Science For Everyone: What Are UFOs? Know Interesting Anecdotes, And How NASA Aims To Track Them

Science For Everyone: This week, in ABP Live's science column, we discuss what unidentified flying objects are, interesting anecdotes of these mysterious phenomena, and how NASA aims to track them.

UFOs: Welcome back to "Science For Everyone", ABP Live's weekly science column. Last week, we explained why cracking of joints makes noises such as popping, grinding and snapping, and whether repetitive cracking can damage the soft tissues of joints. This week, we discuss what unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are, some interesting anecdotes of these mysterious phenomena, and how NASA aims to track them. UFOs are also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), and are commonly associated with aliens or intelligent life from outer space. 

NASA on September 14, 2023, commissioned an independent study team to understand UAP, and published a report mentioning how the space agency can contribute to the ongoing efforts of the US government to analyse observations of aerial phenomena that cannot be classified as balloons, aircraft, or as known natural phenomena. NASA also appointed Mark Mclnerney as the director of UAP research. During a press conference held to announce the commissioning of this independent study team, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, "This is the first time NASA has taken concrete action to study UAP". The NASA Chief also said that the study team "did not find evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin". Most events were conventional balloons or aeroplanes. However, he said that the study team aims to change the idea of UAPs from "sensationalism to science".

Check all the stories appearing in ABP Live's weekly science column here.

Interesting anectodes of UFO sightings

UFOs are optical phenomena that appear like airborne objects, but cannot be classified as being related to phenomena or objects of known scientific origin by the one who sees them. After the Second World War, rocket technology was developed, as a result of which interest in UFOs among the public increased manifold. 

Many people believe that if they sight an object that they believe is a UFO, they have found potential evidence of extraterrestrial life existing and visiting Earth.

On June 24, 1947, American aviator Kenneth Arnold recognised the first widely reported modern UFO sighting. He reportedly saw a string of nine, shiny UFOs flying past Mount Rainier at speeds estimated to be at least 1,932 kilometres per hour. 

Arnold claimed that he witnessed high-speed, crescent-shaped flying objects. This is considered the first of the modern era UFO sightings. Following the sighting of the object by Kenneth, more sightings were reported over the next two to three weeks. 

Kenneth compared the movement of the UFO to the way a saucer would move if one skipped it over water. Based on Kenneth's description of the UFO, the press coined the terms “flying saucer” and “flying disk” which, to date, are popular descriptive terms for these objects. 

While Arnold claimed that the objects were moving through the air "like saucers skipping on water", a newspaper report misstated that the flying objects were "saucer-shaped", according to Britannica. This is how UFOs went on to be popularly known as flying saucers.

In 1952, US Air Force officer Edward Ruppelt coined the term "unidentified flying object" to replace the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk".

On July 2, 1947, another apparent UFO sighting was made in Roswell, New Mexico. On that date, an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed in the New Mexico desert, with debris. A local rancher named 'Mac' Brazel contacted the sheriff in Roswell on July 7, 1947, to state that he had discovered strange debris spread over a ranch near Corona, New Mexico. 

Though he had found the object days earlier, he did not think much until stories about flying saucers emerged.

Conspiracy theories claiming that the debris involved a flying saucer and that the US government had covered up the truth emerged. 

The United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) recovered the balloon debris from the ranch near Corona, New Mexico. 

The RAAF issued a press release on July 8, 1947, stating that they had recovered a "flying disc", but quickly retracted the statement, claiming that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon. 

Following the discovery of the debris, local newspaper Roswell Daily Record published a story on the front page with the iconic headline: "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region".

However, within 24 hours, the US military said a mistake had been made, and that the 'flying saucer' was a crashed weather balloon.

In 1978, nuclear physicist-turned-ufologist Stanton T Friedman rediscovered the story of the Roswell UFO crash. Intelligence officer Jesse Marcel, who had gone to the crash site with Brazel to recover debris, told Friedman that the weather balloon had been a cover story and that the photos showing Marcel and other military personnel holding some of the debris had been staged. He told Friedman that weather balloon debris had been substituted for the real wreckage in the pictures, according to the article.

Marcel claimed that all the people involved in the retrieval were confident the object had been an extraterrestrial spaceship.

How researchers have investigated UFO sightings over the years

Following the Arnold and Roswell incidents, reported sightings of UFOs increased drastically, and researchers started investigating these sightings. 

In 1948, the US Air Force undertook an inquiry called Project Sign to investigate the series of UFO sightings that had been recently reported. While most researchers who were a part of Project Sign, also known as Project Saucer, believed that UFOs were high-tech Soviet aircraft, a few associated the aerial phenomena to the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). 

In 1949, Project Grudge succeeded  Project Sign. However, Project Grudge was a short-lived project. After three years, in 1952, Project Blue Book was started. Of all the US government's investigations into the existence of UFOs, Project Blue Book lasted the longest. Headquartered at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, Project Blue Book remained operational from 1952 to 1969. During its 17 years of operation, Project Blue Book recorded more than 12,000 UFO sightings. 

Researchers classified the sightings recorded by Project Blue Book into two categories: aerial objects that could be associated with known phenomena which could be atmospheric, astronomical, or man-made, and objects that could not be associated with any identifiable cause. 

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a panel of scientists in 1953 to review the findings of Project Blue Book. The panel, called the Robertson Panel, was led by physicist HP Robertson. 

The panel concluded that most of the UFO sightings could be explained by natural phenomena, that the US faced no security risk from the UFOs sighted, and that Project Blue Book's records included no evidence proving the existence of extraterrestrial life. Since parts of the Robertson Panel's findings were not revealed until 1979, several conspiracy theories suggesting that a government cover-up emerged. 

In 1966, the US Air Force opened another inquiry. This inquiry was led by physicist Edward U Condon. He was asked to investigate 59 spellbinding but unfathomable sightings recorded during Project Blue Book. He included the results of his inquiry in a report called Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, which is also referred to as the Condon Report. 

Much to the disdain of people who believed in the extraterrestrial hypothesis, the report presented no evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials. This was one of the reasons why Project Blue Book was closed in 1969. 

American astronomer Josef Allen Hynek became the United States' foremost expert in UFOs. The most important advocate of UFO research, Hynek inspired the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Hynek, who was an astronomer at the Ohio State University, and then at Northwestern University, also participated in the investigations of the Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book. 

Hynek continued to advocate for the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and in 1973, founded his own research group known as the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). 

In the 21st century, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) marked the revival of government scrutiny of UFOs. The US Department of Defense (DoD) operated this secret but unclassified programme, from 2007 to 2012. 

Apart from the US, Canada is the only country that has kept extensive records on UFO sightings made by citizens. Countries such as Grand, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden have kept relatively limited records. 

The Society Union and the Peoples' Republic of China are some countries in which UFO sightings occurred as a result of secret military tests that the citizens were not made aware of; instead, in some cases, they were encouraged by the governments to believe that the objects were of extraterrestrial origin. This was to make the true nature of the experiments unintelligible or obscure to the public, according to Britannica. 

Some instances in which natural phenomena are mistaken for UFOs include sightings of Venus. This may happen because reflections on windows and eyeglasses produce superimposed images, or because illuminated objects appear to have a saucer-like shape due to the halo effect created by camera lenses.

How are UFO encounters classified?

A close encounter in ufology is an event in which a person witnesses a UFO. Hynek first suggested the term in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. He created a UFO encounter classification system, which divides UFOs into three classes of "close encounters".

A Close Encounter of the First Kind is an event in which a person simply observes a UFO but leaves no evidence.

A Close Encounter of the Second Kind is an event in which a UFO leaves physical traces which prove that it was present in the vicinity of the site claimed by the observer. These traces could be burns on the ground or broken branches.

A Close Encounter of the Third Kind is an event in which a person makes contact with a UFO or other life form.

The world’s fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial life before 1947

People love learning about extraterrestrial phenomena, and become excited when they spot unusual lights in the sky or witness strange occurrences. 

The oldest recorded instance of a UFO sighting dates back to 214 CE, according to timeanddate.com. 

In 1561, some unidentified flying objects were spotted over Nuremberg. According to a broadsheet news article printed in April 1561, a large number of people spotted a celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg. The broadsheet stated that "many men and women'' of Nuremberg saw an aerial battle "out of the sun", followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object and some spheres falling to Earth in clouds of smoke.

According to the broadsheet, people also observed hundreds of spheres, cylinders, and other odd-shaped objects overhead. 

The world's fascination with UFOs increased during the 20th century. English writer HG Wells published a science fiction novel called The War of the Worlds, which mentions fictional conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The book was published in 1898, and was later broadcast by CBS Radio in 1938. It was a 60-minute episode narrated by Orson Welles. The episode, which was a part of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, stirred panic among the radio audience, who believed that Martians were truly attacking Earth.

How NASA aims to better understand UFOs

After announcing that NASA has commissioned an independent study team to better understand UAP, the space agency's chief said that NASA will do the work "transparently for the benefit of humanity", and that the new Director of UAP Research will work with other agencies to analyse UAP, and apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to search the skies for anomalies. 

NASA has clarified that the study team's report is not a review or assessment of previous UAP incidents, but includes the team's recommendations to the space agency on how it can analyse the origin and nature of future UAP. 

The study team used unclassified data from civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources to list a set of recommendations in its report. 

As the Director of UAP Research, Mclnerney's role will be to form a database for the evaluation of future UAP, and leverage the space agency's expertise in space-based observation tools, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to find as much information on UAP as possible. 

Overall, NASA aims to aid the US government in its efforts to study UAP. The space agency intends to “destigmatize” the study of UAP. 

Daniel Evans, Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Research, Science Mission Directorate, NASA, said during the press briefing that the study aims to enhance situational awareness, the safety of the skies, and determine whether UAP are dangerous or not. 

Nelson said that NASA will coordinate with private, commercial, and military pilots so that they can report everything they see. 

This is because in order to understand anomalous phenomena, understanding the normal is important.