NASA to do first-ever study on UFOs for ‘national security’

Searching for UFOs is no longer relegated to conspiracists with tinfoil hats.

For the first time ever, NASA will be commissioning a team of scientists to study “unidentified aerial phenomena” — colloquially known as UFOs — in the interest of homeland security. The space administration detailed the pioneering mission in a recent press release posted on their website.

“NASA believes that the tools of scientific discovery are powerful and apply here also,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate science administrator at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.

Per the report, the breakthrough research, which will cost no more than $100,000, will “focus on identifying available data” and “how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward.” The UFO reconnaissance mission was inspired by the fact there are a limited number of recorded UAP observations, thereby making it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about such events.

“Given the paucity of observations, our first task is simply to gather the most robust set of data that we can,” said astrophysicist David Spergel, who will be spearheading the unconventional mission. “We will be identifying what data — from civilians, government, nonprofits, companies — exists, what else we should try to collect and how to best analyze it.”

To help them achieve this lofty goal, the UAP recon team will be seeking input from experts in the scientific, aeronautics and data analytics communities.

NASA is not studying potential flying saucers for kicks: “Unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest for both national security and air safety,” reads the report. “Establishing which events are natural provides a key first step to identifying or mitigating such phenomena, which aligns with one of NASA’s goals to ensure the safety of aircraft.”

Naturally, searching for UFOs in the name of homeland security might sound like something out of “Independence Day.” However, while acknowledging that the controversial research could get them shunned by the scientific community, Zurbuchen said the team’s not “shying away from reputational risk,” the Guardian reported. Not to mention that there is “no evidence UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin,” per the NASA press release.

The space magnate, for one, sees the undertaking as essential toward expanding our “understanding of the unknown.”

“We have access to a broad range of observations of Earth from space — and that is the lifeblood of scientific inquiry,” he said. “That’s the very definition of what science is. That’s what we do.”

Nonetheless, the UFO chasers will be approaching the topic with “a sense of humility,” Spergel told the Guardian.

“I spent most of my career as a cosmologist,” he said. “I can tell you we don’t know what makes up 95% of the universe. So there are things we don’t understand.”

A team of scientists will be convening this fall, whereupon the trailblazing study will take around nine months to complete. Best of all, the results will be shared with the public.

The bombshell development comes a year after the US government issued an official report describing UAP observations by mostly Navy personnel.

A subsequent analysis of the report by intelligence officials determined that while there wasn’t enough evidence to trace the UFOs’ origins to outer space, they can’t rule out that possibility or explain the mysterious vehicles.