NASA’s Progress One Month After the UAP Report with Joshua Semeter
By Danny Giancioppo
Last month, NASA released a report detailing their newly branded UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) Independent Study team, which includes Boston University’s own Joshua Semeter, ECE professor in the College of Engineering. The team hopes to shed light on the ever-elusive, often-mischaracterized method of research, in no small part by doing away with the term “UFO,” too-often conflated with little green men in flying saucers. As a heterogeneous group of sixteen distinguished individuals––including astronauts, DOD officials, and more–NASA aims to lay the groundwork for a more efficient, science-based approach to understanding the miraculous and unexplained phenomena that occur in our skies. And in the weeks following, there has already been an influx of progress and collaborative reports.
But that’s a lot to process. And a 36-page report is, in itself, more arduous a reading than most people will expend. As it happened, the UAP Independent Study report was less data-centric, and far more planning-oriented. Even Professor Semeter was surprised to find the report focused more on mapping out next steps. That is not to say, however, that the latest news from NASA was without purpose.
“It’s a strangely polarizing topic,” Semeter says, explaining that even the technically literate can approach the study of UAP with a bias. “One way to think about it is that whenever you’re faced with incomplete data, your brain fills in the rest, that’s our tendency. The tendency of people looking into UAP is to fall on one side or the other with respect to an incomplete picture.”
It is often best, Semeter explains, to stick to Descartes’ scientific method above all else in matters of the unexplained. “It all comes down to ‘what is the data telling us?’” Or, as NASA administrator Bill Nelson said, shift the narrative from “sensationalism to science.”
That is the true intention of the UAP Independent Study Team, according to Semeter. To lay out a baseline of information through which data can be accumulated, and phenomena more quickly identified and explained. Semeter, for example, is being relied upon for his expertise in imaging and remote sensing observations. Interactions between plasma and neutral matter––which is fundamental to Earth’s communication with space––and doppler radars and their capacity for velocity detection are his specialty. He has used this knowledge to implement intuitive techniques of outlier detection among the rest of the study team. His methodology toward understanding phenomena such as “sprites,” plasma rising above 200 to 300 kilometers above a thunderstorm in jellyfish like tendrils, is one example of the knowledge the UAP team hope to bolster. Prior to their research, pilots might see the phenomena rising into the atmosphere and think, understandably, that something “alien” was taking place, when the occurrence was in fact quite natural, albeit extraordinary. That is to say, there isn’t much possibility of seeing any extraterrestrial contact.
“I resonate and sympathize with those who want to experience something extraordinary,” Semeter says, “even if it’s not there. Because who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want to look into the face of God?” This is the very mindset, however, that can lead to much misinformation and projection on the part of citizen scientists, self-proclaimed experts, and even those in the field.
One issue with the constant spread of misinformation stems from the lucrative nature of it, versus the oftentimes mundane reasoning many reputable sources will present. For example, the recent claim by Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan to have found living extraterrestrial bodies in Peru caused a wide range of reactions from the public.
When faced with incomplete data such as this, Semeter urges the public to remain highly skeptical, and rely on a third-party expert to prove or (more often) debunk these instances fringed with conspiracy. “That’s the chasm where all UAP extraordinary claims die,” Semeter says. “Somebody’s relaying something they heard from someone else, or some document they claimed to see, but have no evidence of the document. It’s always the same. There’s no time for that.”
After all, the mission of the Study Team is not to delve into every conspiracy even tangentially related to UAP, when there is already so much objective mystery to learn. “In my world,” Semeter goes on, “the universe presents plenty of its own magic.” Understanding the phenomena taking place in our atmosphere (and beyond it) is Semeter’s modus operandi within the study team. “I don’t really need ambiguous interpretations of random objects to provide me with new magic. This universe is really interesting and already difficult to wrap my head around. I see plenty in the category of extraordinary.”
Nor should following such ambiguous claims be the will of the public, through which NASA hopes to garner a greater collective effort to generate a baseline of data. People commonly known as “citizen scientists.”
This effort is akin to crowd sourcing, explains Semeter. “Citizen scientists offer an amazing opportunity for UAP investigations, for a few reasons. One is that they represent a free and responsive sensor network.” Suppose, Semeter says, you’re downtown and spot something you cannot explain in the sky. You make a post about it after taking a picture with your phone––maybe you share your location or your coordinates. Before you know it, other citizen scientists are running out their doors and leaning out their windows to take their own photos, each from a different angle and through a variety of lenses.
“It’s a collective validation,” Semeter says. “It’s difficult to fake observations of an object observed from different locations and different angles. And then, along with that validation, if you have good metadata […] you immediately have triangulation. Triangulation will tell you the altitude, and okay, that’s fine. But more importantly, it will tell you about its maneuverability and its velocity.”
Using citizen scientists, the UAP team sees an amazing potential for collecting a mass of images and evidence through which to analyze and determine the nature of UAP. Since the report was released, nearly 2,000 public reports have been shared in Maryland alone, dramatically bolstering the forming baseline. And this opportunity extends beyond the everyday human being.
While left “intentionally vague,” it was mentioned that the UAP study team also aimed to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the rate of quantitative categorization. An automated algorithm could clock when something is captured which is not regularly captured. As Semeter describes, “a black swan event. One in a million, if you will.” The hope is to more quickly and efficiently pool together data shared by citizen scientists and NASA team members alike to spot out and understand UAP as they happen.
“But somebody needs to be actually tasked with doing these sorts of things,” Semeter explains. “In response to our report, NASA set up an office, they defined a UAP person […] and maybe this means that NASA will direct some resources toward developing the tools I’m describing.” While the staff member has been kept anonymous for safety reasons, Semeter goes on to express that it is “encouraging that they’ve got one full-time staff member thinking about UAP,” following the report. Hopefully this will entail a steadier flow of progress in the months ahead and help shift the general viewpoint.
“We need to get over the hurdle of people seeing objects and interpreting them according to a UFO-style bias,” Semeter adds with regards to the overall goal of the team, noting that the previously mentioned contact appointed by NASA is a good first step. “Even if a majority or all of the UAP are simply balloons or perhaps civilian drones, they have to be taken seriously. Even if it’s a balloon––a collision with an aircraft, or an ingestion into one of their engines? I mean that’s catastrophic. And so there really is a practical reason to address this.”