WASHINGTON – A NASA panel, formed last year, to study “unidentified air phenomena” (commonly known as UFOs), was scheduled to hold its public first meeting on Wednesday. The report is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Last June, the 16-member group, which includes experts in fields such as physics and astrobiology was created to review unclassified sightings of UFOs, and other data from the civilian government and commercial sector.
NASA announced the meeting, saying that the focus of the four-hour session on Wednesday was “to hold final discussions before the agency’s study team releases a report in the summer.”
The panel is the first time such an inquiry has been conducted under the auspices the U.S. Space Agency for a topic the government had previously relegated to the exclusive, secretive domain of military and national-security officials.
NASA’s study is distinct from the Pentagon’s newly-formalized investigation into unidentified air phenomena (UAPs), which have been documented by military pilots and analysed by U.S. Defense and Intelligence officials in recent years.
NASA’s and Pentagon’s parallel efforts, both conducted with a semblance public scrutiny, highlight a turning-point for the government, after decades of deflecting, discrediting and debunking sightings or unidentified flying object (UFO) dating back to 1940s.
In government parlance, the term UFOs has been replaced by “UAP.”
NASA’s mission to the moon was seen as a way to open up a subject that had been taboo for the military establishment. However, the U.S. Space Agency made it clear from the beginning that they were not rushing to conclusions.
NASA announced the formation of a panel last June, saying that there was no evidence UAPs were extraterrestrial.
The agency has recently presented a potential new twist to the UAP acronym, calling it an abbreviation of “unidentified abnormal phenomena.” This suggests that other sightings than those that appear airborne could be included.
NASA, in an announcement of the meeting on Wednesday, defined UAPs as “observations of events in space that are not identifiable from a scientific standpoint as aircraft or natural phenomena.”
U.S. Defense officials said that the Pentagon’s recent push for investigation of such sightings led to hundreds new reports, which are being examined. However, most of them remain classified as unexplained.
The newly-formed Pentagon All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s head has stated that the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is not ruled out, but no sightings have produced evidence of their origins.
