NASA is officially joining the hunt for UFOs.

The space agency on Thursday announced a new study that will recruit leading scientists to examine unidentified aerial phenomena — a subject that has long fascinated the public and recently gained high-level attention from Congress.

The project will begin early this fall and last around nine months, focusing on identifying available data, how to gather more data in future, and how NASA can analyze the findings to try to move the needle on scientific understanding. "Over the decades, NASA has answered the call to tackle some of the most perplexing mysteries we know of, and this is no different," Daniel Evans, the NASA scientist responsible for coordinating the study, told reporters on a call.

While NASA probes and rovers scour the solar system for the fossils of ancient microbes, and its astronomers look for so-called "technosignatures" on distant planets for signs of intelligent civilizations, this is the first time the agency will investigate unexplained phenomena in Earth's skies.

Aliens might study humans from afar like "bacteria," the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said.

The chief of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, has said that he believes in the existence of extraterrestrial life that might be more intelligent and technologically advanced than humanity. Aliens might also be studying the civilizations of Earth while staying unnoticed, he told Russia's Rossiya 24 broadcaster on Saturday.

Thousands of factors could have contributed to the emergence of life anywhere in the universe, Rogozin said, adding that humanity's ability to study space remain limited. "We know the 'Big Bang' theory but what if this 'Big Bang' took place only within a certain part of the universe that is visible to us?" the Roscosmos chief asked, adding that "there might be other worlds ... as well as innumerable factors that could contribute to the emergence of life, including an intelligent one."

The Russian Academy of Sciences has been conducting studies and "collecting facts" related to extraterrestrial life and UFOs in particular, Rogozin stated, adding, though, that 99.9% of all such cases reviewed by the Russian specialists have turned out to be "atmospheric and other physical phenomena" that have nothing to do with any extraterrestrial intelligent life hypotheses.

The space agency says there is no evidence that the objects are extraterrestrial.

NASA has announced plans to begin studying UFOs in a scientifically rigorous way before publishing the findings in a public report.

Experts involved in the study will dig up relevant data from sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs); figure out how to best record such UAPs in the future; and determine how NASA can use the new information to improve scientific understanding of the mysterious objects.

The announcement of the new initiative, which is expected to start in early fall and take roughly nine months to complete, comes just over three weeks after a landmark Congressional hearing, in which lawmakers grilled two senior intelligence and defense experts on multiple reports by military pilots of UAPs, Live Science previously reported. The hearing focused on a June 2021 Pentagon report on 144 documented UAP sightings by U.S. Navy pilots since 2004, most of which the department concluded "probably do represent physical objects."

Of the 144 UAP sightings, 18 were reported to have extremely unusual flight behaviors, with the unidentified objects appearing to "remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion," according to the report. Released video clips, alongside eyewitness accounts from Navy pilots, also point to at least some of these ostensibly propulsionless craft moving at hypersonic speeds, Live Science previously reported; one video clip, captured by the U.S. Navy, appeared to show a spherical UFO hovering in midair while bouncing from side to side, before plunging into the ocean.

NASA's new study — which the agency says is not part of the Pentagon's Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) or its predecessor, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) — will be led by astrophysicist David Spergel and orchestrated by assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA's Science Mission Directorate Daniel Evans.

The House intel committee will hold its first public hearing on unexplained aerial phenomena in 50 years.

The US House Intelligence Committee has scheduled a hearing to follow up on some 143 UFO sightings reported between 2004 and 2021, Representative André Carson (D-Indiana) revealed on Tuesday. The hearing, scheduled for next Tuesday, will be held by the Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and counterproliferation, which Carson chairs.

"Since this is an area of high public interest, any undue secrecy can serve as an obstacle to solving the mystery, or it could prevent us from finding solutions to potential vulnerabilities," Carson told the New York Times. "This hearing is about examining steps that the Pentagon can take to reduce the stigma surrounding reporting by military pilots, and by civilian pilots."

Psychic Baba Vanga, who died 25 years ago aged 84, predicted that Russia was to 'dominate the world' in an interview with writer Valentin Sidorov in 1979

A blind psychic who correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the 9/11 attacks once claimed that president Vladimir Putin is to become 'Lord of the World'.

Known as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, Baba Vanga, who died 25 years ago in 1996 aged 84, predicted in a 1979 interview that Russia was to dominate the world.

She also made a frightening prediction about World War Three and the potential use of nuclear weapons.

During the interview with writer Valentin Sidorov, she said Putin's 'glory' will remain 'untouched'.

Since its existence was revealed by the New York Times in 2017, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which was funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, has been the subject of fervent curiosity from UFO disclosure advocates, government transparency activists, and journalists alike. The now formally defunct program was studying UFO-related phenomena, according to a landmark 2020 investigation by Popular Mechanics; the DIA's public explanations on just what that involved have ranged over the years from unsatisfying to obfuscatory. Namely, the agency has insisted in recent years that AATIP was not looking at UFO-related phenomena, which former employees working on the program say is simply not true.

Now, a new tranche of documents released by the DIA to Motherboard based on a FOIA request filed four years ago shows, in detail, the exotic and occasionally downright weird research priorities of the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP), an at-times overlapping program whose existence has been known about for several years. Some of these documents were also released several weeks ago to John Greenewald at the Black Vault; others have been circulating on Reddit for the past several weeks, indicating that the DIA has recently released a backlog of very old FOIA requests. The Sun also published some details about some of the documents, which it also obtained via FOIA, earlier this month. (AATIP and AAWSAP appear to have been, in practice, almost interchangeable; a DIA spokesperson previously told Greenewald, "[AATIP] was the name of the overall program. [AAWSAP] was the name of the contract that DIA awarded for the production of technical reports under AATIP.")

QUESTION: I'm just curious. President Jimmy Carter said that he saw a UFO which was reported by the Associated Press in January 1978. There are countless reports of UFOs for decades. Some say they have been around for thousands of years. Does Socrates have any ability to confirm or deny such things?

ANSWER: I do not see how Socrates could confirm or deny the existence of UFOs. The modern event that began the flying saucer sighting was Kenneth Arnold who reported seeing several metal objects flying in excess of 1200 MPH on June 24th, 1947. I had an uncle who was in the Air Force during World War II and during the Korean War. He told me when I was a kid that saucers would fly in circles around the planes observing what was taking place. A friend who was a pilot during the Korean War said the same thing.
On Saturday night, July 5, 1947, a rancher named W.W. "Mac" Brazel had debris from what became the Roswell Incident. On July 8, 1947, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release stating that personnel from the field's 509th Operations Group had recovered a "flying disc", which had landed on a ranch near Roswell. During that summer of 1947, it was also the dawn of the Cold War. The U.S. Army Air Forces made a press release announcing that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a ranch near Roswell. Here some 75 years later, the incident remains a defining aspect of the area's identity. Roswell has a UFO museum and research center. There is even a flying saucer-inspired McDonald's as well as alien-themed streetlights.
But behind all the UFO mania lies an uneasy truth. The events that transpired that summer are anything but clear-cut, with admitted coverups and conflicting explanations: It was a saucer! It was spycraft! It was the Soviets!

Oxford researchers are reportedly concerned that the US agency's effort to communicate with extraterrestrials could be dangerous.

Scientists at the UK's Oxford University have reportedly sounded an alarm over plans by NASA to broadcast location data and other information into space, warning that the effort could have dangerous unintended consequences, including triggering an alien invasion.

At issue is the planned "Beacon in the Galaxy" (BITG), a broadcast of data by a NASA-led team of researchers with the aim of greeting "extraterrestrial intelligences." The US space agency wants to beam the signal from the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope array in California and China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST). It would include such information as the biochemical composition of life on Earth, the Solar System's time-stamped position in the Milky Way, digitized images of humans and an invitation for extraterrestrials to respond.

UFO sightings can leave witnesses injured suffering radiation burns, brain problems and damaged nerves, according to newly released Pentagon files.

The report, obtained by The Sun from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as part of a huge Freedom of Information request, investigates the health impact on humans who have had paranormal experiences.

The report - titled Anomalous Acute And Subacute Field Effects on Human and Biological Tissues - investigates injuries to "human observers by anomalous advanced aerospace systems".

And the report - prepared for the DIA - warns that such objects may be a "threat to United States interests".

Bear Valley — A mutilated bull mysteriously turned up dead at a ranch in Bear Valley last month with body parts removed.

According to a Feb. 28 incident report by the Oregon State Police, a rancher called a wildlife trooper to report a bull had been killed and mutilated on his ranch with its testicles, scrotum, tongue and lips precisely removed.

Sgt. Erich Timko of the Oregon State Police Wildlife Division said the injuries to the bull were consistent with the pattern observed in similar cattle mutilation cases.

"It's just puzzling, Timko said. "The best word to describe it is 'bizarre.'"

Mat Carter, a rancher from the Crown Cattle Co., said he reported the mutilation to the Oregon State Police after discovering the dead bull roughly a quarter-mile to half a mile from his house.

The cause of death is unknown.

When Carter found the bull, it had been dead for about a day and was already decomposing. According to OSP, the 24-hour window during which a necropsy could have been performed on the carcass had passed.