NASA appoints head of UFO research; The Commission sees no extraneous evidence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA said on Thursday that it has appointed a new director for research into what the government calls an “unidentified anomalous phenomenon,” or UAP, while the head of the US space agency said that a panel of experts urging deeper fact-finding into the matter had not been done. No evidence found of an extraterrestrial origin for these objects.

Administrator Bill Nelson announced the new research chief — without revealing the person’s identity — after an independent panel of experts recommended in a new report that NASA increase its efforts to collect information about UAPs and play a greater role in helping the Pentagon detect them. .

UAP are better known to the public as unidentified flying objects, or unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

During a press conference, Nelson also expressed his personal opinion that life exists outside Earth.

“There is a universal fascination with the UAP. On my travels, one of the first questions I often ask is about these sightings. Much of this fascination is due to their unknown nature,” Nelson said.

Nelson added: “If you ask me do I believe in the existence of life in a universe so vast that it is difficult for me to understand how huge this life is, my personal answer is: yes.”

But Nelson said the chances of beings from another world visiting Earth are low.

The NASA committee, which includes experts in fields ranging from physics to astrobiology, was formed last year and held its first public meeting in June.

“NASA’s independent study team found no evidence that UAPs have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don’t know what these UAPs are,” Nelson said, adding that the agency’s goal is to “divert the conversation about UAPs from sensationalism.” To science.”

In the past few years, the United States government has disclosed much of the information it has collected regarding a subject that was previously met with virtual official silence. It released a watershed report in 2021 compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in cooperation with a Navy-led task force that includes numerous observations — mostly from military personnel — of the UAP.

“NASA’s mission is to discover the unknown,” Nelson said.

“We will tell you everything we find,” Nelson added, pledging transparency in any discoveries.

NASA said the new UAP research director will assume “central communications, resources, and data analytical capabilities to create a robust database for future UAP evaluation.”

Nelson told Reuters that he did not know the name of the new director. Dan Evans, a senior research officer at NASA’s Science Unit and a member of the study team, said the harassment other panel members experienced from the public during their work was “partly” the reason the new director’s identity was kept secret.

“vital role”

“NASA has a diverse array of existing and planned Earth and space observation assets, along with an extensive archive of historical and existing data sets, which should be directly leveraged to understand the UAP,” the committee report said.

“Although NASA’s fleet of Earth observation satellites typically lacks the spatial resolution to detect relatively small objects like the UAP, their modern sensors can be used directly to probe local land state, oceanic and atmospheric conditions that are spatially coincident,” the report said. “And temporally with UAPs that were initially discovered via other methods.”

Nikki Fox, NASA’s science chief, declined to specify how much funding the agency wants to allocate to ongoing UAP tracking efforts.

The government’s 2021 report included some UAP cases that previously appeared in the Pentagon’s release of a video from naval aviators showing mysterious aircraft off the east and west coasts of the United States displaying speed and maneuverability beyond known flight techniques and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight. Control surfaces.

This report said that defense and intelligence analysts lack sufficient data to determine the nature of some objects, while some can be interpreted as atmospheric phenomena, advanced aircraft from another country, or harmless objects such as weather balloons.

The new report described the UAP as “one of our planet’s greatest mysteries.”

“Objects have been observed in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, airplanes, or known natural phenomena around the world, yet there are limited high-quality observations. The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover the secrets of our universe,” the report states. .

“Despite numerous calculations and visualizations, the absence of consistent, detailed and coordinated observations means that we do not currently have the data set necessary to reach definitive scientific conclusions about UAP,” she added.

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