On June 9, 2022, NASA announced its intention to commission a team of experts with a study to examine, for the first time from a scientific perspective, the recently renamed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), that is, observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as airplanes or known natural phenomena. The study, the North American space agency said then, would be responsible for identifying the available data, but above all it would recommend the best way to collect data in the future and the way in which NASA could use that data to advance scientific understanding of the UAP. Today, just a few minutes ago and in the midst of enormous international expectation, the space agency presented this report during a press conference held at its headquarters in Washington. The document, NASA emphasizes, is not a review or evaluation of previous unidentifiable observations, but rather an attempt to lay the foundation and data collection methods so that future observations can be studied scientifically. The 16 experts who sign the study, all of them prominent scientists in their respective areas of action, recommend that NASA "take advantage of its extensive experience" and use its Earth observation resources to study the environmental conditions associated with each UAP. In this way it will be easier to eliminate possible meteorological or natural causes of each sighting. Use available technology "Currently," the report says, "UAP detection is often incidental, captured by sensors that were not designed or calibrated for this purpose, and that lack complete metadata." Which means that “the origin of many UAPs remains uncertain. The importance of detecting UAPs with multiple well-calibrated sensors is therefore paramount and we therefore recommend that NASA leverage its considerable experience in this domain to potentially utilize multispectral or hyperspectral data as part of a rigorous data acquisition campaign. «. The expert panel also considers that the latest data analysis techniques, including Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, "should be used in comprehensive UAP detection." Engaging the public and pilots According to the report's authors, “public participation in the effort to better understand UAPs will be vital. NASA, by lending its name to UAP studies, is already helping to reduce the stigma associated with such reports. Beyond this, we recommend that NASA explore the feasibility of developing or acquiring a 'crowdsourcing' system, such as open source smartphone-based applications, to collect image data and other smartphone sensor data from multiple citizen observers. , as part of a broader effort to more systematically collect public UAP reports.” Finally, the study's conclusions read, we recommend that the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) for commercial aircraft, that is, the sightings reported by many airline pilots, "be better utilized, providing a critical database for everyone". The scientists' main conclusion, then, is that NASA is in a "unique position" to contribute to a solid and systematic system that allows studying UAPs, "promoting its mission to advance scientific knowledge, technical experience and exploration." .
