By 
September 15th, 2023
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson provides remarks during a media briefing to discuss the findings from an unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) independent study team. Image credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
NASA’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Independent Study Team published on September 14 its final report containing a series of recommendations for how the agency could help to move the understanding of UAP forward.
Reaction to the study’s release has sparked several groups to review the findings and offer viewpoints.
Scientific openness
For one, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) wholly endorses NASA’s decision to follow their study team’s recommendation and embrace the scientific questions surrounding the nature of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and appoint a NASA Director of UAP Research.
Image credit: SCU
“NASA is the right U.S. agency to lead this effort,” the SCU said in a press statement. However, the group flags NASA’s avenue to contribute to UAP studies via the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
“NASA is our premier aerospace organization with the necessary capabilities to address the UAP question with scientific openness. NASA should lead the entire UAP science endeavor over the long term, not AARO,” said the SCU. “AARO is tied to national defense organizations and is driven by the needs of our defense industry, which necessarily cannot promote scientific openness.”
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
Independent lead
NASA’s UAP program should be funded, the SCU statement continues, to support academic research within our nation’s universities and scientific organizations to further the study of UAP. “This necessitates funding and guidance directly from Congress, not via AARO.”
While SCU acknowledges that AARO is necessary to investigate the defense-related aspects of UAP, the group “strongly recommends” that Congress provide the necessary funding and resources to allow NASA to independently lead U.S. UAP scientific research programs.
Historic development
In a statement from Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA), this group saluted NASA for listening to pilots about UAP and committed to a serious research and data collection effort to identify what is in our skies.
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
Ryan Graves, co-founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace and a former Lt. U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter pilot who was the first active duty military pilot to come forward about UAP and recently testified to U.S. Congress called NASA’s report “a historic development in UAP transparency.”
“It’s clear that NASA values pilot reports to study UAP as an aerospace safety, national security, and scientific issue. NASA is leading the charge to solve the mystery in our skies by following the data and eliminating stigma,” Graves said in a statement.
Confidential…voluntary…non-punitive
Graves said that NASA’s recommendation to adapt the space agency’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) to receive UAP reports from commercial pilots “is significant progress and will enable widespread UAP data collection for the first time in U.S. history.”
Image credit: Statista
According to the ASRS website, the system is founded on a “confidential…voluntary…non-punitive” standard.
The majority of UAP witnessed by commercial and military pilots go unreported, explains the statement from Americans for Safe Aerospace. “Stigma and the lack of official reporting channels for commercial pilots remain a barrier to assessing and evaluating UAP.”
Americans for Safe Aerospace launched an aircrew and military UAP witness program earlier this year.
Graves along with the ASA team has met with dozens of pilots who have confidentially shared their accounts of UAP activity routinely sighted during their flight routes.
To access the video of NASA’s press event in releasing the UAP study, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoY2sGo7ZiY
The complete UAP report from the independent study group is available at:
Posted in Space News
