The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. It has around 30,000 individual members from 91 different countries.

Our COI mission is to improve aviation safety by enhancing scientific knowledge, and mitigating barriers to, the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (#UAP). AIAA UAP Community of Interest.

https://twitter.com/AIAA_UAP

The goals of the COI are:
1. Serve as a neutral focal point enhancing activities that integrate aviation safety related UAP data and analysis into relevant scientific/engineering aspects of aviation development, design, and safety planning across the aviation/space systems.

2. Interact with appropriate AIAA Committees, government agencies, academic institutions and international researchers and organizations associated with the scientific/engineering study and understanding of UAP.

3. Engage with the scientific and engineering research community to assist with educating the Aerospace community relative to aerospace safety factors of UAP.

–> After a first successful 2021 technical session, The AIAA UAP Community Of Interest (COI), a newly formed group, will discuss the implications of growing political and technical interest in UAP at the AIAA 2022 AIAA AVIATION Forum 27 June–1 July 2022, in Chicago (USA).

“Improved instrumental techniques, including isotopic analysis, applicable to the characterization of unusual materials with potential relevance to aerospace forensics”
https://www.docdroid.net/IO2hKxr/1-s20-s0376042121000907-main-pdf

https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2021/12/defense-spending-bill-contains-most-significant-ufo-legislation-1960s/187440/

Some significant development as the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2022 would mandate the formal establishment of a federal office, organizational structure, and authorities to confront unidentified aerial phenomena, the Defense Department’s modern term for UFOs.
(Ref. pages 1491 onwards).

Some very interesting content, in particular how finally the scientific research’s angle is tackled:

” SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND OPERATIONAL ANALYSES OF DATA ON UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL 16 PHENOMENA.”:

…. The head of the Office established under subsection (a), on behalf of the Secretary and 5 the Director, shall supervise the development and execu tion of a science plan to develop and test, as practicable, scientific theories to—
(1) account for characteristics and performance of unidentified aerial phenomena that exceed the 10 known state of the art in science or technology, including in the areas of propulsion, aerodynamic control, signatures, structures, materials, sensors, countermeasures, weapons, electronics, and power generation; and
(2) provide the foundation for potential future investments to replicate any such advanced characteristics and performance.

An interesting statistical paper on UAP was published in 2015 on the arXiv.org  University site.  Michaël Vaillant, a CNES/GEIPAN collaborator and two other persons from the Toulouse School of Economics, issued a serious analysis on the French UAP cases from the GEIPAN database. It should be recalled that GEIPAN is still currently the only official organism in the world in charge of collecting and assessing the UAP testimonies, and in a spirit of transparency makes available on line its information and updated statistics. http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=196

In that respect, the latest available yearly statistics show a reduction of the number of testimonies reaching their center during the last years: http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/?id=198.

 
2014= 368 ; 2015= 394; 2016= 126; 2017 (beg. November)= 42 (unless delay in processing files).

It is interesting to read in this paper about a strong relationship with the sites of nuclear activities and contaminated land. This analysis covered a total 1969 UAP cases, covering the period 1951-2013, and at that time in 2015 some 381 observations were still classified non-identifiable, hence falling under the category D. Already at the time it was stressed that the level of UAP classified as UAP D had substantially decreased during the previous 10 years.

Link to the online paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.00571

“…We model the unidentified aerial phenomena observed in France during the last 60 years as a spatial point pattern. We use some public information such as population density, rate of moisture or presence of airports to model the intensity of the unidentified aerial phenomena. Spatial exploratory data analysis is a first approach to appreciate the link between the intensity of the unidentified aerial phenomena and the covariates. We then fit an inhomogeneous spatial Poisson process model with covariates. We find that the significant variables are the population density, the presence of the factories with a nuclear risk and contaminated land, and the rate of moisture. The analysis of the residuals shows that some parts of France (the Belgian border, the tip of Britany, some parts in the SouthEast , the Picardie and Haute-Normandie regions, the Loiret and Correze departments) present a high value of local intensity which are not explained by our model.”

With the 70th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s sighting over a formation of crescent-shaped UAPs and of the Roswell “UFO crash”, I thought that this was a good time for providing a new blog entry with some reflections and links to some interesting information:

– PERSPECTIVES:
UFO researchers Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Thomas E. Bullard have issued a joint paper about their thoughts about the status of Ufology: “The nature of UFO evidence: Two views”, can be accessed from: www.academia.edu, at this link:
https://www.academia.edu/33352049/THE_NATURE_OF_UFO_EVIDENCE_TWO_VIEWS .
Milton W. Hourcade, responsible of the Unusual Aerial Phenomena Study Group, has also described the UFO theme in perspective, providing some relevant contextual background and views based on his long experience. To be read here:
http://www.uapsg.com/2017/06/70-years-after-arnold-case-ufo-theme-in.html

– UAP & THE HISTORIANS:
     Greg Eghigian, Associate Professor of Modern History at Penn State University, has written last April an interesting article in which he rightly asks: Why have academic historians all but neglected this subject ? Surely a significant phenomenon this large should warrant our attention…
https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2017/04/ufos-and-the-historians/

Talking about historical documents and correctly describing the UAP events, I strongly recommend the website of Jan Aldrich, founder and coordinator of the following website: (http://www.project1947.com/), which represents a gold mine of relevant information. Still many information are still missing and all researchers hope that they will eventually surface one day, allowing to shed further light on UFO history. Jan Aldrich and Barry Greenwood have recently nominated their 10 most wanted articles which have yet to be recovered. Here is their list:
http://www.project1947.com/folio/index.htm
http://www.project1947.com/folio/folio.htm

– UAP CASES:
     Missing relevant information pertaining to interesting UAP cases do not only relate to the beginning of the modern UFO history (1940s-1950s). For example, Dr David Clarke, Research Fellow in Journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, has last month uncovered, within the release by Britain’s Ministry of Defence of 15 of its last remaining UFO files at the UK’s National Archives, details about of a stunning Cold War close encounter witnessed by the entire crew of a US Air Force spy-plane during 90 minutes. A film of the 280 SU radar pictures and the tape on which radio transmissions were recorded, were made available for a study. The details of this October 1982 incident can be found here:
https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2017/06/30/ufo-files-exclusive-cold-war-spyplane-incident/
Clearly there is a lot of information missing on this case, but it is interesting that this case was not known by anyone until 1 month ago. As usually done in such case, the interested researchers will need to submit official requests for attempting to recover any further information. (in that case through a FOIA towards USAFE (European section of the USAF), the AF Office of Intelligence, the Dept of Defense, and the Air Force Historical Center). 

– UAP & SCIENCE:
     It is obvious that the UAP field has principally relied on witness testimony for almost all of its data about UAP, and progress in understanding the phenomenon has therefore been stalled. To move forward, as in other areas of science, UAP studies require the collection of systematic, detailed physical data. Investigators have studied UAP in the field before, with the most prominent example being in Norway, at Hessdalen. A variety of scientific data have been recorded in the endeavors, but while quite valuable, this research has been sporadic due to a shortage of funding and a limited number of qualified and interested scientists and engineers. Witness testimony, photos and videos, and government documents have taken us only so far; instead, we need to record and study UFOs directly, as other sciences do with their own specific objects of interest. Of course, this is a daunting task, but it is made conceivable by advances in technology, software, communication capabilities, and power sources.
In that respect and after several years of preparation, the UFODATA team (with which I’m contributing) has taken this first step in creating a systematic science of UFO phenomena. (www.ufodata.net). 
The soon-coming new update note to its supporters on the UFODATA mailing list (and Facebook) will mostly cover the technical side of the project in 2017, focusing on the first developments in developing a prototype for a remote measuring station (RMS)—the working name for the UFODATA stations.

– RECENT INTERESTING BOOKS:
     Finally and in time for the summer, several new good books have appeared on the shelves during the last months. My personal preferences are for these three:
* The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs, by Mark O’Connell. (The biography of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who invented the concept of “Close Encounters” with alien life, inspired Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster classic science fiction epic film…);
* Unidentified: The National Intelligence Problem of UFOs, by Larry Hancock. (The book approaches the sightings of UFOs in the way an intelligence agency or military body would examine the information at hand. Is there a threat ? Are these reconnaissance flights ? What type of information could they be gathering ? This makes the reader consider the UFO issue from a completely different light…);
* UFOs: Reframing the Debate, by Robbie Graham. (This book represents a collection of original essays exploring alternative perspectives on UFOs and how we might more usefully study the phenomenon in the 21^st Century. Critical but constructive, this challenging volume represents a range of differing (even conflicting) alternative viewpoints on UFOs and related phenomena…).

The 2015 Canadian UFO Survey has now been published.

Since 1989, Ufology Research (formerly Ufology Research of Manitoba) has solicited UFO case data from known and active investigators and researchers in Canada. The goal has been to provide data for use by researchers trying to understand this controversial phenomenon. 2015 marked the 27th year of collecting and analysing Canadian UFO report data by Ufology Research. 

This good Canadian report gives a good picture about the latest status of sightings, which are not diminishing contrary to what some media state. Survey, Tables and charts at:
http://www.canadianuforeport.com/survey/essays

For the past couple of years, a small team of scientists and professionals (including myself), has been planning an innovative approach to the scientific study of UFOs.

Our goal is simple: to build a network of automated stations with a variety of scientific instruments to capture comprehensive, scientifically valid data on the UFO phenomenon. We have named the organization UFO Detection and TrAcking (UFODATA for short), and several members of our team are well known to the UFO community as pioneers in the study of UFOs in the field, including Erling Strand, Massimo Teodorani, and David Akers. The project was conceived by and is led by Mark Rodeghier, scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies, and Alexander Wendt, a political scientist at Ohio State University.

Our website (www.ufodata.net) contains details on the technology we plan to use in our stations, a listing of team members (including silent advisors who because of their position do not wish to be identified), an FAQ answering many common questions we anticipate about our plans, and an extensive set of resources on the scientific study of UFOs and what we currently know about the phenomenon.

It has become clear that any breakthrough in our understanding of the UFO phenomenon will require a break from the past. Witness testimony, photos and videos, and government documents have taken us only so far; instead, we need to record and study UFOs directly, as other sciences do with their own specific objects. Of course, this is a daunting task, but it is made conceivable by advances in technology, software, communication capabilities, and power sources.

Even though all of us are volunteers, the cost of hardware, programming, and infrastructure for the stations will be substantial. And that is where we plan to use another recent social innovation—crowdfunding—which has been used successfully for many types of projects, from commercial to scientific. UFODATA is incorporated as a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization to allow for fundraising, which we will do in at least two stages.

We are now beginning Phase One of the project with the launch of the UFODATA website and outreach efforts, including communications like this. We hope to raise sufficient funds in this phase via direct donation (www.ufodata.net/donate.html) to build a prototype station and develop necessary software and testing routines. We also, importantly, will be looking for technically-qualified volunteers in several areas, listed on the Volunteer page on the website.

We believe that the current scientific, technical, and social environment is primed to support such an endeavor as UFODATA. We expect to build on the best work of the past and do what the scientific community as a whole has failed to do: take UFOs seriously and study them rigorously.

If you would like to contact us directly for additional information, you can email the team at admin@ufodata.net and we’ll respond to your note as soon as possible.

A recent serious article about the interest of performing some scientific investigation:

https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/blog/scientific-investigation-unidentified-anomalous-phenomana

About 5% of the reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — or so-called UFOs — can’t be explained and should be thoroughly investigated by mainstream scientists according to Etienne Caron (Canada). Together with Massimo Teodorani, astrophysicist at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), he tells us why, how and where mainstream scientists can play an active role in understanding the anomaly. In essence, they are not saying that UAP/UFOs are carrying intelligent beings from outer space, but do recognise the importance of monitoring the events in a more rigorous and deterministic way. 

The so-called ‘UFOs’ have been widely reported around the world and even throughout human history (1-4). The anomaly appears to be transient and unpredictable, iridescent and hypnotic, liquid and floating, harmonic and ethereal, symmetric and asymmetric (5). When such reports are not fakes, hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural and/or manmade phenomena, they come from witnesses whose emotional state often alters what really happened (6).

In contrast, measurement sensors are able to record the phenomenon with a high level of accuracy and reproducibility. Interestingly, the phenomenon has been frequently observed in specific locations in the world (Figure 1) and high-speed photometry could have been used for instance to monitor the phenomenon.

Among these sites, Hessdalen in Norway is particularly interesting as the phenomenon has been reported very frequently, with about 20 observations per month in the 1980s. Hessdalen is now equipped with various instruments, continuously recording data within an automated station (7). The recorded data can be plotted on a graph to illustrate the variation of physical parameters as a function of time (Figure 2). Subsequently, an equation can be derived to describe the trend of the acquired data and finally deduce a physical law. This is a simplified example of the scientific method currently used in Hessdalen to describe the UAP in a rigorous scientific manner. Thus, Hessdalen is a good example of how it is feasible to set up proper instrumentations for the scientific investigation of UAP.

UAP/UFOs could turn out to be anything: fakes and hoaxes, unknown natural phenomena, secret human technology or even visitation from exo-intelligence (8). Physical science can provide all the necessary means to identify the nature of the observed phenomena and to understand quantitatively the physical mechanism characterising it. Again, identifying strategic sites and adopting the appropriate measurement instruments is crucial to enabling mainstream scientists to acquire such data. For instance, it is possible to use high-quality, high-sensitivity and all-sky video cameras, high-speed recordings, low and high-resolution optical spectrographs, thermal imaging cameras, magnetometers, VLF/ ELF and microwave spectrometers, radars, LIDARs, electrostatic particle detectors and gravimeters. Some of these instruments have been already used to monitor UAP, but funding is needed to equip additional scientific stations on various pre-defined strategic sites (9).

This research is still in a very early stage and no university has taken yet a serious interest in researching UAP. In our opinion, funding agencies and universities should encourage such research because the phenomenon presents the type of anomaly that could lead to scientific breakthroughs and ultimately, the development of innovative technologies.

Acknowledgment

We thank Giancarlo Sportelli, member of the MCAA, for commenting on this article.

References

1. Shapley D. UFOs just will not go away. Science (1977) 198:1128.
2. Sturrock PA et al., Physical evidence related to UFO reports. Journal of Scientific Exploration (1998) 12:179-229.
3. Kestenbaum D. Panel says some UFO reports worthy of study. Science (1998) 281:21.
4. Appelle S. UFOs and the scientific method. Science (1998) 281:919.
5. Teodorani M. A long-term scientific survey of the Hessdalen phenomenon. Journal of Scientific Exploration (2004) 18:217-251.
6. Boffey PM. UFO Study: Condon group finds no evidence of visits from outer space. Science (1967) 163:260-262.
7. Project Hessdalen (website by Erling Petter Strand): http://www.hessdalen.org/index_e.shtml
8. Teodorani, M. Search for high-proper motion objects with infrared excess. Acta Astronautica (2014) 105:547–552.
9. Teodorani M. Instrumented Monitoring of Aerial Anomalies. CAIPAN 2014 Workshop. CNES
   GEIPAN, 2014. http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fileadmin/documents/24_TEODORANI_full.pdf

Exciting news. Next week on July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, after a very long journey of nearly a decade, will fly past Pluto and become the first spacecraft to make a close approach to this body (who was until recently classified as the ninth planet of our solar system). On the arrival date, this will be the 50th anniversary of the first spacecraft arrival of planet Mars, Mariner 4.

New Horizons carries on board the ashes of the man who discovered the dwarf planet, Clyde Tombaugh. When he passed away in 1997, he specifically requested his ashes go to space. NASA decided to honor him and to to put his remains on the spacecraft. This is bringing Tombaugh closer to the space body that he discovered in 1930.

Besides his discovery, Clyde Tombaugh is also famous within the Ufological community because he was one of the first astronomers pushing for research into UFO’s (unidentified flying objects) and also because he had observed UFO at different times.

The below link points to the essay from Michael D. Swords, “Clyde Tombaugh, Mars, and UFOs”, (p 128-137). Published in 1999 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, it provides today a good relevant Ufological reference to the exiting news that we are about to hear from the far side of the solar system.

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/volume-13-number-4-1999

D. J. Eicher wrote an article in the March 2015 issue of Astronomy Magazine entitled “Let’s cut the UFO crap”.  The title and footnote of this article are offensive and inaccurate.  Answering Mr. Eicher’s letter is necessary, and perhaps will contribute to a constructive debate.
 

Similar to scientists and skeptics who dismiss and disparage the UFO topic, Mr. Eicher appears to be unaware of how complex and extensive the UFO phenomenon is, and seems to confuse the issue of extra-terrestrial intelligence with the issue of UFOs.  Considering Mr. Eicher’s opinion, please also consider this quote from Stanford University Astrophysicist Emeritus Professor Dr. Peter Sturrock’s research: “One also finds that opinions (of members of the AAS – astronomer scientists) correlate strongly with time spent reading about the subject. The fraction of respondents who think that the subject certainly or probably deserves scientific study rises from 29%, among those who have spent less than one hour, to 68% among those who have spent more than 365 hours in such reading.” Perhaps Mr. Eicher should find himself among those who spend more time studying the relevant material before making sweeping statements as in his March 2015 column.

For example, Mr. Eicher is inaccurate when he writes: “…the claims of a businessman who said he spotted nine shiny ”flying saucers” moving at high velocities”. In fact, the witness told the reporters that he had observed during a trip in his own plane a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft, flying in formation in two lines, and moving “like a saucer would do if you skipped it across the water”.  It was the reporters who in their Associated Press dispatch erroneously transformed the description of the movement of the objects into a description of their shape, “saucer-like”.

Science does not require lock-step compliance with popular opinion. There isn’t anything in the principles of scientific endeavor that describes what one may or may not study.  Mr. Eicher indicated “People see things in the sky they often don’t understand. That’s the conclusion.” For most scientists, a conclusion that states “something happened and I do not understand it” is hardly the point at which scientific inquiry should end. The nature of science is to study what we do not understand.

Despite the cosmic distance scale, it is not unscientific to consider the hypothesis that aliens have visited the planet versus the null hypothesis which states that they have not. The possibility of visitors operating spaceships in the form of UFOs is just one of several hypotheses to explain the UFO phenomenon.

There are well-documented observations made by many different trained, experienced observers that do warrant further study which, unfortunately, he has recommended against. The scientific problem with these reports is they often are not corroborated by instrument readings, and they cannot be replicated. These are problems to address, and are quite different from the problem that is stated in Mr. Eicher’s article.

Mr. Eicher’s article is puzzling, as its premises are not logically connected to the conclusion that the universe is big, Earth is special, and we should take care of it and our fellow human beings. It is not clear what these insights have to do with scientific study to understand aerial anomalies. Certainly psychologists could argue from sound evidence that if you really want to take care of other human beings, the first and most important step is to not exaggerate differences, deride open-minded curiosity, and demonize anyone who chooses to study that which you choose to discredit. Polemical arguments like the statement in the caption that ends the letter, and the article’s offensive title, are examples of what not to do. There are good scientific reasons to be skeptical about anomalous events in the sky, and even more reason to doubt alien visitation. However, those rational arguments do not justify demeaning and dismissing those who are inclined to study the possibility of alien visitation.

Unknown phenomena happening in the sky above is a call to scientific inquiry. That’s how we learn. Serious ufologists recognize the importance of monitoring unidentified anomalous phenomena in a rigorous and deterministic way.  This is the reason new projects for networks of automatic stations for UFO monitoring are currently being defined. Identifying strategic sites and deploying appropriate instruments are crucial activities to enable mainstream scientists to acquire relevant data. Is it unscientific to collect data? We will keep Mr. Eicher informed about such coming endeavours.