NASA UFO Team Calls For Higher Quality Data In First Public Meeting

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The truth may be out there about UFOs, or what the government currently calls 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' (UAPs). But finding it will require collecting data that are more rigorous than the anecdotal reports that typically fuel the controversial sightings, according to a panel of scientists, appointed by NASA to advise the agency on the topic, that held its first public meeting [on Wednesday].

The 16-person panel, created last year at the behest of NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, is not itself evaluating UFO claims. Instead, it is advising NASA on how the agency can contribute to federal investigations that have been led by the Department of Defense (DOD) and intelligence agencies, says panel chair David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the Simons Foundation, who spoke to Science ahead of the meeting. 'NASA is a public agency, an open agency, that encourages the use of the scientific method for looking at results.' But science can only be done when there are data to work on, he adds. 'You're not going to learn much from fuzzy pictures from the 1950s.' So far, most 'unidentified' phenomena flagged by the military have ended up being weather balloons, drones, camera glitches, or undisclosed military aircraft, Spergel says. 'It's very unlikely there are space aliens that travel through space and use technology that looks remarkably like what we have right now.'

It remains to be seen whether NASA will devote any further funding to study UAPs beyond the $100,000 allocated for the panel, which will issue a report this summer. Many scientists would be reluctant to have existing funds steered away from more conventional lines of research in the search for signatures of life or extraterrestrial intelligence. As the panel meeting wound down, Spergel said no UAP so far demands the existence of extraterrestrials. 'We have not seen the extraordinary yet.' Most incidents end up being more mundane. Panel member Scott Kelly, a former NASA astronaut and naval aviator, recounted flying in an F-14 off the coast of Virginia, when his co-pilot swore that he saw a UAP. 'We turned around,' he said. 'We went to go look at it. It turns out it was Bart Simpson, a balloon.'

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