Officials at NASA released the latest study on the nature of unidentified anomalous phenomena on Thursday.
The study offers explanations for some sightings and provides recommendations for how future cases should be treated. It was compiled by a panel of 16 scientists from broad fields of expertise to aid NASA in understanding the origin and nature of future unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Scientists constructed the 36-page independent study using unclassified data gathered from public sources. While not a full review of UAP activity, the research does include some apparent examples.
The study includes several images of supposed UAP captured in South Asia and the Middle East. It claims that, in these specific instances, the object’s appearance was due to “a sensor artifact resulting from video compression” and the object was a known aircraft or that there was insufficient data to properly categorize what was pictured.
Scientists said the assumption that the objects came from an extraterrestrial civilization must be hypothesized as a “last resort” only after eliminating all other possibilities.
“To date, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP,” reads the study.
‘“When it comes to UAP, the challenge we have is that the data needed to explain these anomalous sightings often do not exist; this includes eyewitness reports, which on their own their one can be interesting and compelling, but aren’t reproducible and usually lack the information needed to make any definitive conclusions about a phenomenon’s provenance.”
The panel reported that the current detection of these anomalies is not only “often serendipitous,” but the sensors that captured them were neither calibrated nor designed to do so. This, in combination with incomplete data, contributes to the uncertainty of origin.
As such, the panel members advised that NASA revise its approach to UAP research by using machine learning and artificial intelligence, explore creating a crowdsourcing system with the public, and make use of UAP reporting from commercial pilots to gather and analyze UAP data. The scientists believe that community engagement is “vital” to future research and that gathering more information from citizens and pilots will reduce stigma.
“We specifically recommend that NASA utilize its existing and planned Earth-observing assets to probe the local environmental conditions associated with UAP that are initially detected by other means,” reads the study. “In so doing, NASA can directly probe whether certain environmental factors are coincident with known UAP.”
NASA announced that it would also be appointing a director of UAP research.
“Data is the critical lifeblood needed to advance scientific exploration, and we thank the independent study team members for lending NASA their expertise towards identifying what available data is possible to understand the nature and origin of future UAP,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“The director of UAP Research is a pivotal addition to NASA’s team and will provide leadership, guidance and operational coordination for the agency and the federal government to use as a pipeline to help identify the seemingly unidentifiable.”