UFOs are arguably not the alien visitors who are making noise in the Earth’s sky, but NASA is still funding research to openly explore unexplained sightings.
In a presentation to the National Academy of Science and Technology Medicine on Thursday, NASA’s Deputy Director of Science, Thomas Zurbuchen, said the study would attempt to scientifically investigate what the federal government calls an unidentified flying object (UAP). Stated.
The study, which will start in the fall at a cost of less than $ 100,000, will “identify available data, how to optimally collect future data, and NASA will use these data to advance the scientific understanding of UAP. We will focus on how to get it done, “says Dr. Zurbuchen. He said at a telephone press conference Thursday afternoon.
Dr. Zurbuchen said that examining UFO reports is a “high-risk, high-impact type of study” that could reveal entirely new scientific phenomena, or something entirely new or interesting. He said he couldn’t come up with it.
For years, military intelligence officer Luis Elizondo ran a lesser-known group within the Department of Defense called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The Pentagon said the program was closed in 2012, but supporters of the program said the work continued. In 2021, the Pentagon announced that a parliamentary mandated report would form a new task force to investigate the issue after determining that data on many of the observed incidents were inadequate.
At a House subcommittee hearing last month, Pentagon officials testified about military reports of unexplained phenomena, including reflective spherical objects passing through fighters. Authorities said there was no evidence that these phenomena were essentially extraterrestrial life forms.
NASA’s work is independent of the Department of Defense’s work and is led by astrophysicist David Spargel, the current chairman of the Simons Foundation in New York, which funds basic research in mathematics and science. NASA has not yet selected other scientists to participate in the study.
NASA’s research also considers other explanations, such as natural phenomena and unknown advanced technologies developed by Russia, China, and other countries.
“Frankly, I think new science will be discovered,” said Dr. Zurbuchen.
At the end of the nine-month study period, Dr. Zurbuchen did not expect a definitive answer. But he said this effort would help catalog the available data and ask what other data should be collected.
“It’s because of the research programs we can then run,” he said.
Many scientists may think of UFO research as “not a real science,” but it’s important to address controversial questions, Dr. Zurbuchen said.
NASA currently has a powerful program of astrobiology — seeing life elsewhere in the solar system and galaxies — but most of the potential of intellectual civilizations to share our universe. I’m not doing anything.
The vacuum reflects decades of congressional skepticism. In 1978, Wisconsin Senator William Proxmeir awarded NASA’s discreet SETI program one of his “Golden Fleece” awards, highlighting what he called a taxpayer’s waste of money. did. NASA launched a radio astronomy program in 1992 to search for radio signals from alien civilizations, but Congress canceled the effort the following year.
Since then, systematic investigations of alien civilization have been mostly privately funded efforts, such as those done by the SETI Institute in California and Breakthrough Listen. Its initiative at the Berkeley SETI Research Center is funded by Yuri Milner, a Russian-born billionaire technology investor living in the United States.
At a press conference, Dr. Zurbuchen pointed out NASA’s work trying to identify potential “technical signatures” (signs of technical civilization) in astronomical observations. Such signs can include air pollution in the atmosphere of distant planets.
“We intentionally included it in our research portfolio,” said Dr. Zurbuchen.
However, SETI Institute astronomer Seth Shostak suspects NASA will spend millions of dollars on SETI again given the cancellation of the last program in 1993. Stated.
“NASA hasn’t participated in the SETI game because it thinks the program, which is often regarded as a metal duck in the shooting gallery, is out of budget,” Dr. Shostak said in an email. increase.