Nasa is launching UFO research as part of a new push towards risky and influential science.
The space agency announced on Thursday that it would establish an independent team to identify the amount of publicly available information on this issue and the information needed to understand the unexplained sightings.
Experts will also consider how best to use all this information in the future.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s chief science mission, acknowledged that the traditional scientific community could consider Nasa “like sold out” by challenging controversial topics. He strongly opposes it.
“We are not avoiding the risk of reputation,” Zurbuchen said in a webcast at the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our strong belief is that the biggest challenge for these phenomena is that they are areas of poor data.”
Nasa sees this as the first step in trying to explain the mysterious sightings of the sky known as UAPs or unidentified flying objects.
The survey began later this year and lasts nine months, costing less than $ 100,000 (£ 80,000). Classified military data will not be used and will be completely open.
Nasa said the team will be headed by astrophysicist David Spergel, chairman of the Simons Foundation for advancing scientific research.
At a press conference, Spergel said the only prejudice into the study was that UAPs are likely to have multiple explanations.
“We need to be humble and tackle all these questions,” Spergel said.
“I spent most of my career as a cosmologist. I can say I don’t know what makes up 95% of the universe, so there are things we don’t understand.”
