NASA unveils UFO study team members

NASA kicked off an independent study to shed some light on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), often dubbed UFO (unidentified flying object) by the public.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected 16 individuals to participate in the study that is supposed to lay the foundation for future research of UAPs.

The team will focus on unclassified data, figuring out how commercial information gathered from government entities can be analyzed to learn more about events in the sky that can't be identified as aircraft movement.

"Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable explainable," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The team's findings will be released to the public in mid-2023.

NASA announced the study in June, saying it’s important to establish which events are natural and mitigate such phenomena to ensure the safety of aircraft. It also said there was no evidence UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin.

It's impossible to verify or explain any observation without access to an extensive data set.

"NASA has brought together some of the world's leading scientists, data and artificial intelligence practitioners, aerospace safety experts, all with a specific charge, which is to tell us how to apply the full focus of science and data to UAP," Daniel Evans, NASA's official responsible for orchestrating the study, said.