NASA has announced that it will set up an independent team to see how much information is publicly available on UFOs and how much more information is needed to understand unexplained sightings
NASA has announced that it will set up an independent team to see how much information is publicly available on UFOs and how much more information is needed to understand unexplained sightings
NASA is launching a study of UFOs as part of a new push toward high-risk, high-impact science.
The space agency announced Thursday that it is forming an independent team to see how much information is publicly available on the matter and how much more is needed to understand the unexplained scenes. Experts will also consider how to best use all of this information in the future.
NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, acknowledged that the traditional scientific community may view NASA as a “sales type” by entering a controversial topic, but he strongly disagrees.
A ‘data-poor’ field
“We’re not running away from reputational risk,” Zurbuchen said during a National Academy of Sciences webcast. “We firmly believe that the biggest challenge of these events is that this is a data-poor area.”
NASA considers this to be the first step in trying to explain the mysterious sightings in the sky known as UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena.
The study will begin this fall and last nine months, which will cost no more than $100,000. It will be completely open, with no classified military data being used.
Led by astrophysicist David Spergel
NASA said the team will be led by astrophysicist David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation to Advance Scientific Research. At a news conference, Spurgel said the only preconceived notion that goes into the study is that UAPs will have multiple explanations.
Spurgel said, “We have to approach all these questions with a sense of humility. I spent most of my career as a cosmologist. I can tell you we don’t know what 95% of the universe is. So there are Things we don’t understand.”