NASA's independent study team to examine unidentified aerial phenomena

NASA said on Thursday that its independent study team will examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) - observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.

Led by astrophysicist David Spergel, President of the Simons Foundation in New York City, and previously the chair of the astrophysics department at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, the study is expected to take about nine months to complete. It will focus on identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward.

We'll be studying unidentified aerial phenomena: learning what data exists, how to gather information, and how to move our understanding forward: https://t.co/ZOGqAUfIkhJoin the audio telecon at 1pm ET (17:00 UTC) as we outline the study team's goals: https://t.co/3fXbnL1BWs pic.twitter.com/hdL2TyCAfp

— NASA (@NASA) June 9, 2022

According to NASA, there is no evidence that UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin. The limited number of observations currently makes it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events.

"We have access to a broad range of observations of Earth from space – and that is the lifeblood of scientific inquiry. We have the tools and team who can help us improve our understanding of the unknown. That's the very definition of what science is. That's what we do," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington.