NASA just had a meeting following its months of study about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). A former astronaut weighed in on the issue and supported the study.
UAP Sightings Increase, So People Should Report Them
According to the "2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" produced by the Pentagon's Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the government is paying more attention to UAP reports, and sightings of unexplained objects or craft appear to be fast increasing. The paper states that 366 UAP complaints, many of which came from U.S. military personnel, were submitted to the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022 alone.
Scott Kelly, a former astronaut, believes that the topic's stigmatization, particularly in the military, contributed to the apparent increase in UAP sightings. According to him, when he was flying fighter jets in the Navy, if a pilot reported seeing a UFO upon returning to their carrier, "alien" would become their new call sign, Space.com wrote.
The reporting of unexplained or inexplicable phenomena or objects that pilots in the U.S. armed forces may observe in the air or on the water is now codified, and this is a vast improvement over the situation of the past. And since there are problems, Kelly believed individuals should report what they observe. He clarified that he's not questioning their honesty in the least.
However, Kelly ultimately thinks that any explanation for inexplicable events in the air should be founded mostly on verifiable data. Kelly said he lives in a world of science, facts, and data. Furthermore, the strongest unclassified cases that they have do not have data. However, he was inclined to believe that the interesting tales were true, but he couldn't do so unless there were a real piece of evidence.
The former astronaut asserted that without solid evidence, many pilots' observations are more likely to be explained by less exotic things like balloons or drones. He added that they know that there are 800,000 registered drones in the US.
There must be more drones than legally registered, but he wasn't sure how many. He added that he also has an unregistered drone on his property to inspect his solar panels after hailstorms.
UAP Sightings Reported
In recent years, there have been numerous reports of UAP sightings. NASA had a conference Wednesday to discuss their UAP study and the data they have gathered in the past months.
Kelly cited an instance from his time as a NASA space shuttle pilot. Ice fragments would separate from the shuttle during the first several days in orbit and float close. It could be two feet in front of them or 50 miles away. They can't tell because they have no reference unless they know specifically what something was. He added that often, it's difficult to tell because they're all different shapes, and the distance is hard to estimate.
Another illustration Kelly cited was a video that was depicted in the 2017 New York Times article "GIMBAL," which described an incident between a U.S. A Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter plane and an unidentified object that appeared to rotate while hovering stationary in U.S. military airspace. However, Kelly doesn't think the video exhibits any strange behavior.
A second video, dubbed "GOFAST," that was published by the Washington Post in 2018, just a few months after the New York Times revelation, purportedly shows a recording made by a F/A-18's sensors of an object that appears to soar over the ocean at a breathtaking speed.
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