Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: RAND

The results from a just-released RAND analysis of UAP point to three recommendations for government officials.

“First, we recommend that government authorities (e.g., local and state government officials, the FAA, and DoD) conduct outreach with civilians located near military operations areas (MOAs.) We hypothesize that many civilians may not be aware that they are located near areas where military operations occur,” the report explains.

“If our results are correct—that is, if being located within 30 km of a MOA is significantly associated with UAP reports, and if some of these reported objects are in fact authorized aircraft—then communicating that such activities are being conducted nearby could reduce the likelihood that the public will report these aircraft as UAPs.”

• “Second, we recommend that government authorities conduct additional outreach to notify nearby civilians when there is airspace activity near a MOA. According to the FAA, not all MOAs are in use by authorized aircraft. When appropriate, notifying local populations of MOA activities could reduce the number of reported UAPs that are in fact authorized aircraft.”
• “Finally, we recommend an evaluation to inform the design of a detailed and robust system for public reporting of UAP sightings. Such an evaluation would inform the use of various technologies (e.g., mobile devices, artificial intelligence), reports on location types (e.g., street intersections, landmarks, latitude and longitude coordinates), sighting features (e.g., images, audio recordings), criteria for validating these reports, and who is best equipped to independently manage such a reporting system (e.g., government agencies, for-profit companies, nonprofit organizations, international organizations). Such a system would be useful in minimizing hoaxes and reports of misidentified objects.”

Increase awareness

Image credit: RAND

This RAND report presents a geographic analysis of 101,151 public reports of UAP sightings in 12,783 U.S. Census Bureau census designated places.

This report provides findings on U.S. locations where UAP reports are significantly more likely to occur and offers recommendations to increase awareness of the types of activities that might be mistaken for unexplained phenomena or that point to potential threats.

The research reported here was completed in May 2023 and underwent security review with the sponsor and the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review before public release.

To access the report – “Not the X-Files: Mapping Public Reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Across America” – go to:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2475-1.html