NASA holds public meeting on UFOs

NASA has been holding its first public meeting on its study of UFOs. The panel - which was set up last year - has been looking at data on so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena. Nasa has said that a staggering 800 incidents are under investigation. Dr David Whitehouse is a space scientist and author and he’s been watching NASA’s public meeting on unidentified anomalous phenomena.

David - Well, it was part of an approach to UFOs that is quite novel in the sense that, in the past, scientists have stayed away from this subject because of the association with conspiracies, with spaceships and aliens and abductions and coverups. But, a few years ago, the New York Times showed a few videos taken from the cockpits of fighter pilots showing some very strange objects indeed. And that started the thaw with scientists saying well, actually, perhaps somewhere in the mix, somewhere it got lost in all this, there might be a phenomenon that is worth studying. So part of the process of actually building a framework to study this, to find those strange events, NASA has held this meeting. And it was a very good example of laying the groundwork of how the United States airspace is surveilled, what they can see, what instruments and sensors they use, and how many of the things they have seen over a year are anomalous and needed some sort of extra explanation. So it was a very interesting change of direction and a very interesting scientific groundwork for this study.

Chris - Was this really an attempt to disabuse some people of these conspiracy theories to try to bring more science to bear on this? So rather than it just being spooky things happening, let's look at this scientifically, let's have a proper framework through which we can collect the information but also be more transparent about it. Because that's been the other thing that's fueled a lot of these conspiracy theories, isn't it? That it's hard to access some of the information. It's all classified.

David - Well, in some respects, the Department of Defense data has been classified, although that has been coming out over the past few years. But if you're implying that it's a way of sorting out the wheat from the chaff, then exactly that. If you look at UFO's, unidentified aerial phenomena, you find a whole load of stuff, a whole load of debate and argument, conspiracy theories, mostly very bad video of things which are obviously nothing unusual at all. So this is to try to get rid of that and ask the basic question: is there something there? And the thing which I drew from this is, look at air traffic controllers. There are 14,000 air traffic controllers in the United States. There are 16 and a half million flights a year and 45,000 flights a day. And yet, with all their data, with 20,000 airports, the man was asked, "how many anomalous things have you seen?" And his answer was three to five. And they were very strange, but a very small percentage of what is the most intensely guarded airspace in the world. And that data did not include the military surveillance of the United States Air Force. So they are gathering the groundwork for this. Don't get the wrong impression, there are some observations that people have had that are genuinely strange - it's now to actually focus on those and get rid of the rest. That's what first part of this meeting was about,

Chris - What is public opinion, really? Where does the barometer sit on this? Do most people think that this is rubbish? Or do most people think there's something in this? Because to my mind as a sort of rational scientist, I find it hard to reconcile that someone who had a technology enabling them to conquer space and time and vast distances, which is what you'd have to do in order to be able to travel the sorts of distances we know are involved in getting across the universe to come and visit us, what could they possibly need to learn about our planet by coming here that they couldn't already know?

David - Well, that's an interesting question in the sense that it's not impossible that we could be being visited, or that tomorrow an alien spaceship could arrive in orbit around the earth and start talking to us. So it's not impossible. And we do not know what aliens look like, what their spaceships would look like. So when we see something strange and unusual, if somebody says that it's a strange atmospheric phenomena, because we don't know what an alien spaceship looks like, you cannot logically totally say it's not an alien because we don't know what aliens would look like. But, overall, the interesting thing about these phenomena is trying to bring the science into it. Because if you look at America in particular, and to a certain extent this country, there is a vast public fascination and hunger for alien information. If you go to America, you see television programmes and people going to concerts, on speaking and presentation tours, talking about aliens, ancient aliens, UFO encounters, and they are full of people. There are so many millions of people who want this stuff, who are entertained by it or are convinced by it. And yet here we come with a scientific approach, which is certainly going to show there's a phenomenon there, but it's nothing to do with aliens. I think we know that already. That won't convince very many people.

Chris - So your argument is that it's more that there are unexplained phenomena and that there's something intriguing and interesting about them, they don't have to be aliens, they're important and they're worth looking at regardless of what causes them to happen?

David - Oh, exactly. The question is, is there a phenomenon there? It's not a question of, is this evidence of aliens? Because I think it's pretty obvious from all the evidence of alien encounters, so to speak, that we are not being visited.

Chris - We will have to wait and see. I guess the horrible pun is 'watch this space, isn't it?'