NASA is setting up an independent research team to study UFOs in the interests of “both national security and air safety,” the agency said in a press release Thursday.
Through this study, NASA said it hoped to push our scientific understanding of UFOs.
UFOs – or Unexplained Airs (UAPs), as they are now called – have long captured the public’s imagination through science fiction movies and urban legends. But recently, governments and agencies have begun to seriously investigate the phenomenon.
Last month, the United States held its first public hearing on the subject in more than 50 years, after a report found that U.S. military pilots had encountered more than 144 UAPs since 2004. Navy officials said during the hearing that the number had actually risen. up to 400 collisions.
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NASA does not cooperate directly with the military or the US government in the investigation, but will collect and analyze unclassified government data.
In fact, the data collection will be the first commission for the research team, which will be led by astrophysicist David Spergel, former chairman of the astrophysics department at Princeton University.
“Given the lack of observations, our first task is simply to gather the most stable set of data we can,” Spergel said. “We will identify what data – from civil, governmental, non-profit organizations, companies – exist, what else we should try to collect and how best to analyze them.
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NASA expects the study to take about nine months and will begin in the fall. Experts in aeronautics, data analysis and other relevant scientists will be involved to advise the team.
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The results will also be fully public, according to Daniel Evans, a NASA research administrator who will monitor the team.
“All NASA data is available to the public – we take this commitment seriously – and make it easily accessible to anyone to see or study,” Evans said.
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However, NASA is aware that this decision to study the UAP may turn some chapters.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that the wider scientific community might see the decision as a “sell-off,” but he disagreed.
“We are not afraid of reputational risk,” Zurbuchen said during an event at the National Academy of Sciences. “Our strong belief is that the biggest challenge to these phenomena is that this is a poor data field.”
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In a similar vein, Spergel told a news conference that “we need to approach all these issues with a sense of humility.”
“I spent most of my career as a cosmologist. I can tell you that we do not know what makes up 95 percent of the universe, “he added.
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Spergel said the only prejudice he carries with him in the study is that the UAP is likely to have many explanations. Although NASA preemptively said in a press release that “there is no evidence that UAPs are aliens by birth.”
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According to the Associated Press, the nine-month study will cost only $ 100,000.
“NASA believes that scientific discovery tools are powerful and are being applied here,” Zurbuchen said.
“We have the tools and the team to help us improve our understanding of the unknown. This is the very definition of what science is. That’s what we do. “
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