Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2022

20 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 ASTRO PUBLISHING D eputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray comments on a video of unidentified aerial phenomena during a House Intelligence Subcommittee hearing at the U.S. Capitol on May 17, 2022, in Washington, DC. It was the first public congressional hearing on UAPs in 50 years. F rame from a video of a UAP shown during a hearing of the Internal Intelligence, Counterterror- ism, Counterintelligence and Coun- terproliferation Subcommittee on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”, at Capitol Hill on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in Washington. As usual, all that it is shown is an indistinct stain that lends itself to the most imagi- native of interpretations. decades, NASA has answered the call to tackle some of the most per- plexing mysteries we know of, and this is no different.” “With its access to a broad range of scientific tools, NASA is well-placed not just to demystify UFOs and deepen scientific understanding, but also to find ways to mitigate the phenomena, a key part of its mis- sion to ensure the safety of air- craft,” Zurbuchen added. The NASA study will be independ- ent of the Pentagon’s Airborne Ob- ject Identification and Management Synchronization Group and will help stem the set of falsehoods and speculations that typically charac- terize sightings of unidentified fly- ing objects. data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to advance scientific under- standing of UAPs. Daniel Evans, the NASA scientist responsible for coor- dinating the study (which begins this fall and will run for at least nine months) stressed that “over the ! “The rather inconclusive intelligence report marks the beginning of ef- forts to understand and illuminate what is causing these risks to avia- tion in many areas around the coun- try and the world,” Warner said in a statement. “The United States must be able to understand and mitigate threats to our pilots, whether they’re from drones or weather balloons or adversary intelligence capabilities.” In recent years, interest in unidenti- fied aerial phenomena has grown beyond just the US Department of Defense. NASA is interested as well, officially joining the hunt for UAPs a few months ago to study the sightings from a scientific perspec- tive. This happened on June 9, when Thomas Zurbuchen (associate ad- ministrator for NASA’s Science Mis- sion Directorate) presented an up- date on the agency’s program at a joint meeting of the National Acade- mies Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, which included an independ- ent study scheme of UAPs. The study will focus on collecting available