Update for 4:30 p.m. EDT on May 31: The first public meeting of NASA’s UAP independent study group has concluded. Read our wrap story here or watch the replay below.
NASA will hold a historic public meeting on UFOs today (May 31) and you can watch it all live online in a free webcast.
The agency will hold a meeting of the «independent study group» it formed nearly a year ago in June 2022 in order to study data related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), a new term that encompasses objects or occurrences in the sky, underwater or in space that can’t be immediately identified. The meeting will mark the first time the group has discussed the results of its UAP investigation in public. The four-hour meeting will be available to watch online courtesy of a free livestream on NASA TV beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT).
Following the event, NASA will host an audio-only stream of a post-meeting media teleconference that will include Dan Evans of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, David Spergel, president, Chair of NASA’s UAP independent study team and other members of the agency’s UAP group.
Related: NASA UFO study team includes former astronaut, scientists and more
NASA created the group in order to examine all of the data it has available that might shed light on the UAP enigma and how it might help «move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward,» according to a 2022 statement from the agency.
The 16-person study group includes former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly in addition to a wide variety of experts from academia, the aerospace and aviation industries and even one science journalist. The team is only studying unclassified data, according to a list of frequently asked questions the agency released.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the former associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington, said shortly after the group was announced that it was formed in part to «take a field that is relatively data poor and make it into a field that is much more data rich and therefore worthy of scientific investigation and analysis.»
Related: 10 alien encounters debunked by science
NASA’s study group is only one of several U.S. government-funded groups formed to study UAP. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense created an office to study unidentified objects in space, air and water, or even those that appear to travel between them.
Despite studying hundreds of reported incidents involving UAP, the group’s director told the Senate Committee on Armed Services in April that the group has uncovered «no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics.»
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