NASA holds public event examining UFO sightings for the first time

Washington: The U.S. government officially refers to UFOs as “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP. Members of an independent NASA panel examining UFOs said in their first public meeting on Wednesday that a lack of high-quality evidence and a pervasive stigma pose the biggest obstacles to solving such riddles.

The 16-member group, which was established last year by eminent scientists from physics to astrobiology, attended a four-hour meeting that was live aired on a NASA webcast to discuss their early results before publishing a report that is anticipated to be released later this summer.

The aim of the committee, according to the panel’s head, astronomer David Spergel, was “not to resolve the nature of these events,” but rather to provide NASA with a “roadmap” for future investigation.

Several panelists, according to NASA officials, have experienced harassment and vague “online abuse” since starting their work in June of last year.

“It is really disheartening to hear of the harassment that our panelists have faced online because they’re studying this topic,” NASA’s science chief, Nicola Fox, said in her opening remarks. “Harassment only leads to further stigmatization.”

The lack of scientifically valid techniques for capturing UFO sightings, which are often reports of what appear to be objects moving outside the realm of known science and natural laws, was the biggest issue raised by panelists.

The fundamental issue, according to them, is that the aforementioned events are typically discovered and documented using cameras, sensors, and other technology that isn’t intended or calibrated to precisely monitor and measure such oddities.

“If I were to summarize in one line what I feel we’ve learned, it’s we need high-quality data,” Spergel said. “The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event.”

There are still taboos surrounding the subject. Although the Pentagon has recently urged military pilots to record UAP incidents, Spergel claimed that many commercial pilots are still “very reluctant to report” them because of the ongoing stigma associated with such sightings.

The NASA advisory council is the first UFO investigation ever carried out under the aegis of the U.S. space agency for a topic the government previously relegated to the exclusive and covert purview of military and national security personnel.