unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – or more commonly referred to as UFOs – is holding its first public meeting on Wednesday ahead of an expected report later this year.UAPs are defined as observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.
The study team, first announced last year, is made up of 16 experts across a diverse field, including those in astrophysics, astrobiology, engineering and even a former astronaut.Over the course of nine months, the team is tasked with "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 panel is due to publish a report on its findings this summer.
The purpose of Wednesday’s four-hour public meeting, which is being streamed on the space agency’s website, is to hold final deliberations before the agency’s independent study team publishes that report, NASA said.FILE - The silhouette of a NASA employee is seen past the NASA logo in the Webb Auditorium at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 7, 2022. (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) The NASA UAP study is different from the Defense Department's investigation and study of UAPs.
However, both underscore the growing acceptance among scientists and government officials in the study of UFOs."The limited number of observations of UAPs currently makes it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events," NASA said when it announced its study team last year. "Unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest for both national security and air safety."It added: "There is no evidence UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin."Sean Kirkpatrick, director.