NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has pledged that the agency will not conceal the existence of aliens, if they are discovered to be the cause of any unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) that it is working to investigate. The comments were made following the publication of a new UAP report, which prompted NASA to appoint its first ever Director of UAP Research, whose identity is currently being kept a secret.
Back in June 2022 NASA announced that it had commissioned an independent study to examine how the agency could improve how the U.S. government approaches the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), which for decades had previously been known as UFOs.
“We start this without any preconceived notions, but understanding that we are in a world of discovery, and [that] we, NASA, have taken for the first time concrete action to seriously look into UAP, and this independent study team is exactly that, its independent,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a press conference earlier today. “They worked to develop recommendations about how NASA could better examine them from a scientific perspective, and the top takeaway from the study is that there is a lot more to learn”.
The findings of the investigation published today pointed to the poor quality of data recorded during UAP events as a major roadblock to understanding the strange encounters. To combat this, the members recommended that NASA use its fleet of orbital satellites, and leverage its expertise in data collection, A.I, and other areas to play a prominent role in a “comprehensive government-wide approach” to collecting data on the unexplained phenomena.
The findings were informed by a raft of unclassified UAP data collected from a range of sources. “It is essential to clarify, based on our current findings and methodology, that we find no evidence to suggest that UAP are extraterrestrial in origin,” said David Spergel, who led the independent study team.
However, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson repeatedly emphasised that transparency was at the core of his agency’s approach to documenting the phenomena, and that it would reveal the existence of extraterrestrial life to the public if it were found to be the cause of a UAP sighting.
“You bet your boots, we will say that,” said the NASA head, later doubling down by remarking that “whatever we find, we’re gonna tell you”. However, it is worth noting that Nelson was speaking only to the intentions of his agency, and not for the myriad other bodies that form the U.S. government.
In the wake of the report, NASA also revealed that it had appointed its first ever Director of UAP Research to help coordinate the agency’s work to understand the cause of the mysterious sightings. However, Nelson and his colleagues refused to reveal the identity of the figure assigned to the position.
The secrecy stems in part from a reasonable fear that the director could be subjected to harassment from UFO conspiracy theorists should their identity become known, as had been the case with members of the panel sitting to answer questions at the press event.
“Not only were some of the things that our panel members received during the course of this study simple trolling, some of them actually rose to actual threats,” explained NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for research Dan Evans.
Part of the roadmap presented to NASA suggested that the agency use its cutting edge fleet of Earth-facing satellites to probe the atmospheric conditions surrounding confirmed UAP sightings.
“Although NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites typically lack the spatial resolution to detect relatively small objects such as UAP, their state-of-the-art sensors can be directly utilized to probe the state of the local earth, oceanic, and atmospheric conditions that are spatially and temporally coincident with UAPs initially detected via other methods,” read the report.
NASA’s orbital sleuthing could be combined with higher resolution images taken by commercial satellite constellations that are powerful enough to capture direct imagery of some of the larger UAPs. However, this approach would only work retroactively in situations where the area in which the object appears is already being imaged for another purpose.
The roadmap also suggested that NASA embrace the use of A.I, and machine learning (M.L.) to help sift through future UAP data, and identify legitimate anomalies. It was also recommended that the agency make greater use of crowd sourcing data, potentially by asking witnesses to record UAP events through a bespoke mobile app, which would be difficult to tamper with.
Further efforts could also be made to normalise the reporting of UAPs by commercial pilots. For example, the report suggests that eyewitnesses could be encouraged to file such reports as part of the existing aviation safety reporting system, which is already in place to warn pilots of more mundane flight risks.
The full unidentified anomalous phenomena report is available to read in full on the NASA website.
Recent years have seen an uptick in public interest surrounding UAP sightings, along with a concerted effort by the U.S. government and military to remove the stigma surrounding the reporting of unidentified objects. This attitude shift is partially motivated by the defence-orientated concern that the seemingly advanced flight capabilities of some UAPs could represent military technologies being tested by foreign powers. Fears for the safety of commercial aviators have also been raised.
“The presence of UAPs raises serious concerns about the safety of our skies, and it’s this nation’s obligation to determine whether these phenomena pose any potential risks to air space safety,” commented Evans during today’s press event.
Back in 2021 the Pentagon confirmed that viral images and photos detailing fast-moving UAPs that had gone viral online were indeed captured by U.S. Navy pilots. Later that year, the government released a preliminary report covering 144 UAP sightings, many of which eluded easy explanation, with the authors of the report noting that 18 of the objects were capable of manoeuvring abruptly at considerable speed “without discernible means of propulsion”.
The amount of unexplained sightings being reported to the Pentagon more than doubled in the wake of the 2021 report. January 2023 saw the release of yet another report, which once again highlighted the existence of 171 uncharacterized UAP sightings, including a number that exhibited “unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities”.
In June 2023 former U.S. intelligence officer David Charles Grusch came forward claiming that a significant number of high ranking military personnel had approached him to reveal that the U.S. was actively recovering and reverse engineering alien spacecraft. Grusch has since testified in front of Congress, though it is worth noting that he has never seen an alien spacecraft himself, and all evidence relating to his claims is classified, and comes from second hand sources.
Earlier this week things got even further out of control, as Mexican lawmakers were presented with a pair of allegedly extraterrestrial corpses. However, the authenticity of the bodies should probably be taken with a pinch of salt.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
Image credit: NASA.
