Australian Defence’s verdict on searching for UFOs as NASA report emerges

Defence has revealed its verdict on claims that UFOs exist after US space agency NASA has decided to launch a new unit to hunt for the existence of extraterrestrial “life”.

Defence will not be looking for ET anytime soon with no “scientific or compelling reason” to believe UFOs are real and the RAAF reporting no “unusual sightings” for more than 20 years.

In a raft of internal documents released by Defence, all branches of the armed forces Army, Navy and RAAF confirmed they did not and would not collect intelligence on UFOs or UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomena.

That confirmation came as NASA on Friday confirmed it too had no evidence of UAPs but would launch a new unit armed with the latest AI technology to search further.

Australia’s Defence position was in response to written parliamentary questions last month as to whether it would follow the US Director of National Intelligence in January to establish an All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office to co-ordinate sightings.

“Defence has no plans to replicate a similar mechanism,” a handling note from RAAF chief Air Marshal Robert Chipman confirmed.

“The Defence Aviation Safety Authority and Civil Aviation Safety Authority already serve this function across flight safety issues and apparatuses exist for concerns regarding National security.”

He confirmed the Airforce ceased handling any UAP reports in 1996 after “determining there was no scientific or other compelling reason to devote resources to the recording and investigation of UAP”. Army and Royal Australian Navy gave similar responses.

It was noted the US while investigating UAP cases, concluded they had not found “any credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics”.

If RAAF pilots spot anything posing a safety risk these would be reported to usual airspace control agencies and through the RAAF Aviation Safety Reporting protocols.

The RAAF concluded: “There are no records of observations or sightings of unidentified aircraft made over the past 20 years. There are no records of ‘unusual or unexpected events’ made through the RAAF Aviation Safety Reporting procedures over the past 20 years.”

A much anticipated report from a year-long study by a panel of experts in fields ranging from physics to astrobiology concluded there was no evidence of aliens but it stopped short of ruling them out.

“The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin but we don’t know what these UAP are,” NASA’s Bill Nelson said of the panel’s conclusions.

He said it was time to shift the conversation about UAPs “from sensationalism to science” and for that a new research unit director needed to tap AI technologies and data analytical capabilities to evaluate future UAP.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Picture: AFP

NASA has a variety of existing and planned Earth – and space-observing assets, together with an extensive archive of historic and current data sets which AI will crunch.

Asked if he believed we were alone in the universe, he said maybe not but the chances we have had a visitor was “low”.

“The mission of NASA is to find out the unknown … whatever we find, we’re going to tell you,” he said.

He added: “There’s a global fascination with UAP. On my travels, one of the first questions I often get is about these sightings and much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it. If you ask me do I believe there’s life in a universe that’s so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is ‘yes’.”

NASA Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator Dan Evans announced the agency has appointed a new director of research to study the UAP. Picture: AFP

The identity of the new UAP research chief was to be kept secret with the panel’s work partly dogged by public harassment but their work would assist the Pentagon in making determinations.

NASA’s science chief Nicky Fox declined to say how much funding the agency would allocate to the renewed UAP-tracking effort.

The report followed a 2021 US government report based around the Pentagon’s release of video from naval aviators showing enigmatic aircraft off the US coastlines exhibiting speed and maneuverability exceeding known aviation technologies and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces.

One example of a still unexplained phenomenon was a flying metallic orb spotted by an MQ-9 drone at an undisclosed location in the Middle East, which was shown to Congress in April.

That report said defence and intelligence analysts lacked sufficient data but some could be atmospheric phenomena, advanced aircraft from another country or weather balloons.

The new report called UAP “one of our planet’s greatest mysteries.”

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“Observations of objects in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft or natural known phenomena have been spotted worldwide, yet there are limited high-quality observations. The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover our universe’s secrets,” the 36-page report stated.

“Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP,” it added.

The very last page of the report said “there is no reason to conclude” that extraterrestrial sources are behind the hundreds of UAP sightings NASA has investigated.

Decades of movies and sci-fi books about aliens mean the entire topic is mostly laughed off by the public as the territory of cranks.

Originally published as Australian Defence’s verdict on searching for UFOs as NASA report emerges