US media: NASA will use artificial intelligence to study unidentified flying objects
According to the website of The Wall Street Journal on September 14th, NASA announced that it will begin using artificial intelligence and public reporting to study unidentified flying objects, in order to better understand this phenomenon that has fascinated the public for decades.
NASA announced these new measures on the 14th and released a report from a special group of the agency. The appointment of this team aims to address the shortcomings in the current collection of data on unidentified flying objects.
The report of the task force calls on NASA to use its artificial satellite formation for observing the Earth to explore the environmental conditions when unidentified flying objects are seen. The report also states that NASA should collaborate with commercial satellite companies to investigate these unidentified objects and use an aviation safety reporting system so that commercial pilots can see the midpoint of this phenomenon.
NASA stated that it is reviewing this report and evaluating its recommendations.
In recent years, people's interest in "unknown anomalies" has sharply increased. NASA defines unidentified anomalies as objects seen in the sky that cannot be identified as airplanes or known natural phenomena.
Last May, US defense officials broadcasted videos of unknown anomalies during the first congressional hearing on this issue in over half a century. In July this year, a small group of former military and intelligence officials told a congressional panel that they had seen unidentified anomalies that could pose a national security risk.
NASA's Dan Evans said at a press briefing, "The existence of unidentified anomalies has raised serious concerns about sky safety. This country has an obligation to determine whether these phenomena may pose a threat to air safety."
NASA and the US Department of Defense have stated that there is no credible evidence to suggest that the observed flight phenomenon originated from extraterrestrial sources.
NASA Director Bill Nelson said that the agency is working hard to convince the public that it will share the information it has about unknown anomalies.
Nelson also said, "We don't know what these unidentified anomalies are, but we will work hard to identify them."
NASA also disclosed on the 14th that it has appointed a research director for unknown anomalies, but refused to disclose the name of the person in charge.
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Christopher Pattison, an astrophysicist at the University of Portsmouth who was not involved in the report writing, said that this appointment "demonstrates a certain level of funding commitment for this investigation.".
Pattison said it is difficult to understand how much effort the agency has put into this position without knowing who the supervisor is and how much funding NASA has invested in it.
The director of NASA's research on unidentified anomalies will serve as the liaison between the agency and the Pentagon. NASA said that the director will also concentrate information and resources to develop a database to evaluate data on unknown anomalies.
The special task force formed by NASA last year stated that data collection on unidentified anomalies is often conducted through fragmented government agencies and there is no central clearing house. The team also stated that tools for collecting information include drones and government planes that record rough videos, often without the necessary calibration for scientific research.
NASA stated that it will advance several recommendations proposed in the report, including the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The organization also stated that it will use public participation to allow the public to report unknown anomalies.
David Spegel, the head of the task force, said that mobile phones can take high-quality photos with metadata.
Speiger said, "I think if we establish a dataset, the public can post interesting events they have collected, and you will have multiple images of the same event, so we can learn a lot about it."
He also said that using a data collection framework involving the public will ensure that "there are more eyes and ears on site.".
Federica Bianco, a member of the research group and associate professor of physics, astronomy, and public policy at the University of Delaware, said that increasing the amount of data surrounding unidentified anomalies is likely to help experts gather information and better understand what phenomena are being observed.