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Sci-Fi NASA

NASA Kicks Off Independent UFO Study (cnn.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the entirely-unclassified dept.
NASA's independent study to delve into the mysteries surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena kicked off today. CNN reports: The group will include experts across numerous disciplines -- including astrobiology, data science, oceanography, genetics, policy and planetary science -- as well as retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, a former fighter pilot and test pilot and retired US Navy captain. The space agency, which first announced it was forming the group in June, previously revealed that the team would be led by astrophysicist David Spergel, who is president of the Simons Foundation in New York City.

The new group won't necessarily seek to determine exactly what the UAPs, which have been seen moving through restricted military airspace over the past several decades, are. Rather, the team will look to hash out exactly how it's best for NASA to approach further study of the phenomenon. The space agency has already noted that the limited number of observations of UAPs has made it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events. "Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to scientifically discern the nature of UAP," according to a NASA news release.

This study, expected to last about nine months, will also be entirely unclassified and within the public domain. "Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are at NASA," Zurbuchen said in a Friday statement. "Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable." Specifically, the team will look for data on "events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena -- from a scientific perspective," the agency said. Unidentified aerial phenomena are of interest, NASA said, from a security and safety perspective. There was no evidence UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin, NASA emphasized during the initial announcement in June.
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NASA Kicks Off Independent UFO Study More

NASA Kicks Off Independent UFO Study

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  • Pandering? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 )

    Why would NASA pander to idiots like this? Seriously?

    Raise your hand if you have ever seen "unidentified aerial phenomena" that were not incredibly fuzzy, low-res pics. It's pretty obvious that we are talking about camera artifacts, reflections, and the odd weather balloon or bit of ball lightning. The people who believe in UFOs also think the government wants to chip them with vaccines, and probably believe the earth is flat. Why pander to them?

    • Also cloud formations, some look exactly like the classic flying saucer shape.

      Actually we all agree on UFOs, everything in the sky is a UFO until it's identified. What's we don't agree about is that aliens are causing them instead of something more usual.

      • Actually we all agree on UFOs, everything in the sky is a UFO until it's identified. What's we don't agree about is that aliens are causing them instead of something more usual.

        Or sometimes not even an "object" per se.

        Of the UFOs that people I've known have seen and later identified, the misidentifications were (1) reflections from windows of objects behind the observer, (2) soap bubbles floating maybe fifteen feet away (misidentified as shiny metal spheres a mile or so away moving soundlessly) (3) fire balloons [duckduckgo.com] launched by campers in a park half a mile away.

    • This is Slashdot. We all know the earth is flat and sitting on the back of a very old turtle floating in space.

      • Re: Pandering? (Score:4, Funny)

        by unimind ( 743130 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @06:55AM (#62996139)
        "Floating in space"?! Preposterous! It's obviously sitting on the back of another turtle!

        • Nonsense. There are only two and only two theories out there - the lies of cosmologists, or that the world is the center of the universe and is surrounded by a firmament as described in the Bible. That is, Atheism versus Christianity. To claim a third option is anathema, there are no Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, la-la-la can't hear you.... Anyway, God is so vastly huge, beyond all undertanding, and He created a *tiny* universe. Because if the universe really were so vast then humans would just be insig

    • Re:Pandering? (Score:4, Informative)

      by John Smith 2294 ( 5807072 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @04:51AM (#62995997)
      *Raises hand. I once saw something I could not believe up in the air. I took my glasses off and put them back on a few times, but in my shock it did not occur to me to go inside and get the camera. Which is why I watch UFO videos and read the stories. I am looking for the same thing I saw (quite unique) - so far I have only seen one video that might have been a bit similar, but certainly not as clear and up close as the one I saw - which was about 350' up I would guess, and it was huge - brown and textured, two octagons connected by a square section in the middle, and a lighted blue bar across the bottom of each octagon - the whole thing was probably ~500m long and ~30m thick. so, very specific, clear and not the usual sighting at all. This is why I watch and pay attention to the stories. (observationally, I am a trained analytical chemist with 30 years experience.)

      • *Raises hand. I once saw something I could not believe up in the air. ... (observationally, I am a trained analytical chemist with 30 years experience.

        One, check your lab notes to see what you worked on that week. Two, don't lick your finger when eating lunch. Three, call a pharmaceutical company you discovered new hallucinogen.

      • *Raises hand. I once saw something I could not believe up in the air. I took my glasses off and put them back on a few times, but in my shock it did not occur to me to go inside and get the camera

        Today a camera is no longer a thing you have to "go inside and get." All you need is the presence of mind to whip it out. If there is anything going on out there, observation of it will her crowdsourced.

      • ... the one I saw - which was about 350' up I would guess,

        Careful here. It is quite well established that humans do not have the ability to estimate distance beyond about 20 feet at most (and often fail at even shorter distances)... but aren't aware that they can't estimate distance.

        A human brain estimates distance based on contextual clues, and if an object has unknown context, your brain simply guesses. But your brain doesn't tell you it's guessing, it just tells you "big and far away" without adding "or maybe small and close, not really possible to tell."

        and it was huge [...] the whole thing was probably ~500m long and ~30m thick.

        When

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          "half a kilometer long didn't attract any attention"

          This. Something that size would be visible to thousands of people even in the countryside - in a city millions would see because they'd soon notice its shadow even if they didn't look up or hear the shrieks of their fellow citizens.

      • There are two stories I quote whenever I see a claim like this. First was in Rhodes' book on the Making of the Atomic Bomb where he quotes a letter from Oppenheimer to Eleanor Roosevelt after the war. Seems Oppie and some other scientists, stressed out over the work, were outside one evening when they saw a light in the sky that they were convinced shouldn't be there. They called up the Army Air Force to try and shoot it down or otherwise deal with it. The AAF reported back that they couldn't get close to t

    • Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

      I notice that your comment has little to do with the research and much to do with the kind of person you don't like. What you are doing is called "Othering". It doesn't matter if The Other is right or wrong - they're always wrong. They're The Other, that's why you define one in the first place. Because it feels good, particularly if you're not mentally well, to vent one's frustrations at one's own shortcomings onto The Other.

      I say we keep investigating

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by TWX ( 665546 )

        Absence of evidence might not be evidence of absence, but to invoke another tautology, that which is presented without evidence may be dismissed with equal support.

        I'm in camp-camera-artifact. There's a video analysis somewhere on Youtube that discussed the gun/targeting cam on a particular fighter for a navy video that was released. The presenter discussed how the camera rotates, pans, and zooms, and was able to plausibly show how such movements would affect the angle of an artifact. The presenter also

        • But what if the alien were a grad student, looking for something "new" for his thesis? No telling what the young idiot would do, in that case....

          As to UFO's, I have seen things I couldn't identify. Which hasn't really surprised me, since I can't tell what kind of airliner is flying overhead on any given day.

          Myself, I have no problem with the notion of being studied by a more advanced lifeform, but until one of them shows up at my front door, it hardly matters whether we are being observed or not. Well,

        • I can't help but think about The Three Body Problem and how the New World was treated by the East here on Earth. Maybe all those destructive things you mentioned are the next step and we're seeing the small numbers of early explorers now.

        • The pilots visually saw it. The radar on the ship also got it. You can't just discount it because it may have been a camera artifact.
    • Its a good start.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      Raise your hand if you have ever seen "unidentified aerial phenomena"

      With my own eyes, with my wife whilst I was taking photographs of a blood moon outside on my deck. She saw it too. No drugs, no wine just an ordinary week night before work during covid lockdown at about 21:30.

      We're on a hill overlooking water. If you imagine the angles above me is 0 degrees, the hill behind me obscures the view to the west and I approximate I can see to about 85-88 degrees to the horizon when looking East. Obviously we were focused on the moon when a high altitude object passed above u

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
        Thanks for sharing, sounds like some pretty cool experiences. As for the "satellite" that changed its trajectory, maybe it's one of those space planes [wikipedia.org]. I'd think you'd see signs of propulsion for that kind of course change, but that distance is pretty far, so maybe not. They keep a lot of specs classified with some of the space plane projects, so maybe it's possible.

        Any chance you'd got some pictures posted publicly? It would be cool to see.

        • There are often explanations for things that seem fantastic. Ie, refraction in the atmosphere, where a plane in upper atmosphere may be descending through layers in a straight line but appear to be changing directions.

          When there are photographs or film, almost always the "can you explain this!" gets explained. But it does not resolve anything, the same evidence keeps getting repeated as if there is no explanation, while the explanations that were given are ignored. People keep bringing up photos from the

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
            Very true! The artifacts make for some interesting images, so I always find them worthwhile (even if its just for aesthetics).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Or even simpler. OPs story sounds like an airplane. Maybe a student pilot practicing. The only part that doesn't fit is their assertion that it was "at a satellite altitude and speed" which is something utterly impossible to estimate.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              Or even simpler. OPs story sounds like an airplane. Maybe a student pilot practicing.

              I pay attention to things and took the effort to describe what I saw without any speculation because it is the simplest thing to do. I think you should read my comment [slashdot.org] again very carefully then improve the specificity and accuracy of your comment. Clarification of your point would also be helpful.

              My ears are also perfectly functional and I have photographs of the stunt plane and HEARD the piston driven prop of a single seat aircraft (which is what drew my attention to it - it was loud) I observed doin

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                Dude, if you believe you can somehow look at a light in the sky and say it's "at the altitude and speed of a satellite" then we don't really have anything to talk about. I understand this was an important event to you and you're proud of your amateur astronomy, but there are many, many reasons why, for example, you might not hear a plane.

                If it makes you feel better, those Ukrainian astronomers in the story a month or two ago did the same thing, and they had actual data they were misinterpreting.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by MrKaos ( 858439 )

                  That's ok, I was there and you were not, your opinion isn't important, so we can agree to disagree.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrKaos ( 858439 )

          Thanks for sharing, sounds like some pretty cool experiences.

          I have an incredible view that I am grateful for. I've had steam trains and fighter jets pass in front of my deck.

          As for the "satellite" that changed its trajectory, maybe it's one of those space planes [wikipedia.org]. I'd think you'd see signs of propulsion for that kind of course change

          I think it's pointless speculating, I don't know what it was. I've seen plenty of satellites at various times of night reflecting sunlight from orbit then moving into shadow and disappearing. I think I've seen a satellite doing burn or something however it didn't change direction.

          There were no signs of propulsion and it was not an object in orbit of something else that appeared to be c

    • One doesn't need to think these are all aircraft to find something interesting here. There may be genuinely interesting atmospheric phenomenon that we don't recognize. (That said, this doesn't seem likely.)

    • Re:Pandering? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by coofercat ( 719737 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @08:28AM (#62996327) Homepage Journal

      Somewhere there's a global "heat map" of UFO sightings*. The USA is by far the biggest reporter of such events, closely followed by the UK. Pretty much the whole of the rest of the world lags behind by a good margin. There are almost none on the entire continent of Africa, for example.

      If aliens are real, they apparently speak some variant of English, or else I'm fairly sure they might have picked a few different countries to come and visit.

      * and no, I can't be arsed to look for it

      • If you see a UFO in Namibia, who do you report it to?

        Pointing out that some places have infrastructure for reporting while others don't isn't nearly as clever as you think it is.

        • If you see a UFO in Namibia, who do you report it to?

          Pointing out that some places have infrastructure for reporting while others don't isn't nearly as clever as you think it is.

          Good point!

      • Somewhere there's a global "heat map" of UFO sightings*. The USA is by far the biggest reporter of such events, closely followed by the UK. Pretty much the whole of the rest of the world lags behind by a good margin.

        Probably selection bias. I expect the person collecting records of UFO sightings tabulated English-language sources, and didn't, for example, check for Romanian newspaper accounts (much less Bengali).

        • Although crop circles were definitely English. Because these were practical jokes as admitted, but people took them way too seriously.

    • Re:Pandering? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @08:47AM (#62996383)

      NASA isn't studying UAPs or UFOs believing that there are little green men in them.

      NASA is studying them because it's part of their mandate to study and well, identify them. After all, the "U" is "unidentified". Chances are most are interesting atmospheric effects caused by our little rock sailing through space. Likely, things that cause mirages or Fata Morganas (mirages in the sky)

      The goal is to study them - what causes them, why they look as they do, etc.

      There are plenty of UAP sightings and some even hit the news when they happen. Those larger ones we can quickly identify because with all the attention there's usually lots of evidence that helps identify what it really is.

      The argument is basically you have something mysterious happening in the sky, and you don't want scientific institutions to study it? It's not about finding little green men, it's understanding the world we live in better.

      And heck, we're also talking credible reports from people too - military pilots, civilian pilots, etc., seeing odd things in the sky. Surely trying to understand what they saw isn't a bad thing?

      • Two points. First, we have one anthropologist at the Univ Of Idaho, I believe, who is studying bigfoot. He collects footprints, attempts to replicate what little video we have, etc. I don't know how that affects his career, but the cost to the country of appointing one anthropologist to look into bigfoot is minuscule in a multi-trillion dollar economy. Same thing is true about letting NASA look into UFOs. Might not be anything there, but the cost of checking is close to zero given the size of our economy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I used to live near a army base and I've seen plenty of weird shit in the air. A year back my daughter and I saw something that looked like the classic witch on a broom flying through the air. Did we see a witch on a broom? Of course, not. It was to far away for us to positively identify but that is what it looked like.

      My point is we all see shit in the air that we can't identify. The problem with the term UFO is it has become linked to little green men, butt probes, and the tin foil hat crowed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

      That's like saying crazy people eat so we should stop eating.

      I don't believe these are aliens but I could be wrong.

    • Why would NASA pander to idiots like this? Seriously?

      Raise your hand if you have ever seen "unidentified aerial phenomena" that were not incredibly fuzzy, low-res pics. It's pretty obvious that we are talking about camera artifacts, reflections, and the odd weather balloon or bit of ball lightning. The people who believe in UFOs also think the government wants to chip them with vaccines, and probably believe the earth is flat. Why pander to them?

      You realize the answer is in the very name. These phenomena are unidentified; NASA is not labeling them flying saucers or space craft. The blurry nature of many of the photos and videos contribute to the difficulty in identifying them. I like to think there is still more to learn about our universe. I don't kid myself into believing that all UAP are intelligent extraterrestrial life, but who knows if first contact happens one day. Sort through the currently unidentified phenomena and filter out those which

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Pretty good pic of it there too. It's identified now, but that happened pretty recently.

      Here's another. Great picture too. Would make a good desktop background:

      https://massivesci.com/article... [massivesci.com]

    • Why? Why would politicians pander to anyone? They want votes and money from those people. Something like 50% if not more of the US population believe that UFOs are real, where "real" means extraterrestrial, and this includes a surprising number of people normally considered to be intelligent. NASA needs to regain the trust of these morons.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I find it amusing that the organization that was just put in charge of investigating UFO's probably employs aerospace engineers who are currently helping the US military to develop unmanned drones.

      Those unmanned drones are probably one of the biggest causes of UFO citings, meaning that NASA was basically just put in charge of investigating itself.

    • This would actually be a worthwhile subject of study since even now no one has even a working theory of how it works. I wouldn't be surprised if a hell of a lot of supposed UFOs are some variant of this phenomenon.

    • It's probably because they're not as close minded as you are and that's a good thing. Thinking that we are alone in this infinite expanse is the height of arrogance.

    • Possibly because there's enough noise on this issue that it's a constant distraction. Even the congressional hearings on this had members who kept bringing up debunked data. It would be good in the long run if the public were better trained on science, as well as the ability to logically evaluate extreme claims. America has had a backsliding since the cold war days of the 60s when we were worried we were falling behind the Soviets and there was a big push to have more science and mathematics in schools.

  • Why? (Score:3)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:51AM (#62995867)
    It's already been conclusively decided that several unrelated phenomena are involved, and there's not much argument that any of them would be useful to propulsion technology, so who gives a shit?

  • UFO =/= Aliens (Score:3)

    by GotNoRice ( 7207988 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @03:51AM (#62995945)
    Anything flying in the air that hasn't been identified yet is a UFO. It doesn't have anything to do with aliens or extra-terrestrials. If drones are doing things near sensitive military and government facilities then that is something that should absolutely be investigated. Yet for some reason every time there is an article like this you end up with retards emerging from everywhere rambling about aliens.
    • Lots of the UFOs that mil pilots see are prolly lost target drones.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cstacy ( 534252 )

      Yet for some reason every time there is an article like this you end up with retards emerging from everywhere rambling about aliens.

      Hey, I'm not saying it's aliens.

    • Yet for some reason every time there is an article like this you end up with retards emerging from everywhere rambling about aliens.

      Yup. And at the same time, there's always people emerging rambling about how it's not aliens. I don't know how anyone can feel certain whether something is terrestrial or not when the objects are still unidentified. That's the whole point of the investigation, yet somehow people on both sides seem to think they already know the answer before the investigation even starts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Well, I don't *know* that the neighbour's dog isn't an alien. I mean, you've seen Men In Black right? It could be!

    • The problem with the term "UFO" is that it's poison. Historically and culturally, it has been misused interchangeably with "alien" for decades. You only have to watch a few minutes of Ancient Aliens to understand that when they say "UFO," they are indeed talking about little green/gray men, and not drones, sprites, auroras, STEVEs or any actual aerial phenomenon.

      On a side note, I find the show hilariously offensive, in that it's basically telling us that we humans are actually quite stupid and not really re

  • Project Blue Book II (Score:3)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @04:03AM (#62995961) Homepage

    I've managed to obtain an early conclusion:

    We don't know.

    • You are probably correct.

    • This is a government agency giving themselves a nine month time frame. In those nine months they will:
      1. Have a meeting to discuss whether or not to have other meetings
      2. Have a meeting to determine if they need some technology to better gather data
      3. Have a meeting to form an exploratory subcommittee to identify that technology
      a. Have a meeting to discuss if the data the tech gathers can be measured in some way
      b. Have a meeting to decide how they wi

  • UFO sightings are almost exclusively from the US and Great Britain. https://twitter.com/StephenPim... [twitter.com]

  • Oh, man! There goes Tom, again...

  • It will be interesting to know the result of this study. The topic of space has always been interesting to me and I even tried to write my own research paper on this topic. I have bad grammar, so of course I could not do without the help of paper writers [bestessay.com] but the informative content itself is my work. I'm already looking forward to the outcome of the NASA study.
  • I think that this kind of research will not leave anyone indifferent. It would be interesting to read exactly how this study was conducted and not just the result. All kinds of research is my passion. I love writing them, unlike other writting papers for which I need a residency personal statement editor [residencyp...ements.net] but I'm glad that there are companies that are ready to help me cope with what I can't.

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