American space agency NASA gave a platform to an independent committee looking into the reported sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), in which the researchers said that they did not find any proof that aliens were responsible for the phenomenon. However, the agency also said that it cannot rule out that possibility. The 36-page report presented on Thursday offers no conclusive evidence about aliens but outlines how NASA will investigate the phenomenon (called UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) with improved technology and artificial intelligence.

Do aliens exist?

The report observes that “there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source”. However, the last page of the report adds that it is possible that the objects could have travelled through our solar system to get here. “If we recognise the plausibility of any of these, then we should recognise that all are at least plausible,” the report said not denying the possibility of “potential unknown alien technology operating in Earth’s atmosphere”.

What about previous UFO sightings?

The inquiry concluded that many sightings have been explained by planes, drones, balloons or meteorological circumstances in the past. A January report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the US revealed that most of the 510 UFO sightings were decidedly not aliens, “however scores of other strange sightings still have no official explanation”. It said that UAP still poses a threat even if they are not extraterrestrial advanced technology.

The report added that in order to reach a “definitive, scientific conclusion” about the origin of UFOs, NASA lacks sufficient high-quality evidence. However, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson still believes that there is life beyond Earth. “If you ask me, do I believe there’s life in a universe that is so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is? My personal answer is yes. It would have to be a very advanced civilization (but) the distances is light years, hundreds of lights, billions of light years away.”

Limited Data

The study asserted that given the data limitations, the sightings of UFO’s “cannot be immediately identified as known human-made or natural phenomena.” Dr Nicola Fox, NASA’s Associate Administrator said that the agency “needs to find a rocky planet around a hospitable star that isn’t too violent, that is in just that right place that has signatures of water and signatures of carbon. So, the building blocks of life, and we continue to strive to do that.”

“The limitation on this data is that at any given time most of the Earth’s surface is not covered by commercial satellites at high resolution – for a particular UAP event, we will need to be fortunate to obtain high-resolution observations from space,” she said.

Appointment Of UFO Research Director

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that a new director for UAP research will be appointed by the organisation. However, the new executive’s identity has not yet been made public since they have been receiving online threats regarding their work. According to Dr Fox,  the new director will serve as a focal point for bringing together communications, resources and data analytic skills in the US government’s efforts to recognise and understand UAP.

New Delhi:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Thursday released a new report on what it calls the “unidentified anomalous phenomenon” (UAP), better known to the public as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. In response to a recommendation by an independent study team for NASA to play a more prominent role in understanding UFOs, the US space agency announced that it is appointing a director of UAP research. 

During the press conference, NASA officials were also asked questions about the UFO hearing in Mexico’s Congress that featured the presentation of alleged remains of non-human beings. David Spergel, the former head of Princeton University’s astrophysics department and chair of the UAP report, said he did not know the nature of the samples but urged transparency.

“This is something that I have only seen on Twitter. When you have unusual things, you want to make the data public,” Mr Spergel said.

“We don’t know the nature of those samples,” he said.

“If you have something strange, make samples available to the scientific community,” he told the Mexican government.

‘Alien Bodies’ Presented In Mexican Congress

Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan showed politicians at the hearing on Tuesday two tiny “bodies” displayed in cases, with three fingers on each hand and elongated heads. 

He said in the presentation that the specimens were recovered near Peru’s ancient Nazca Lines and had been carbon-dated by Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) and concluded to be about 1,000 years old. 

Maussan claimed they were not related to any species on Earth.

“I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world and that all possibilities are open for any scientific institution… to investigate it,” Maussan said.

“We are not alone,” he added.

The images from the congressional hearing — featuring purported “alien” bodies — have now gone viral on social media platforms.

Mexico City:

Mexican lawmakers heard testimony that “we are not alone” in the universe and saw the alleged remains of non-human beings in an extraordinary hearing marking the Latin American country’s first congressional event on UFOs.

In the hearing on Tuesday on FANI, the Spanish acronym for what are usually now termed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), politicians were shown two artifacts that Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan claimed were the corpses of extraterrestrials.

The specimens were not related to any life on Earth, Maussan said.

The two tiny “bodies,” displayed in cases, have three fingers on each hand and elongated heads. Maussan said they were recovered in Peru near the ancient Nazca Lines in 2017. He said that they were about 1,000 years old, analyzed through a carbon dating process by Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).

Similar such finds in the past have turned out to be the remains of mummified children.

Maussan said it was the first time such evidence had been presented.

“I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world and that all possibilities are open for any scientific institution… to investigate it,” Maussan said.

“We are not alone,” he added.

Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, Director of the Scientific Institute for Health of the Mexican navy, said X-rays, 3-D reconstruction and DNA analysis had been carried out on the remains.

“I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings,” he said.

UNAM on Thursday republished a statement first issued in 2017, saying the work by its National Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry with Accelerators (LEMA) was only intended to determine the age of the samples.

“In no case do we make conclusions about the origin of said samples,” the statement said.

Lawmakers also heard from former U.S. Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who has participated in U.S. Congressional hearings about his personal experience with UAP and the stigma around reporting such sightings.

Congressman Sergio Gutierrez, from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s ruling Morena party, said he hoped the hearing would be the first of other similar events in Mexico.

“We are left with reflections, with concerns and with the path to continue talking about this,” Gutierrez said.

In recent years, the U.S. government has done an about-face on public information on UAP after decades of stonewalling and deflecting. The Pentagon has been actively investigating reported sightings in recent years by military aviators, while an independent NASA panel studying UFOs is the first of its kind by the space agency.

NASA is set to discuss findings from the study on Thursday.

Maussan faced swift backlash and criticism from skeptics on Wednesday who questioned the authenticity of his presentation.

“This could really hurt efforts to take the issue seriously,” said a user of X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. “Why didn’t they wait until a scientific paper was ready to publish it?”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)