NASA held its first public meeting on UFOs, a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings
The four-hour-long hearing featured an independent panel of experts at NASA headquarters in Washington, with the public taking part remotely.
The panel included 16 scientists and experts, including retired astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a year in space.
The team looked at what unclassified information is available on the subject and how much more is needed to understand what's going on in the sky.
The panel stated that they had seen a spike in reported sightings since then, with the US Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office receiving around 800 sightings so far, but only a tiny fraction of those contain signals which could be deemed "anomalous." During the meeting, the experts were quizzed on a range of topics, including why they have taken to calling them UAPs rather than UFOs and what NASA would do if they actually discovered extra-terrestrials.
Dr. Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research, said that they don't use the term UFO anymore due to the stigma attached to the term.
Instead, they have opted to use the term unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) because the topic is a "serious business." On what they would do if they were to actually discover extra-terrestrial life, astrobiologist Dr. David Grinspoon said NASA would be "highly driven" to share evidence.
He referred to an example from 1996, when NASA scientists believed they had spotted possible signs of life from Mars in a meteorite.
It sparked a huge presidential news conference involving the space agency, and "that's what would happen" if a similar event were to happen during this study, he said.
Dr. Spergel said that NASA is "searching for life in any form." He emphasized that there is no convincing evidence for extra-terrestrial life associated with unidentified objects.
The final report is expected by the end of July and will be followed by a meeting to discuss its findings.
In other news, NASA released new images of Uranus and named the crew for its Artemis II mission, which will travel around