The 16-member body was formed last June to investigate the unclassified UFO sightings. (Representative)
Washington:
The first public meeting of a NASA panel studying what the government calls “unidentified aerial phenomena,” more commonly known as UFOs, since its formation last year to discuss the findings kicks off on Wednesday. Went.
The 16-member body, gathering experts in fields ranging from physics to astronomy, was formed last June to investigate unclassified UFO sightings, which it refers to as UAPs, and civil government and Other data collected from commercial areas.
During opening remarks, panel chair David Spergel said, “If I had to summarize in one line what I think we’ve learned, it’s that we need high-quality data.”
NASA said the focus of Wednesday’s four-hour public session at the agency’s headquarters in Washington was to have “final consultations” before the team publishes a report, which Mr. Spargel said is expected to be released by the end of July. was the plan.
Dan Evans, a senior research officer in NASA’s science unit, said the team has “many months of work ahead of them”, adding that since they began their work the panel members have been subjected to online abuse and harassment. Had to happen
“The harassment only tarnishes the UAP field, significantly hinders the scientific process and discourages others from studying this important subject matter,” Nicola Fox, NASA’s science chief, said during her opening remarks.
The panel represents the first such investigation ever conducted under the auspices of the US space agency, which the government once kept in the exclusive and secretive purview of military and national security officials.
The NASA study is separate from a new formal Pentagon-based investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena documented in recent years by military aviators and analyzed by US defense and intelligence officials.
Officials on the panel, relying on declassified data sensors indicated on Wednesday that they have run into the same hurdles as their Pentagon counterparts in studying unidentified objects.
“Current data collection efforts regarding UAP are disorganized and fragmented across different agencies, often using tools that are uncalibrated for scientific data collection,” Mr. Spargel said.
The parallel efforts of NASA and the Pentagon, both conducted with some semblance of public scrutiny, mark a turning point for the government, after decades of looking at the defacement, debunking and discrediting of unidentified flying objects — long the flying saucer. and associated with the notion of aliens – dating back to the 1940s.
While NASA’s science mission was seen by some as taking a more open-minded approach to the subject, the US space agency has stated from the outset that it is not reaching any conclusions.
“There is no evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin,” NASA said in announcing the formation of the panel last June.
US defense officials have said that hundreds of new reports are now under investigation due to recent pressure from the Pentagon to investigate such sightings, although most are classified as unexplained.
The head of the Pentagon’s newly formed All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office has said that the existence of intelligent alien life has not been ruled out, but that no sightings have offered evidence of extraterrestrial origin.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)