it was Bart Simpson – a balloon.”
He told the NASA assembly that such incidents aren’t simply cases of mistaken identity. Atmospheric conditions, the curve of a fighter’s perspex windshield, and the distorting effect of magnification can play tricks on the mind.
“The environment that we fly in – space or, you know, in atmospheric flight – very, very conducive to optical illusions,” Mr Kelly added.
And eliminating such human fallibility is what the UAP panel is all about.
“Our role here is not to resolve the nature of these events, but rather to give NASA guidance, to provide a road map of how it can contribute to this area,” Mr Spergel said.
Whatever they may be, the subject of UFOs remains as popular as ever.
“ (UAPs have) captured the attention of the public, the scientific community, and the government alike,” Dr Evans added.
“It’s now our collective responsibility to investigate these occurrences with a rigorous scientific scrutiny that they deserve.”
The UAP is due to issue its final report in July.
The truth is out there
Dr Fox, NASA’s head of science, says better data may already be out there. It’s just that the way it was captured has prevented it from being made public.
“If a fighter jet took a picture of the Statue of Liberty, then that image would be classified not because of the subject in the picture, but because of the sensors on the plane,” she said.
To that end, NASA was examining publicly available technology and services that could provide the high-quality data necessary to “evaluate and categorise” the nature of UFO sightings.
“It’s this nation’s obligation to determine whether these phenomena pose any potential risks to airspace safety,” Dr Evans added.
Making matters worse, the forum was told, is the “unsystematic” and “fragmented” reporting standards across different agencies.
“The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event,” Mr Spergel told the meeting.
“They’re often uninformative due to lack of quality control and data curation. To understand UAP better, targeted data collection, thorough data curation, and robust analyses are needed.
“Such an approach will help to discern unexplained UAP sightings, but even then there’s no guarantee that all sightings will be explained.”