NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team

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NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Independent Study Team

David Spergel, chair of NASA's independent study on UAPs, answers a question during a public meeting of the team on May 31, 2023.
Agency overview
FormedOctober 24, 2022 (2022-10-24)
Agency executive
Parent agencyNASA
Websitescience.nasa.gov/uap

The NASA's Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Independent Study Team is a panel of sixteen experts assembled in October 2022 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and chaired by David Spergel to recommend a roadmap for UAP data analysis by NASA and other organizations. UAPs are currently defined as phenomena or observations of events in the air, sea, space, and land that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena. The UAP acronym seeks to provide separation from the assumptions about extraterrestrial life and other associations in popular culture with the older UFO acronym. UAP originally stood for "unidentified aerial phenomena" but was expanded at the end of 2022 to mean "unidentified anomalous phenomena". To complete their work, the independent NASA team will identify how data gathered by civilian, commercial, and government entities as well as any other sources can most effectively be analyzed to shed light on UAPs. The study team started work on October 24, 2022, held its first public meeting on May 31, 2023, and is scheduled to deliver a full report containing the team's findings in mid-2023. Unlike the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) under the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense, this NASA independent study team will focus solely on unclassified data.

Scope and objectives

In its June 2022 announcement of plans to form this independent UAP study team, NASA named astrophysicist David Spergel as chair of the team and Daniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, as the NASA official responsible for orchestrating the study. The team's objective, according to Spergel, was to gather the most robust set of data possible, given the lack of observations, and "to identify what data – from civilians, government, non-profits, companies – exists, what else we should try to collect, and how to best analyze it." NASA summarized this objective as securing "the counsel of experts in the scientific, aeronautics, and data analytics communities to focus on how best to collect new data and improve observations of UAPs". They further noted that "consistent with NASA's principles of openness, transparency, and scientific integrity", the findings will be shared publicly as "all of NASA's data is available to the public" and "easily accessible for anyone to see or study". NASA clarified that this new study was unrelated to their "active astrobiology program that focuses on the origins, evolution, and distribution of life beyond Earth". Finally, the announcement specified that NASA's UAP study team would be a second and independent undertaking from the program under Department of Defense direction, saying, "the agency is not part of the Department of Defense's Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force or its successor, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group" although NASA has "coordinated widely across the government regarding how to apply the tools of science to shed light on the nature and origin of unidentified anomalous phenomena".[1]

In July 2022, one month after NASA's announcement of its independent UAP study team, the U.S. Department of Defense replaced the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group with the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).[2][3]

In the first public meeting of NASA's UAP study team, Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Defense Department's AARO task force, was invited to give the opening remarks. Kirkpatrick said that "though NASA and AARO are taking on different aspects of the UAP problem set, our efforts are very much complementary" as both are committed to the scientific Method and a data-driven approach. According to Kirkpatrick, "NASA is evaluating unclassified data sources for its study," while "AARO's data set includes classified material with a focus on national security areas". In contrast, "NASA brings unique capabilities, world-class scientists, and a wealth of academic and research linkages" with "access to earth sensing satellites, radiological sensors, tools for gravitational wave and geomagnetic detection and means of analyzing crowd-sourced data that may assist AARO and NASA in their UAP efforts". AARO is "grateful for the partnership", said Kirkpatrick, and welcomes "the opportunity to join with NASA to share our collective findings with the public as the U.S. Government moves towards greater transparency on this issue".[4]

UAP versus UFO terminology

See also: Investigation of UFO reports by the United States government

According to Merriam-Webster, "the term UAP first appeared in the late 1960s, while unidentified flying object has been around since 1947".[5] As summarized in ETC: A Review of General Semantics, "aside from UAP's more encompassing description, this term avoids the heavy cultural baggage attached to UFO, whose initial association with extraterrestrial origins ...sets up a narrow and inflexible framework for honest scientific research."[6] The term UFO now has decades of association with aliens across many areas of culture, popular entertainment, conspiracy theories, and religious movements as considered in American Cosmic by Diana Walsh Pasulka (published by Oxford in 2019).[7] "Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), formerly referred to as UFOs, in theory, could include alien spacecraft, but the two aren't synonymous."[8] At the start of 2023, NASA updated the name of its independent study team from "unidentified aerial phenomena" to "unidentified anomalous phenomena" to be "consistent with the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, signed into law on December 23, 2022".[9]

Members

NASA's UAP study team members were announced on October 21, 2022.[10]

  1. David Spergel
  2. Anamaria Berea (professor of Computational and Data Science at George Mason University)
  3. Federica Bianco (physics professor at the University of Delaware)
  4. Paula Bontempi
  5. Reggie Brothers (the operating partner at AE Industrial Partners in Boca Raton, Florida)
  6. Jen Buss (the CEO of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies)
  7. Nadia Drake
  8. Mike Gold (executive vice president Redwire)
  9. David Grinspoon
  10. Scott Kelly
  11. Matt Mountain
  12. Warren Randolph (deputy executive director of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Accident Investigation and Prevention for Aviation Safety Department)
  13. Walter Scott (vice president and chief technology officer of Maxar Technologies)
  14. Joshua Semeter (professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University)
  15. Karlin Toner (acting executive director of the FAA's Office of Aviation Policy and Plans)
  16. Shelley Wright (professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego's Center for Astrophysics and Space Studies)

History

See also: Unidentified flying object § 20th century and after, and Investigation of UFO reports by the United States government
Scott Kelly, former NASA astronaut, left, and Anamaria Berea, associate professor of Computational and Data Science at George Mason University, during a public meeting of NASA's UAP independent study team on May 31, 2023.

Greg Eghigian, a history professor at Penn State who has written about the history of the UFO phenomenon,[11] notes that this NASA study team for UAPs represents "a sea change" that has taken place as "close to a majority of academics now believe that the study of UFOs warrants scholarly research" as a result of this decision by NASA to create a public panel tasked with "setting out a roadmap for looking into UAPs". This is "unprecedented" because "NASA, historically, wanted nothing to do with UFOs, and the fact that these civilian scientists are asking scientifically informed questions" is new territory that "has helped legitimate interest in understanding and researching UAPs in universities as well".[12]

In their first public meeting on May 31, 2023, the NASA team faced a wide range of general questions, primarily focused on UFOs, while the NASA team strove to emphasize that the priorities are finding more means of collecting empirical data and better methods of analysis in work to study better what UAPs might involve. Spergel said that "many of the UAP events can be attributed to commercial aircraft, drones, and research balloons, as well as weather and ionospheric phenomena" but that "there remain events that we do not understand" and that these "tend to be characterized by poor quality and limited data". Noting the value of further investigating such unknowns, Spergel pointed to the "history of fast radio bursts" because when "examination confirmed the bursts were cosmic in nature, emerging from astrophysical cataclysms scattered across the universe" this demonstrated how "sometimes anomalies are really interesting and point to novel physical phenomenon" with valuable lessons that can be learned.[13][14]

Joshua Semeter, a member of NASA's team for the independent study on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) and professor of electrical and computer engineering with Boston University's College of Engineering,[15] agreed to a June 22, 2023 interview about the recent David Grusch allegations. Semeter said that, without more information, there is little that can be said about the Grusch claims and reiterated that this team at NASA is "working in collaboration with the Defense Department's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office" with his panel's specific objective being "to create a roadmap for how NASA assets and expertise can contribute to determining the origin and nature of UAP" on which they are due to "issue a report later this year".[16]

References

  1. ^ Bock, Michael (December 23, 2022). "NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena". NASA. Archived from the original on June 10, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  2. ^ Kathleen Hicks (23 November 2021) Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group
  3. ^ Vergun, David (April 19, 2023). "DOD Working to Better Understand, Resolve Anomalous Phenomena". DOD News. Archived from the original on June 13, 2023. Retrieved June 13, 2023.
  4. ^ Kirkpatrick, Sean (May 31, 2023). "Opening Remarks by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of AARO at NASA Public Meeting on UAP" (PDF). NASA. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 13, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  5. ^ "Words We're Watching: What does 'UAP' mean?". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on April 17, 2023. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  6. ^ Raimer, Mark A. (Spring 1999). "The War of the Words: Revamping Operational Terminology for UFOs". ETC: A Review of General Semantics. 56 (1): 53–59. JSTOR 42579861. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  7. ^ Pasulka, Diana Walsh (2019). American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190692889.
  8. ^ Sinha, Urja; Smith, Katie; Khalil, Joe (June 23, 2023). "US has 'downplayed' the number of UFO sightings: Senator Hawley". The Hill. Archived from the original on June 23, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  9. ^ "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team: Terms of Reference" (PDF). NASA. May 18, 2023. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 31, 2023. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  10. ^ Furfaro, Emily (December 23, 2022). "NASA Announces Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study Team Members". NASA. Archived from the original on June 14, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  11. ^ Eghigian, Greg (August 4, 2021). "UFOs and the Boundaries of Science". Boston Review. Archived from the original on April 10, 2023. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
  12. ^ Omer, Nimo (June 19, 2023). "Why new claims about UFOs have experts wondering if the truth really is out there". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
  13. ^ Marina, Koren (June 1, 2023). "NASA Learns the Ugly Truth About UFOs". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 17, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  14. ^ David, Leonard (June 9, 2023). "Bad Data, Not Aliens, May Be behind UFO Surge, NASA Team Says". Scientific American. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  15. ^ Furfaro, Emily (October 21, 2022). "NASA Announces Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study Team Members". National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Archived from the original on June 14, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  16. ^ Barlow, Rich (June 22, 2023). "Is the Government Concealing UFO Craft and Dead Extraterrestrials?". Boston University’s Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on June 23, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.

External links

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