Nasa UFO report: Scientists reveal first-ever report on unidentified anomalous phenomena

Nasa has released the first findings from its report into unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UFOs.

The US space agency commissioned the study in response to a variety of reports of what appear to be unexplained and unknown craft, reported by US pilots and others.

It said that unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, are defined as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective”. It noted that there are very few high-quality observations of the phenomena, which makes them difficult to understand scientifically.

The first report found “there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source”, however Nasa chief Bill Nelson said he personally believes aliens are out there.

“There is a global fascination with UAPs,” he said. “Much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it.”

A media briefing on the report was live streamed from Nasa’s official YouTube channel.

Key Points

• Nasa says mysterious sightings cannot yet be explained

• Nasa chief says he believes aliens are out there

• Nasa appoints new UAP research director - but won’t name them

• How to read the full report

Hello and welcome...

09:41 , Andrew Griffin

... to The Independent’s live coverage of today’s UAP hearings at Nasa.

How to watch briefing

10:06 , Andrew Griffin

Nasa will be live streaming its panel today, on its own channels. They can be found on Nasa TV and the mobile app, as well as Nasa’s devoted live page.

It starts at 10am local pacific time.

Who will appear at briefing?

10:07 , Andrew Griffin

The panel has a high-profile line-up – which includes Bill Nelson, the Nasa chief. Here’s the full rundown on who will appear today, from Nasa:

• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

• Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington

• Dan Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

• David Spergel, president, Simons Foundation and chair of NASA’s UAP independent study team

Panel arrives at busy time for alien hearings

10:11 , Andrew Griffin

Nasa’s panel will be held amid the buzz created by hearings at Mexico’s Congress in which a journalist showed what he claimed were mummified alien corpses. Scientists have roundly rejected the claims.

We probably won’t get any of that from Nasa today. Their hearing is expected to be a much more subdued, scientific and forward-looking affair.

Las Vegas family releases drawings ‘UFOs’ they say landed in the backyard

12:14 , Andrew Griffin

The US is very into UFOs at the moment – partly because of more legitimate and scientific investigations like Nasa’s project on unidentified aerial phenomena, but partly because of more speculative things.

Here’s a fun example of the latter. A Las Vegas family claims they have seen UFOs land in their backyard – and have released drawings of them.

Full story here.

Nasa previously condemned ‘abuse'

12:33 , Andrew Griffin

Nasa has held public meetings about UAPs before. In summer, the group behind the upcoming report held a public briefing about what they had found so far.

For the most part, those involved stressed that they had been receiving sustained abuse, and that it had been making their work difficult.

“Harassment only leads to further stigmatisation of the UAP field, significantly hindering the scientific progress and discouraging others to study this important subject matter,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate said then.

Here’s the full story from that meeting.

What are UAPs? And how are they different from UFOs?

13:05 , Andrew Griffin

Nasa has taken to calling unexplained objects in the sky “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”, or UAPs, rather than UFOs. It says that it does so to be consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act, though the initialism has been more generally adopted because it avoids much of the difficult baggage of unidentified flying object, or UFO.

It defines them as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective”.

You can find out much more on Nasa’s “UAP FAQs” page, here.

UFO hearings come amid ‘non-human’ corpses controversy

13:33 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Today’s hearings come in the same week that alleged “non-human” alien corpses were displayed to Mexican politicians at the country’s Congress.

A controversial sports journlist turned UFO enthusiast claimed the two small ‘corpses’ were retrieved from Cusco, Peru. They were presented in windowed boxes in Mexico City yesterday, stirring excitement within the UFO conspiracy theorist community.

Jaime Maussan, the self-proclaimed UFO expert who presented the curiosities, swore under oath that they were no part of “our terrestrial evolution”. Such claims have not been proven and Mr Maussan has previously been associated with claims of discoveries that have later been debunked.

You can read more about them here.

What has Nasa said about it UFO report?

14:02 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Nasa fist announced this hearing on Tuesday, releasing a media advisory that stated it planned to discuss the results of an independent study commissioned in 2022.

The report aims to inform the US space agency on what possible data could be collected in the future to shed light on the nature and origin of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) - more commonly known as UFOs.

“Nasa defines UAP as observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective,” the advisory stated. “There are currently a limited number of high-quality observations of UAP, which make it impossible to draw firm scientific conclusions about their nature.”

Nasa chief Bill Nelson says UAPs are not necessarily evidence of alien intelligence

14:13 , Anthony Cuthbertson

This will not be the first time Nasa chief Bill Nelson has spoken publicly about aliens. In 2021 he was doing the media rounds following another report on unidentified anomolous phenomena (UAPs), revealing that there were things that could not be explained but no actual direct evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

“We have a program in Nasa called The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) but thus far we don’t have any receipt of communication from something that’s intelligence,” he told CNN.

You can watch the whole interview here:

Nasa UFO hearing - how to watch along

14:23 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Nasa is conveniently providing a live stream of today’s hearing on its official YouTube channel.

The hearing is set to begin at 10am EDT (3pm BST), with the full report published 30 minutes beforehand.

You can watch along here:

Beachgoers prompt report on ‘cosmic event’

14:29 , Anthony Cuthbertson

While we’re on the subject of mysterious phenomena, Virgin Media News in Ireland has reported on a strange “cosmic event” on a beach just north of Dublin.

It was discovered by a dogwalker but it turns out it was just a hole dug by beachgoers.

Nasa releases long-awaited UAP report

14:34 , Anthony Cuthbertson

As promised, Nasa has released the full report 30 minutes ahead of the hearings getting underway.

You can find it here.

Nasa says mysterious sightings cannot yet be explained

14:46 , Anthony Cuthbertson

We cannot yet explain mysterious sightings in the sky, Nasa panel says

UAP report urges Nasa to be more proactive in hunting UFOs

14:55 , Anthony Cuthbertson

The report concludes that Nasa needs to use more sophisticated data analysis techniques, including AI and machine learning, in order to be more robust and systematic when searching for UAPs.

Nasa UAP report

Nasa UAP report hearing about to get underway

15:01 , Anthony Cuthbertson

The hearing to discuss this report is about to start.

Here’s a reminder of who will be there:

• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

• Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington

• Dan Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

• David Spergel, president, Simons Foundation and chair of NASA’s UAP independent study team

And we’re underway!

15:04 , Anthony Cuthbertson

We’re starting with some opening remarks, starting with Nasa chief Bill Nelson.

“We are looking for signs of life, past and present,” he says. “And it’s in our DNA to explore and ask why things are the way they are.”

Nasa chief says there is ‘global fascination’ with UAPs

15:08 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Nasa chief Bill Nelson says he is asked about UAP wherever he goes in the world.

“There is a global fascination with UAPs,” he says. “Much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it. Think about it: most UAP sightings result in very limited data. That makes it even more difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of UAP.”

Nasa chief says he believes there is alien life out there

15:16 , Anthony Cuthbertson

The Nasa chief is carrying on with his opening remarks, saying that he believes aliens are out there.

“Nasa has a statuatory authority to look for life in the universe,” Bill Nelson continues.

“With the James Webb [telescope] looking at the exoplanets, we are now beginning to discover, and somewhere out there we will discover, another medium-sized stony planet around a medium-sized sun or star at just the right distance... that has carbon, that will have a habitable atmosphere.

“If you ask me do I believe there’s life in a universe that is so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is yes. But I asked some of our scientists: What is the mathematical probability that there is life out there in the universe? And if you calculate in billions of stars in billions of galaxies that there’s replicated in what I just said, another stony planet, the answer was ‘at least a trillion’. That’s from our scientists.”

Nasa appoints director of UAP research

15:25 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Bill Nelson says Nasa has appointed a director for UAP research, a brand new post for the US space agency.

“The top takeaway from the study is that there’s a lot more to learn,” he says, adding that the study did not find any evidence of any UAP having an extraterrestrial origin.

“But we don’t know what these UAP are. That’s why I’m announcing that Nasa has appointed a Nasa director of UAP research. They are being tasked with developing and overseeing the implementation of Nasa’s vision for UAP research.”

Nasa won’t name new UAP research director

15:42 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Nasa is keeping the name of its new UAP research director a secret.

The reason for not telling us, apparently, is fears about online harassment.

“Some of the threats have been beyond the pale, quite frankly, towards some of our panelists.”

The new role is aimed at “developing and the implementation of Nasa’s vision for UAP research,” Bill Nelson said.

“We will use Nasa’s expertise to work with agencies to analyse UAP.”

Nasa panel urges Mexico to make ‘alien corpse’ samples available for study

16:06 , Anthony Cuthbertson

The panel comments on the peculiar unveiling of ‘alien corpses’ at Mexico’s congress yesterday, which were presented by a controversial UFO enthusiast.

David Spergel, who chaired the latest UAP study, urged the Mexican government to make the samples available for scientific study. “We don’t know the nature of those samples,” he said.

Dan Evans, an assistant deputy associate administrator, added: “One of the main things we’re trying to do here today is to move conjecture and conspiracy towards science and sanity and you do that with data.”

You can read more about those ‘aliens’ here.

Nasa’s UAP report briefing comes to a close

16:19 , Anthony Cuthbertson

That’s it from Nasa’s panel.

Here’s a round-up of the main things we learned today:

• Nasa says more needs to be done to explain mysterious sightings in the sky

• There is no evidence that any UAP sightings so far have been extraterrestrial

• Nasa chief Bill Nelson believes in aliens

• Nasa has appointed a new director of research for UAPs, but won’t name them due to the risk of harrassment