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An astronomy professor has revealed that artificial intelligence may be what experts need to finally understand what unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) are.
NASA on Friday announced it was appointing a director who will lead a specialised team to research “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft, or as known natural phenomena”.
It comes after its independent study into UAPs revealed inconclusive findings into what the unidentified objects were. The study team, however, flagged more data and research was needed.
The American space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said while there were no signs UAPs had extra-terrestrial origin, he believed there was life in the universe.
“If you ask me, I believe there is life in a universe that is so vast that it is hard for me to comprehend how big it is,” he told a press conference on Friday.
Professor of the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy Steven Tingay told Englishheadline Australia the American space agency’s findings were “completely expected”.
“The universe is an extraordinarily big place…The chances we have been visited I think are very small,” he said on Friday.
Mr Tingay agreed more data, research and analysis would be required to determine where these phenomena were.
“The search for intelligence in our galaxy or universe is quite a different thing, we need to use extraordinarily powerful telescopes to look out into the universe and try to detect signs of life,” he said.
“The big challenge with the search is that the universe is a massive place.
“With more evidence we may be able to determine conclusively what these objects are and where they are from.”
The astronomy professor flagged how artificial intelligence could play a role in finally understanding the unexplained aerial observations.
“AI and machine learning techniques, deep learning techniques, really are opening up different and interesting ways to analyse data and pick out patterns in data and signals in data,” he said.
“The application of AI techniques may be very useful for piecing together bits of the puzzle.”
NASA will also advance citizen reporting by engaging with the public and commercial pilots to build a broader, more reliable UAP dataset to use to identify future incidents as well as destigmatise the study.
“(We) will do this work transparently for the benefit of humanity,” the space agency said in a statement.
