The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, is commissioning a study team to begin early this fall to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) - observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena - from a scientific perspective.
The study will focus on identifying what data are available, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use those data to advance scientific understanding of UAPs.
The limited number of UAP observations currently makes it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events, and these unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest to both national security and aviation safety, the agency said in a statement.
In that sense, he highlighted that establishing which events are natural provides a key first step to identify or mitigate such phenomena, which aligns with one of NASA's objectives to ensure the safety of aircraft, since so far, there is no evidence that UAPs are of extraterrestrial origin.
"We have access to a wide range of observations of the Earth from space, and that is the lifeblood of scientific research. We have the tools and equipment that can help us improve our understanding of the unknown. That's the very definition of what science is. That's what we do," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The agency is not part of the Department of Defense's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force or its successor, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, however, NASA has coordinated extensively across the government regarding how to apply the tools of science to shed light on the nature and origin of unidentified aerial phenomena.
The agency's independent study team will be led by astrophysicist David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation in New York City and formerly chairman of the astrophysics department at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.; and Daniel Evans, the deputy associate associate deputy administrator for research in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, will be the NASA official responsible for orchestrating the study.
"Given the paucity of observations, our first task is simply to collect the most robust data set we can," Spergel said. "We will identify what data - from civilians, governments, nonprofits, businesses - exists, what else we should try to collect, and how best to analyze it."
The study is expected to take about nine months to complete. It will obtain advice from experts in the scientific, aeronautical and data analysis communities to focus on how best to collect new data and improve UAP observations.
"In keeping with NASA's principles of openness, transparency and scientific integrity, this report will be shared publicly," Evans explained. "All NASA data are available to the public, we take that obligation seriously, and we make them easily accessible for anyone to view or study."
Although unrelated to this new study, NASA has an active astrobiology program that focuses on the origins, evolution, and distribution of life beyond Earth. From studying water on Mars to exploring promising "ocean worlds" such as Titan and Europa, NASA science missions are working together with the goal of finding signs of life beyond Earth.
In addition, the agency's search for life also includes the use of missions such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Hubble Space Telescope to search for habitable exoplanets, while the James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to detect biological signatures in atmospheres around other planets, detecting oxygen and carbon, as dioxide in other atmospheres, for example, could suggest that an exoplanet harbors plants and animals like our own.
NASA also funds space-based research that focuses on technology firms, i.e., advanced technology firms in outer space, from other planets.
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