NASA joins the investigation into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and no; I’m not going to call them Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP) 

Why does it seem that, whenever we humans can’t make any progress in solving a problem we just change the name of it in order to make it appear that we’re getting somewhere? Take abortion as an example, it’s been a contentious issue now for over fifty years which is why nobody refers to themselves as either pro-abortion or anti-abortion anymore. No, you’re either pro-choice or pro-life, public relations wise it’s always best to be pro-something rather than anti-anything.

Why do we humans always seem to try to hide our meanings? The issue is abortion but we have to use terms like pro-choice or pro-life. In the same way we hide the issue of flying saucers by first calling them UFOs and now UAPs. (Credit: The Survey center on American Life)

Now we’re doing the same thing with Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs that over the last seventy-five years have been the biggest and longest lasting conspiracy theory, see my post of 30 June 2022. Decade after decade has gone by with no better evidence for the existence of flying saucers than we had back in the 1950s. Still people insist that there has to be something going on so Congress decided to get involved and back on May 17th held meetings to discuss the latest sightings, including two films taken by Naval Aviators. Both the Pentagon and the Intelligence services were called upon to testify and just to let everybody know that they weren’t just sitting on their butts it was decided to change the name of UFOs to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon or UAP.

Some of the best new evidence for UFOs comes from naval aviators flying off the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. This video is referred ton in the media as the ‘Go Fast’ video because the object in the video appears to be moving at impossible speeds Notice the numbers on both sides of the object in the center. They’ll become important later. (Credit: The Guardian)

Despite all of the ‘new evidence’, which once again is no better than the evidence we had in the 1950s, the military had to admit that it couldn’t explain all of the sightings but that there was no evidence that UFOs were either advanced aircraft built by our enemies, Russia or China, or Extra-Terrestrial in origin. The only decision made at the hearings was to have NASA get involved and see what the space agency thought about the whole matter. Which if you think about it is something the government probably should have done sixty years ago.

Filmed in Great Falls Montana in 1950 the Marianna UFO film, which you can check out on YouTube, is still completely unexplained and still as good of evidence for the existence of UFOs as anything presented since. (Credit: Journalnews)

So NASA gathered a panel of scientists, academicians and other technical experts, including an astronaut to form an ‘Independent Study Team’ to look into the matter. As a group the team is highly qualified, several are professors from major universities like George mason University, Boston University and UC San Diego. There are also several scientists from both private corporations and the US government including the FAA. The team chair is Dr. David Spergel of the Simons Foundation think tank and finally the team included former astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year living on the International Space Station and whose brother, another former astronaut is now a Senator from Arizona.

NASA’s ‘Independent Study Group’ for the investigation into UFOs. There’s a lot of talent here but really this is something that should have been tried 60 years ago. (Credit: NASA Science)

On the 14th of September NASA released a report from the Independent Study Team that included analysis of some of the best known recent sightings but that also served to inform Congress of the expertise and scientific assets that NASA could bring to the study of UFOs. Indeed, much of the report, which you can read for yourself at the web address: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/uap_independent_study_team_-_final_report_0.pdf

reads something like a sales brochure for NASA. Throughout the report phrases like “NASA – with its extensive expertise in these domains and global reputation for scientific openness” or “NASA’s assets can play a vital role” show that the space agency would be happy to undertake a long term study of UFOs, with adequate funding of course.

It’s true, in order to do science somebody has to pay for it! NASA has always known that funding is key to space exploration. (Credit: SlidePlayer)

To show what NASA can do the report does include analysis of several well known recent sightings especially the ‘Go Fast’ video taken by a Naval Aviator flying off of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, a video that was shown at the congressional hearing back in May. From the measured data shown on the video itself and using a little simple mathematics the team was able to demonstrate that is was the Navy plane that was going fast, not the object it filmed. In fact the object was traveling no faster than 40 mph, and with the wind. The report confidently states that in all likelihood the UFO was drifting with the wind, in other words it was nothing more than a misidentified balloon.

The NASA teams explanation of the ‘Go Fast’ video shown in the figure above. Many UFO sightings happen when the observer is moving but thinks it’s the strange object they’re looking at is what’s moving. (Credit: NASA)
At the same time as it’s studying UFOs NASA could use the money to study actual Phenomenon like the Red Sprites shown here. (Credit: NASA)

So, should the federal government fund NASA to conduct a long term examination of UFOs in the hope that when the final report is published everyone will accept it. As I said above this is something that might have made sense sixty years ago but today the ‘true believers’ on either side will never accept any answer but the one they want. My fear is that NASA will explain the great majority of the UFO sightings while at the same time there will always be a small percentage of ‘Unknowns’. This is the same situation that Project Blue Book wound up in sixty years ago and which only served to generate rumors that the federal Government was ‘hiding the truth’ about flying saucers, an accusation that NASA may very soon find itself to be the target of.

With all of the times that the government has kept the truth from us can you really blame people for thinking the same thing about UFOs? (Credit: Nixon Library)

If space aliens were actually visiting Earth, in such great numbers as UFO believers insist wouldn’t they have contacted us by now, or conquered us by now or at least have DONE SOMETHING BY NOW!

Back in the 1950s aliens flying around our skies kinda made sense. But after 75 years you’d think our visitors would have done something by now! (Credit: iMDB)

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