Members of NASA’s independent commission to investigate “mysterious weather phenomena” have called on the US government to gather better data in an effort to find answers to the inexplicable phenomena that have captured the public’s imagination.The New York Times“.
The 16-member panel, formed last year from leading experts in fields ranging from physics to astrophysics, held a four-hour session to discuss preliminary findings before issuing a report expected later this summer.Reuters“.
A Pentagon official said the Defense Department has investigated more than 800 cases over the past 27 years.
But only 2 to 5 percent of these incidents are “truly unfair,” says the New York Times.
Many challenges
People are and always will be interested in “aliens,” but these unexplained incidents are not extraterrestrial visitations and are mostly the work of drones and balloons, according to the “New York Times.”
Team member Nadia Drake said, “There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the origin of these phenomena is extraterrestrial.”
Many of the group members were subjected to “online harassment” because they were accused of lying or hiding evidence of the “existence of aliens”.
The biggest challenges cited by panel members were the lack of scientifically reliable methods for documenting “unidentified flying object” phenomena, the limitations of commonly known technologies, and seeing objects moving in violation of the laws of nature.
The fundamental problem is that the phenomena in question are usually detected and recorded with cameras, sensors and other equipment “not designed to accurately monitor and measure such characteristics.”
One reason the data from these events is so poor is that the military cameras, radar and other sensors that collect the videos are usually tuned for other purposes.
“We need high-quality data,” said astrophysicist David Spergel, the team’s leader. “Existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence of the nature and origin of each phenomenon.”
While the Pentagon has encouraged military pilots to document mysterious events in recent years, many commercial pilots are still “very reluctant to report them,” according to Reuters.
Optical illusions?
“In flight, whether in the air or in space, optical illusions abound,” says former astronaut Scott G. Kelly said.
While he was piloting an F-14 Tomcat, the flight attendant in the back seat thought he saw a “flying saucer.”
“When I turned to look at it, it was a balloon,” Kelly added.
Many documented clips of these events “seem interesting at first, but then mundane explanations emerge.”
A video recorded by a P-3 spy plane showed three spots moving “back and forth,” with planes about 40 miles away waiting to land at the airport.
But another “still unexplained” video, which showed a “silver ball” flying through the sky, was recorded by a drone while flying over the Middle East last year.
Experts “repeatedly” stressed that the data collected from nearly all unexplained incidents was of “low quality,” making it difficult to reach any conclusions about many of the incidents, The New York Times reported.
What then?
NASA will release a report on its task force by the end of July, making recommendations to the government, but “it will take time” to improve data collection to quickly solve mysterious phenomena.
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