What to make of all the UFO sightings?

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s…well, we’re actually not quite sure, so Happy World UFO Day!

Today is one of two UFO holidays commemorating the crash and recovery of an unidentified flying object in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 during a frenzy of mysterious aerial disc sightings. The strange happenings spawned speculation that the government was covering up an alien visit to the town, and some diehard believers refused to drop the idea of little green men even after the Air Force admitted decades later that the “UFOs” were actually its spycraft.

But in recent years, the UFO conversation has moved beyond dubious claims made by the usual suspects. The Pentagon recently said it is studying 800 instances of military and civilian pilots encountering unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), a term used to describe any unexplained airborne specimen.

Then, last month, former military intelligence official David Grusch came forward with claims that the government has kept lawmakers and the public in the dark about its UAP retrieval program. While Grusch hasn’t talked about witnessing any alien spacecraft himself, he says his work on the ​​Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force gave him access to intel suggesting that:

• The military possesses “intact and partially intact” aircraft of “nonhuman origin,” as well as the remains of extraterrestrial beings.
• UFO crashes are a global phenomenon, and the US government once received a craft from Italy’s Benito Mussolini with the help of Pope Pius XII.

The Pentagon has denied it, but reportedly there have been other insiders who’ve made similar claims, and some of Grusch’s former colleagues vouched that his credibility was out of this world.

Grusch has filed a formal whistleblower complaint and submitted some of the classified material to Congress (though he has yet to provide proof to the public). Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee plan to hold a hearing on the revelations soon.

Not everyone is buying Grusch’s disclosures, but the idea that the truth is out there has some takers on Capitol Hill.

• Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio told Newsweek he’s treating the claims seriously since they come from people with “high clearances and high positions within our government.”
• “I just believe it in my heart,” Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said of the possibility that the US has found extraterrestrial aircraft. He says his views on the matter are based on conversations he’s had with military pilots.
• Attending a classified military briefing in March brought Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz to a similar conclusion. He said he’d seen evidence of craft that he’s not familiar with the US, its allies, or adversaries possessing.

Not many scientists are willing to confirm (or debunk) claims that we’ve received visitors from other planets, with most agreeing that more research is needed to find an answer.

Some are plowing ahead with that research. One controversial Harvard astrophysicist started an observatory dedicated to using state-of-the-art tech to spot potential extraterrestrial spacecraft. Others are coming up with a system to study UAPs in a scientifically sound way. 

Last fall, NASA put together an interdisciplinary team of 16 scientists to develop a roadmap for UAP studies going forward, which they’ll present to the agency this month.

When asked by Morning Brew what’s missing from the way claims of UAPs are currently investigated, one of the NASA team members, oceanographer Paula Bontempi, quoted Carl Sagan in response: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

The group thinks eyewitness accounts aren’t reliable, and it’s busy developing rigorous methods to evaluate strangeness in the skies. This could involve using crowdsourced data from citizen scientists.

Bontempi said it’s important to combat the stigma associated with talking about UAPs by creating a reporting process that doesn’t make people fear becoming a laughing stock.

What the NASA group can say for now…is that there’s no better way to tackle UAP mysteries than with the scientific method. Another pro tip from the team: Don’t alienate anyone by jumping to premature conclusions.—SK