US authorities have investigated about 800 mysterious reports of unidentified flying objects. Reports have been collected for decades. Only a small fraction is truly unexplained, the researchers said.
NASA formed a panel of experts last year to study the sensitive UFO issue, and the panel held its first public meeting on Wednesday.
Their task is to advise NASA on how to approach “unidentified abnormal phenomena”. About 800 unexplained airborne phenomena have been observed to date, but perhaps 2 to 5 percent of them are truly abnormal, Sean Kirkpatrick said Wednesday. Sean Kirkpatrick is the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
A member of the expert commission, David Grinspoon, said that at the moment “there is no clear evidence of a connection between unexplained abnormal phenomena and extraterrestrial life.”
The meeting, which lasted several hours, was broadcast live on the Internet. One part of it was dedicated to questions from the public that were sent in advance via the Internet. Transparency is much needed, in order to “remove the stigma” from that topic, the American space agency emphasized.
