NASA installs new chief of UFO research after expert panel report

NASA on Thursday said it has named a new director of research into what the government calls "unidentified anomalous phenomenon," or UAP, while the US space agency's chief said an expert panel that urged more fact-finding on the matter found no evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for these objects.

Administrator Bill Nelson made the announcement of the new research chief - though he did not disclose the person's identify - after the independent panel of experts recommended that NASA increase its efforts to gather information on UAP and play a larger role in helping the Pentagon detect them. UAP are better known to the public as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

Nelson during a news conference also gave his personal opinion that life exists beyond Earth.

"There's a global fascination with UAP. On my travels, one of the first questions I often get is about these sightings. And much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it," Nelson said.

"If you ask me, do I believe there's life in a universe that's so vast that it's hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is, 'Yes,'" Nelson added.

The US government in the past few years has made several disclosures of information it has gathered regarding a subject that once was met by virtual official silence. The government issued a watershed report in 2021 compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a Navy-led task force encompassing numerous observations - mostly from military personnel - of UAP.

"The mission of NASA is to find out the unknown," Nelson said.

"Whatever we find, we're going to tell you," Nelson added, promising transparency on any discoveries.

The NASA panel, comprising experts in scientific fields ranging from physics to astrobiology, issued the report after holding its first public meeting in June.

"The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don't know what these UAP are," Nelson said, adding that a goal of NASA is to "shift the conversation about UAP from sensationalism to science."

NASA said the new director of UAP research will handle "centralized communications, resources and data analytical capabilities to establish a robust database for the evaluation of future UAP."

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"NASA has a variety of existing and planned Earth- and space-observing assets, together with an extensive archive of historic and current data sets, which should be directly leveraged to understand UAP," the panel's report said.

"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. Thus, NASA's assets can play a vital role by directly determining whether specific environmental factors are associated with certain reported UAP behaviours or occurrences," the report said.

The new report called UAPs "one of our planet's greatest mysteries."

"Observations of objects in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft or natural known phenomena have been spotted worldwide, yet there are limited high-quality observations. The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover our universe's secrets," the report stated.

"Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP," it added.

The 2021 report included some UAP cases that previously came to light in the Pentagon's release of video from naval aviators showing enigmatic aircraft off the US East and West Coasts exhibiting speed and manoeuvrability exceeding known aviation technologies and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces. The report said defence and intelligence analysts lacked sufficient data to determine the nature of some of the objects.

The NASA panel studying UAPs held its first public meeting in June, comprising experts in scientific fields ranging from physics to astrobiology. Challenges panel members cited to their work included a stigma attached to the subject as well as a dearth of scientifically reliable methods for documenting UFOs.

Two senior US defence intelligence officials told a 2022 congressional hearing that the Pentagon was committed to determining the origins of UAPs. Another congressional hearing was held in July that included testimony from retired military personnel, though no government officials appeared.