Nasa has released the first findings from its report into unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UFOs.
The space agency commissioned the study in response to a variety of reports of what appear to be unexplained and unknown craft, reported by US pilots and others.
It says that unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, are defined as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective”. It has noted that there are very few high-quality observations of the phenomena, which makes them difficult to understand scientifically.
The first report will “inform NASA on what possible data could be collected in the future to shed light on the nature and origin of UAP”, it said in its announcement. “The report is not a review or assessment of previous unidentifiable observations.”
The media briefing on the report will begin at 10am local eastern time, or 3pm in the UK. The report will be published about half an hour before, Nasa said.
Nasa is keeping the name of its new UAP research director a secret.
The reason for not telling us, apparently, is fears about online harassment.
“Some of the threats have been beyond the pale, quite frankly, towards some of our panelists.”
The new role is aimed at “developing and the implementation of Nasa’s vision for UAP research,” Bill Nelson said.
“We will use Nasa’s expertise to work with agencies to analyse UAP.”
Bill Nelson says Nasa has appointed a director for UAP research, a brand new post for the US space agency.
“The top takeaway from the study is that there’s a lot more to learn,” he says, adding that the study did not find any evidence of any UAP having an extraterrestrial origin.
“But we don’t know what these UAP are. That’s why I’m announcing that Nasa has appointed a Nasa director of UAP research. They are being tasked with developing and overseeing the implementation of Nasa’s vision for UAP research.”
The Nasa chief is carrying on with his opening remarks, saying that he believes aliens are out there.
“Nasa has a statuatory authority to look for life in the universe,” Bill Nelson continues.
“With the James Webb [telescope] looking at the exoplanets, we are now beginning to discover, and somewhere out there we will discover, another medium-sized stony planet around a medium-sized sun or star at just the right distance... that has carbon, that will have a habitable atmosphere.
“If you ask me do I believe there’s life in a universe that is so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is yes. But I asked some of our scientists: What is the mathematical probability that there is life out there in the universe? And if you calculate in billions of stars in billions of galaxies that there’s replicated in what I just said, another stony planet, the answer was ‘at least a trillion’. That’s from our scientists.”
Nasa chief says there is ‘global fascination’ with UAPs
Nasa chief Bill Nelson says he is asked about UAP wherever he goes in the world.
“There is a global fascination with UAPs,” he says. “Much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it. Think about it: most UAP sightings result in very limited data. That makes it even more difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of UAP.”
We’re starting with some opening remarks, starting with Nasa chief Bill Nelson.
“We are looking for signs of life, past and present,” he says. “And it’s in our DNA to explore and ask why things are the way they are.”
