Scientists think UFOs deserve scientific investigation

**This text is copied from my article on Medium. Therefore, most of the links will not open in a new window.** /Janne 

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In an opinion piece in Scientific American, two scientists write that UFOs are a scientifically interesting problem and deserve objective scientific analysis.

The two scientists and authors of the article in Scientific American, Ravi Kopparapu, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, an astrobiologist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, suggest that interdisciplinary teams of scientists should study UFOs, or UAP (UAP, referring to “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon”, is the preferred term by the U.S. Department of Defense).

Why should scientists spend their time and energy, and risk their reputation, on studying UFOs, according to the authors? Their answer in the article published on July 27, 2020, is partly based on the released videos by the Department of Defense (DoD) showing UFOs/UAP, the recent confirmation by the DoD that the videos are in fact genuine, and that the flying objects are still classified as “unidentified”, or “unexplained.”

But the authors' main answer to the question of why study the UFO phenomenon is also the most pertinent one:

Because we are scientists. Curiosity is the reason we became scientists.

In the past, there have been curious scientists who have tried to make politicians and the public aware of the evidence for the physical and technological aspects of the UFO phenomenon. The authors are in the article referring to, for instance, the symposium sponsored “by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1969 with participation by scholars such as Carl Sagan, J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Robert Hall and Robert Baker.”

In a later paragraph in the article, there is a link to James McDonald´s paper “Science in Default” (see in the quote below), which he presented for the symposium sponsored by the AAAS in 1969. Unfortunately, the link is not working. Neither is the link to the same paper in my article from 2018 on McDonald. But for the interested, you can listen to McDonald´s presentation of his paper “Science in Default” for the AAAS sponsored symposium in 1969, on the following link: https://youtu.be/C2Al9uCpGfQ

The authors and scientists, Mr. Kopparapu and Mr. Haqq-Misra are even suggesting that James McDonald´s paper “Science in Default” can be used as a template for a scientific approach to study UFOs:

A template to perform a thorough scientific investigation can be found in James McDonald’s paper “Science in Default.” While he entertains the conclusion that these events could be extraterrestrials (which we do not subscribe to), McDonald’s methodology itself is a great example of objective scientific analysis. And this is exactly what we as scientists can do to study these events.

The following is important: No one knows who or what is behind UFOs/UAP. No one seriously interested in the truth of the UFO phenomenon should claim with certainty that UFOs/UAP are extraterrestrial. Some UFOs might be, but the crucial point to remember is that, at this moment in time, we do not know what UFOs are.

UFO simply means “unidentified flying object.” UAP simply means “unidentified aerial phenomenon.” Nothing less, nothing more.

Another scientist (not mentioned in the article in Scientific American) curious about the UFO phenomenon, was Linus Pauling. Pauling won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. Even though I am not sure how much time and effort Pauling spent on his interest in UFOs, he seemed to have at least during a period of his life given the UFO subject some serious consideration. What we do know is that Linus Pauling in 1966 wrote “a project proposal outlining a program of research on unidentified flying objects.”

The first page of Pauling´s UFO project proposal from 1966. Source.

Unfortunately, the UFO phenomenon is such a stigmatized subject to study in the scientific community. I can understand why a scientist does not openly want to admit his or her interest in UFOs/UAP. Especially the term UFO comes with pop-cultural baggage such as “little green men” and “conspiracy theory.” But during the last two or three years, the social stigma has been somewhat reduced. The tide is slowly changing.

The most recent example of that change is that The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has in its Intelligence Act for 2021 directed relevant parts of the U.S. Armed Forces and intelligence agencies to produce a public report/assessment on the UFO issue. I have written about it here. The man who is the reason for the UFO issue making it into the Intelligence Act is Mr. Christopher Mellon, the former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and later for Security and Information Operations.

Another example of the tidal change is what professor in theoretical physics, Michio Kaku, said on Fox News in 2019. Among other things, prof. Kaku stated that because of the DoD´s confirmation of the three UFO videos as genuine, “the burden of proof has now shifted from UFO believers to the US Government and the US Military.” You can see and listen to the 2-minute segment with prof. Kaku in the video below. Uploaded on YouTube channel Unidentified Aerial Phenomena on 21 September 2019.

It seems like the scientists and authors of the article in Scientific American agrees with professor Kaku when he in the interview above says that the three UFO videos constitute measurable, testable data that can be replicated and is falsifiable. In other words, scientists now have valid reasons to study UFOs/UAP. The authors are, however, aware that a serious study of UFOs/UAP is going to take more than a few courageous scientists:

A systematic investigation is essential in order to bring the phenomena into mainstream science. First, collection of hard data is paramount to establishing any credibility to the explanation of the phenomena. A rigorous scientific analysis is sorely needed, by multiple independent study groups, just as we do for evaluating other scientific discoveries. We, as scientists, cannot hastily dismiss any phenomenon without in-depth examination and then conclude the event itself is unscientific.

The last sentence is exactly the problem and the challenge. How get the scientific community to perceive the UFO phenomenon as any other phenomenon worth studying? The authors partly give an answer to that question in the article. But for now, my personal opinion is that the UFO phenomenon is rapidly gaining in status and importance in the U.S. Congress, and it is only a matter of time before the scientific community will pick up on that.

The tide is changing. Indeed, past attempts at legitimizing studies of UFOs have not been successful. But heroes back then like J Allen Hynek, James McDonald, and others did not have the data on UFOs/UAP as we have today. Neither did they have lawmakers as open on the UFO issue as Senators like Marco Rubio, Mark Warner, and former Senate leader Harry Reid. 

It is becoming increasingly difficult, from a scientific perspective, to argue that there is nothing to the UFO phenomenon.

If for no other reason, science now has an opportunity to show its true face. What is science all about? How should science intellectually and methodologically approach “Terra incognito?” The two scientists and authors write in the last paragraph:

As Sagan concluded at the 1969 debate, “scientists are particularly bound to have open minds; this is the lifeblood of science.” We do not know what UAP are, and this is precisely the reason that we as scientists should study them.

I can assure Mr. Kopparapu and Mr. Haqq-Misra, that the U.S. Government requires their curiosity, courage, knowledge and skills in the quest for the truth of the UFO phenomenon. I hope scientists like Mr. Kopparapu and Mr. Haqq-Misra will get support from the U.S. Government to create interdisciplinary teams of scientists to seriously study the UFO phenomenon.

Such collaboration and coordination between the scientific community, the U.S. Government, and the U.S. Military on the UFO issue may take us closer to clearer answers to some of the questions surrounding and obscuring the nature of UFOs/UAP.

Take care!

/Janne