NASA’s UAP Study: What the Space Agency Actually Found
June 2022 – September 2023
For most of its history NASA kept its distance from UFOs, treating them as outside its scientific mission. That changed in June 2022, when the agency announced an independent study team to examine how unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, could be studied scientifically using civilian data.
The study was deliberately limited. It was not asked to investigate individual sightings or to decide whether aliens exist. Its task was to work out what data exist, what data are missing, and how NASA could help turn a subject dominated by anecdotes and grainy video into one that can be measured.
The team and its public meeting
The panel of 16 experts was chaired by astrophysicist David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation. Its members included scientists, aviation specialists, a science journalist and former astronaut Scott Kelly. It worked with unclassified information only.
On 31 May 2023 the team held a public meeting streamed online. Members described the difficulty of finding good data, and some spoke about online harassment they had received since joining the panel, which NASA said was concerning. AARO’s director at the time, Sean Kirkpatrick, also presented, showing examples of cases that had been resolved as balloons, drones or other ordinary objects.
What the September 2023 report said
The final report was released on 14 September 2023. Its central finding was that there was no conclusive evidence that any UAP had an extraterrestrial origin. At the same time, the panel stressed that it could not rule out unknown phenomena, because most reported sightings lack the data needed to assess them.
- The biggest obstacle is data quality: most observations are made by chance, with sensors not designed or calibrated to measure the objects seen.
- Many sightings can be explained once good information is available, typically as aircraft, balloons, drones, satellites or sensor artefacts.
- NASA should use its expertise in Earth observation, including commercial satellite imagery, to help detect and characterise events.
- Crowdsourced reporting through smartphone apps and citizen science could add useful data if it is systematic.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be needed to sift large datasets for rare anomalies.
- Stigma discourages pilots and others from reporting, and reducing it would improve the evidence base.
A director of UAP research
Alongside the report, NASA announced that it had appointed Mark McInerney as director of UAP research, to coordinate the agency’s work and link it with AARO and other parts of government. Then-administrator Bill Nelson said the goal was to move the subject from sensationalism to science. The role was framed as coordinating data and communications rather than running a large research programme.
NASA footage and older claims
Long before the study, videos filmed from NASA spacecraft circulated as supposed evidence of UFOs. The best known is footage from the space shuttle Discovery mission STS-48 in 1991, showing small lights that appear to change direction. NASA and many independent analysts have explained such clips as ice particles and debris near the spacecraft, lit by the Sun and moved by thruster firings, which look like distant objects when there is nothing to judge scale against.
Astronauts have occasionally described things they could not identify, but NASA’s position has been consistent that it has no evidence of alien spacecraft. The 2023 study did not change that position; it changed the tone, by treating the question of better data as a legitimate scientific problem.
Why the study matters
The NASA report disappointed people hoping for revelations, and it drew criticism from some UFO advocates who felt it ignored classified evidence. But it placed a major scientific agency on record saying that UAP deserve study, and that the way forward is better measurements, open data and less stigma. That is a different message from the Air Force’s Project Blue Book era, which largely treated reports as a public-relations problem.
Sources
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team Report — NASA, 2023
- Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena — Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2021
- Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume 1 — All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, U.S. Department of Defense, 2024
This article has been compiled from the sources listed but has not yet been independently checked against them. If you spot an error, tell us. Contact
