By Tim Binnall
NASA's independent study team enlisted to examine the UFO phenomenon held a lengthy public meeting on Wednesday wherein they addressed some of the challenges facing the project as they move forward towards a final report. Announced last June and fully formed this past October, the 16-member panel consists of what the space agency has described as "some of the world’s leading scientists, data and artificial intelligence practitioners, and aerospace safety experts." Over the course of the four-hour long session (which can be seen in its entirety above), the team offered an array of insights into their work looking into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), as UFOs have come to be called by the government in recent years.
Similar to Congressional hearings concerning the subject that have been held over the last year, the public meeting was not particularly revelatory for those hoping to be told that 'we are not alone,' though the NASA event did suggest that the study team is serious about their scientific pursuit of the phenomenon. A central theme that emerged from the gathering is that they have found a dearth of high-quality data concerning UAP events because they are limited to using unclassified sources. To that end, study group chair and astrophysicist David Spergel observed that "the current data-collection efforts regarding UAPs are unsystematic and fragmented across various agencies, often using instruments uncalibrated for scientific data collection."
One unfortunate development detailed at the beginning of the session is that some group members have faced online harassment for their involvement in the project, which the panel understandably decried. Such behavior, NASA's Nicola Fox observed, "only leads to further stigmatization of the UAP field, significantly hindering the scientific process and discouraging others to study this important subject matter." This was echoed by group member Daniel Evans, who indicated that the space agency is "acutely aware of the considerable public interest in UAP," but stressed that "it's critical to understand any form of harassment towards our panelists only serves to detract from the scientific process, which requires an environment of respect and openness."
Also appearing at Wednesday's public meeting was Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), who offered some perspective on that endeavor. He revealed that the group has now received around 800 UAP reports, but only around two to five percent of the cases could be categorized as "anomalous." Similar to the NASA panel, Kirkpatrick said that the Pentagon effort requires higher-quality data as, otherwise, "we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution." The AARO head noted that the group has also been subjected to harassment from individuals who "want answers now, and so they are actually feeding the stigma by exhibiting that kind of behavior to all of us."
Ultimately, the NASA panel suggested that it will be several months before they issue the final report on their work. That said, based on Wednesday's public meeting, one can surmise that their findings will likely center around suggestions on how to develop better methods for collecting data on UAP events as well as the best methods for analyzing that information while also further destigmatizing the subject so that it can be more freely examined by members of the scientific and academic communities. This rigorous approach may be dispiriting to UFO enthusiasts who believe that the government already knows the true nature of the phenomenon, those hoping to see an earnest approach to solving the mystery ought to appreciate that it appears to be both underway an being conducted for the public to see. (See related video here).