Nasa’s new expert UFO panel held its first public meeting yesterday, and it wants more data. An independent group assembled last year to study what are strictly known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) has about 800 reports to study. These have been gathered mainly from pilots and “only 2 to 5 per cent are considered ‘possibly really anomalous’,” the Times reports, citing Dr Sean Kirkpatrick of the Pentagon’s all-domain anomaly resolution office (AARO). Only? That’s up to 40 genuinely anomalous objects in the atmosphere – more than enough to keep alien visitation theories alive given, as yesterday’s meeting emphasised, the stigma commercial pilots feel about coming forward with reports. They fear ridicule and embarrassment, the panel’s chairman said. What aren’t they telling us?
Photograph NASA