Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2022

19 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 ASTRO PUBLISHING T he associate administrator for the direction of NASA’s scientific mission, Thomas Zurbuchen, on June 9, 2022, announced the agency’s entry into the field of the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. NASA’s program will be independent of all others. media, so much so that Sue Gough, spokesman for the Department of Defense, specified that the Penta- gon’s statement was aimed at “clar- ifying any misconceptions from the public on the fact that the footages circulated were real or not.” One of the videos is from November 2004, while the other two are from February 2015. Unlike what was re- ported by several sources, none of the three alleged objects visible in the recordings exhibited extraordi- nary aerodynamic capabilities or were disrespectful of the laws of physics as we know it. After this demonstration of trans- parency by the Pentagon (which added nothing to what was already known), the cold shower of reality rained down upon enthusiastic ufol- ogists in June of last year: a report by the US Intelligence Community defined as “largely inconclusive” tion might be drones with advanced technologies, developed secretly by China or Russia. Hypersonic missiles are an example of technology de- veloped in advance by these two su- perpowers compared to the US, which only successfully tested them last July. The US, for its part, built the so-called stealth aircraft several years in advance. Now the competi- tion seems to have shifted to mili- tary drones, which is why there is more terrestrial interest than ever in the study of UAPs. The nine-page US Intelligence Com- munity report does not discuss any specific case and is the public ver- sion of a more detailed classified version being supplied to the armed services and intelligence committees of Congress. Mark Warner, chair- man of the Senate Intelligence Com- mittee, said the frequency of UAP reports “appears to be increasing since 2018.” S enator Mark Warner (center), chairman of the Senate Intelli- gence Committee, is one of the politicians most committed to UAP study efforts. [Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Immagini] the set of evidence collected on UAPs between 2004 and 2021. Among the thousands of sightings reported in that long period, there are 144 made by military and other personnel linked to the US govern- ment. Eighteen unidentified objects were observed from different an- gles that performed unexplainable maneuvers. It is widely believed at the Pentagon that a non-negligible percentage of all objects sighted by USAF pilots that escaped identifica-