NASA UFO report – live: Scientists to release Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena findings

Key points

NASA to unveil report into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) – better known as UFOs – at 2pm UK timeWhat the report is likely to tell us – as NASA dampens expectationsAnalysis: We may get some surprises but…
Why is NASA using UAP instead of UFO?Live reporting by Rich Williams

13:10:18 Analysis: We may get some surprises but…

By Tom Clarke, science and technology editor

UFO’s are SO last century. An independent panel tasked by NASA to reviewing mysterious objects in the sky uses a the scientifically accurate, though perhaps less catchy acronym: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.

The 16-member expert panel – including astrophysicists, former astronauts, pilots, industry figures and journalists – was convened last year in a new effort to better understand mysterious sightings.

Part of its mission is to tackle conjecture and conspiracy theories with transparency around what data NASA and other US agencies may hold.

But it’s also tasked with investigating how to gather better evidence to explain mysterious objects – including access to data collected by civilian bodies like the US Federal Aviation Administration and NASA itself.

We may be in for some surprises – but the evidence presented at the committee’s first public meeting last year suggests we might want to temper our excitement. An initial review of data from the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which receives 50-100 new reports each month, revealed only 2-5% are even possibly “anomalous”.

12:50:01 The UFO footage captured by US Navy pilots

In 2020, the Pentagon declassified three videos of “unidentified aerial phenomena” which showed strange objects racing across the sky.

The black and white videos were recorded by navy pilots – one in November 2004 and two in January 2015.

The footage had been shared online unofficially and was well known to UFO enthusiasts before the Pentagon’s decision to release the videos officially.

One of the clips shows a dark circular object flying in front of a jet, while another shows a small object speeding over land and the third shows a circular object racing and then appearing to slow down as it approaches the camera.

One of the videos was filmed over the Pacific and the other two were on the US east coast.

A voice can be heard in one of the 2015 videos saying: “There’s a whole fleet of them.”

Another voice adds: “They’re all going against the wind. The wind’s 120 knots to the west. Look at that thing, dude!”

Nick Pope, who previously investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, told Sky News he did not have a “definitive explanation” of what was captured in the footage but it could be something “extra-terrestrial”.

He said: “Assuming we’re not dealing with a combination of pilot misperception and forward-looking infrared camera anomalies, (which is unlikely, as a lot of this was captured on radar too), there are very few options.

“US black project technology being blind-tested against the military as part of the evaluation process, a Russian or Chinese drone engaged in reconnaissance, or something genuinely unknown and yes, perhaps even extra-terrestrial.”

12:20:01 US government ‘hiding crucial information’ about UFOs – ex-Navy pilot

Following on from our previous post (11.55), it should be noted that Mexico’s is not the only national legislature that has heard testimony involving UFOs.

Less than two months ago, a former US navy pilot who claims to have experienced UFOs “first-hand” accused his country’s government of downplaying the threat they pose.

Ryan Graves said the number of unidentified flying objects, or UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena), was being “grossly underreported” and it was an “urgent” issue.

“Military air crew and commercial pilots are frequently witnessing these phenomenons,” he told a committee hearing.

“The stigma is real and powerful and challenges national security.”

Mr Graves was giving evidence at a session held by the House Oversight Subcommittee, which covers US national security and foreign affairs.

The committee’s Republican chairman, Glenn Grothman, opened the session by saying a “lack of transparency” had fuelled “wild speculation” that had eroded “public trust” in government institutions.

Democrat member Robert Garcia said stories of UFOs and UAPs “warrant investigation and oversight”.

Mr Graves said he first began detecting “unknown objects” in US airspace in 2014, while stationed at Virginia Beach.

He said during a training mission 10 miles off the coast, two aircraft got “split” by a UAP described as a “dark grey or black cube inside a clear sphere”.

Despite raising safety concerns, no official log of the incident was made, he claimed.

He said such “excessive classification practices” over decades were keeping “crucial information hidden”.

“If they are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem,” he said.

“If it is something else, it’s an issue for science. In either case, they are an issue for flight safety.”

11:55:01 ‘Alien corpses’ presented to congress in Mexico prompts wave of scepticism

The release of the report today comes at an interesting time given recent events involving claims involving extra-terrestrials.

Just two days ago, Mexico’s Congress heard testimony suggesting aliens did exist – with journalist Jaime Maussan presenting two boxes with supposed mummies found in Peru.

He told the assembled lawmakers that he and others considered the figures to be “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.”

The shrivelled bodies with shrunken, warped heads left those in the chamber aghast and triggered a predictably frenzied reaction on social media.

Mr Maussan’s appearance in congress may have come as a surprise to some, however, given that his 2015 claim that a mummified body purported to be that of an alien found in Peru was later debunked after it was shown to be a human child.

Undeterred, he told the politicians this week: “It’s the queen of all evidence. That is, if the DNA is showing us that they are non-human beings and that there is nothing that looks like this in the world, we should take it as such.”

He did warn that he didn’t want to refer to them as “extraterrestrials” just yet.

And, Julieta Fierro, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, is among those who have since expressed a fair dose of scepticism, saying many details about the figures “made no sense.”

She said the researchers’ claims that her university endorsed their supposed discovery were false, and noted that scientists would need more advanced technology than the X-rays they claimed to use to determine if the allegedly calcified bodies were “non-human”.

“Maussan has done many things. He says he has talked to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” she said.

“He told me extraterrestrials do not talk to me like they talk to him because I don’t believe in them.”

The scientist also pointed out that it appeared strange that they extracted what would surely be a “treasure of the nation” from Peru without inviting the Peruvian ambassador.

The UK’s Professor Brian Cox suggested he found the claims similarly dubious.

“My immediate response – they are way too humanoid,” he said on Twitter.

“It’s very unlikely that an intelligent species that evolved on another planet would look like us. Secondly – send a sample off to 23andme [the DNA-testing service] – let alone the University down the road – and they’ll tell you within 10 minutes.”

11:30:01 Why is NASA using UAP instead of UFO?

Readers will notice that NASA is no longer using the term UFO in its main communications around the subject of mysterious objects spotted in the sky.

While that term – which stands for unidentified flying object – is the one most commonly associated with the subject by most of us, the US-based space agency now opts for the rather less catchy unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

In short, the more well known capitalisation is largely avoided by NASA and similar organisations around the world due to its negative connotations.

Alongside the huge numbers of fictional works that have employed the term UFO, it is also associated with seemingly infinite numbers of wild and mostly discredited conspiracy theories – and the people who espouse them.

Dr Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research, said NASA had chosen to adopt a different descriptor due to the stigma attached to the older term – stressing this was because the topic is a “serious business”.

11:05:01 What NASA said during its first public meeting on UFOs

NASA held its first public meeting on UFOs a little earlier this year.

In May – less than 12 months after launching the UAP study team – the space agency televised a four-hour-long hearing featuring an independent panel of experts at its headquarters in Washington, with the public taking part remotely.

The team included 16 scientists and other experts selected by NASA including retired astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space.

The panel said it had seen a spike in reported sightings, with the US Department of Defence’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – which is also investigating separately for NASA – receiving around 800 sightings.

However, the experts said only a tiny fraction of those contained signals which could be deemed “anomalous”.

Asked what they would do if they were to actually discover extra-terrestrial life, astrobiologist Dr David Grinspoon said NASA would be “highly driven” to share evidence.

He referred to an example from 1996, when NASA scientists believed they had spotted possible signs of life from Mars in a meteorite.

It sparked a huge presidential news conference involving the space agency, and “that’s what would happen” if a similar event were to happen during this study, he said.

“If we discovered something, we would try to make sure we were right and then we’d loudly and proudly let the public know about it.”

With a view to making that discovery, Dr Spergel said NASA was “searching for life in any form”.

“The search for life is a really important thing. We haven’t found life beyond Earth yet,” he said. “But we are looking.”

Another member of the panel also lamented the fact that several committee members had been subjected to “online abuse” for serving on the team, which he said detracted from the scientific process.

10:38:37 What the report is likely to tell us

NASA itself says the report being released to the public will follow its “principles of openness, transparency, and scientific integrity”.

“NASA is going in with an open mind and we expect to find that explanations will apply to some events and different explanations will apply to others. We will not underestimate what the natural world contains, and we believe there is a lot to learn,” a statement released ahead of the release says.

However, the agency has also seemingly sought to dampen excitement around the content of the report, to the inevitable disappointment of anyone hoping details and photographs of aliens and their spacecrafts were about to be revealed.

NASA says it has “not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and there is no evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial”.

“However, NASA is exploring the Solar System and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions, including whether we are alone in the Universe.”

Indeed, the assembled team has been commissioned to establish how data around UAPs should be collected in future – rather than scrutinising historic reports of such sightings.

09:50:17 Who will be speaking at the briefing?

According to NASA the following people will feature during today’s media briefing:

NASA administrator Bill NelsonNicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in WashingtonDan Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research, NASA’s Science Mission DirectorateDavid Spergel, president, Simons Foundation and chair of NASA’s UAP independent study team

09:15:58 Welcome to our live coverage of NASA’s release of a report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena

Scientists at NASA will unveil their report on UFOs today just before 2pm UK time – or 10am at their headquarters in Washington DC.

It follows its announcement in October last year that it would form an independent study team to look into sightings of objects in the sky that cannot be easily or definitively identified.

Shortly after the report is released, leading members of the team will discuss its findings in a media briefing.

We’ll bring you all the latest from the report and the briefing as it happens – along with details of what we can expect, speculation and related stories as we build up to the main event later. 

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