NASA Announces 9-Month Study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

WASHINGTON, (Sputnik) – NASA said on Thursday that it will bring a study team together this fall to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

"NASA is commissioning a study team to start early in the fall to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) – that is, observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena – from a scientific perspective. The study will focus on identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward," the agency said in a press release.

NASA said the nine-month study will tap experts in the scientific, aeronautics, and data analytics ecosystems and concentrate on better ways to collect new data and look at how to better document how UAPs are seen and documented.

Although NASA isn’t allied with the Department of Defense’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Taskforce or its successor, the Airborne Object ID and Management Synchronization Group, the agency has worked closely and widely with a range of government agencies on how to apply scientific tools that can spotlight "the nature and origin of unidentified aerial phenomena," the press release noted.

NASA has already been operating an astrobiology program that focuses on the origins, evolution, and distribution of life beyond Earth such as trying to detect water on Mars, studying "oceans worlds," such as Titan and Europa and conducting scientific missions with other entities to locate signs of life outside of Earth.