An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UAPs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
Ufology is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins. While there are instances of government, private, and fringe science investigations of UFOs, ufology is generally regarded by skeptics and science educators as an example of pseudoscience.
The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by extraterrestrial intelligence or non-human aliens, or non-occupied alien probes from other planets visiting Earth.
Black triangles are UFOs reported as having a triangular shape and dark color, typically observed at night, described as large, silent, hovering, moving slowly, and displaying pulsating, colored lights which they are able to turn off.
Jacques Fabrice Vallée is an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California and Paris, France.
David Nathaniel Spergel is an American theoretical astrophysicist and the Emeritus Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation at Princeton University. Since 2021, he has been the President of the Simons Foundation. He is known for his work on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project. In 2022, Spergel accepted the chair of NASA's UAP independent study team.
Project Condign was a secret unidentified flying object (UFO) study undertaken by the British Government's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) between 1997 and 2000.
Entropy is a monthly open access scientific journal covering research on all aspects of entropy and information theory. It was established in 1999 and is published by MDPI. The journal occasionally publishes special issues compiled by guest editors. The editor-in-chief is Kevin H. Knuth.
Timothy Cole Gallaudet is an American oceanographer and retired Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. Gallaudet worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce as the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As of 2024 he is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC., and hosts The American Blue Economy Podcast.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was an unclassified but unpublicized investigatory effort funded by the United States Government to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). The program was first made public on December 16, 2017. The program began in 2007, with funding of $22 million over the five years until the available appropriations were ended in 2012. The program began in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Pentagon UFO videos are selected visual recordings of FLIR targeting from United States Navy fighter jets based aboard aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015, with additional footage taken by other Navy personnel in 2019. The four grainy, monochromic videos, widely characterized as officially documenting UFOs, have received extensive coverage in the media since 2017. The Pentagon later addressed and officially released the first three videos of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in 2020, and confirmed the provenance of the leaked 2019 videos in two statements made in 2021. Footage of UAPs was also released in 2023, sourced from MQ9 military drones.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is an office within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense that investigates unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and other phenomena in the air, sea, and/or space and/or on land: sometimes referred to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" or "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAP). Its first director was physicist Sean Kirkpatrick, and its current acting director is Tim Phillips who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, also known as the UAP Report and colloquially named the Pentagon UFO Report, is a United States federally mandated assessment, prepared and published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on June 25, 2021, summarizing information regarding unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) which include unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Substantial public attention had been given to the mandated June 25 report, fueled by statements by former high level officials in the U.S. government, including former president Barack Obama, who stated in June 2021 "...there's footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don't know exactly what they are."
On 17 May 2022, members of the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held congressional hearings with top military officials to discuss military reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs). It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years.
The Galileo Project is an international scientific research project to systematically search for extraterrestrial intelligence or extraterrestrial technology on and near Earth and to identify the nature of anomalous Unidentified Flying Objects/Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UFOs/UAP).
Sean Michael Kirkpatrick is an American laser and materials physicist and was the first director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the United States Department of Defense. Kirkpatrick is also an adjunct assistant professor of physics at the University of Georgia.
The NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team (UAPIST) was a panel of sixteen experts assembled in 2022 by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and chaired by David Spergel to recommend a roadmap for the analysis of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) by NASA and other organizations.
Investigation and analysis of reported UFO incidents under the federal government of the United States has taken place under multiple branches and agencies, past and current, since 1947. In spite of decades of interest, there remains no evidence that there are any purported UFOs with extraordinary provenance and, indeed, those identified all have been shown to be natural phenomena, human technology, misapprehensions, delusions, or hoaxes.
The Sol Foundation is a think tank established in California in August 2023 to research the political, philosophical and scientific implications of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). The foundation held its first conference in November 2023 at Stanford University.
