Are we soon going to rewrite the textbooks for our place in the universe?

Over the past century, we have seen an exponential increase in understanding of the physical universe. International observatories on Earth and in space have produced magnificent images spanning the gamut from the small scale of black holes to the large-scale structure of the entire observable universe. Now we are in the midst of a discovery of even greater magnitude, but few even recognize it. And incredibly, this is what many see as the modern icon of quack science – unidentified objects, traditionally labeled UFOs, that may represent technological equipment made by an advanced alien civilization.

Almost overnight, UFOs were accepted by the government and some academics as worthy of scientific study. With this change came a new label for the US military: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Now they are increasing the target of dedicated research, including Harvard University’s Galileo Project to Find Alien Equipment Near Earth as well as Stanford University’s Independent Research Program on Unusual Materials. They are also at the origin of the creation of a new office at the Pentagon responsible for establishing a scientific plan for:

1) Take into account the characteristics and performance of the UAP that go beyond known science or technology, including propulsion, aerodynamics, materials, sensors, countermeasures, weapons, electronics and electricity production

2) Provide the basis for possible investments to replicate these advanced features and performance

In fact, this language is a direct result of members of Congress who included it in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

This all stems from three PAN videos captured by Navy pilots and officially released by the Pentagon in 2020. Shortly after a video was taken in 2015, the safety of naval aviators in the region aroused immediate concern. . As the former superintendent of the US Naval Observatory, he was extremely intrigued, but the videos were classified, preventing further investigation. Since their declassification, Congress has steadily increased its focus on the UAP, first leading an intelligence community report and now establishing a dedicated Pentagon office.

Together, these videos and UAP assessments indicate that capabilities exist beyond our current understanding of science, technology, and engineering, and also indicate that they are coming from an agency we do not know of. Without presupposing an explanation for each, we can only conclude that a dedicated scientific study of these phenomena could reveal new knowledge about the universe, fundamental physics, or both.

Given the magnitude of such a possibility, one has to ask, “Why is there so little interest from the scientific community?” The simple answer is that the long-standing stigma associated with UFOs, combined with significant risk aversion in mainstream science, has made the UAP study almost untouchable.

This is a problem, especially considering the great scientific leap forward made by those who are willing to go against the grain. An example from the field of oceanography has been associated with the name of Dr. Robert Ballard. Known for finding the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, Ballard was widely regarded as a maverick and despised as a “publicity dog” by career academics for his work with National Geographic. Nonetheless, he made some of the most important contributions to oceanography during his doctorate. research in the late 1970s at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. His early observations of the center of propagation of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, hydrothermal vents, and black smokers off the Galapagos Islands rewrote existing textbooks on geological, biological, and chemical oceanography, respectively. Although they are well studied today, none of these characteristics were even imagined in the decades before Ballard’s work.

Since the Department of Defense (DoD) UAP office falls under the intelligence arm of the department, most or all of their findings will be classified and therefore inaccessible to the public. This leaves it up to the scientific community to fill our knowledge gap about UAP, but currently the Galileo project is the only research effort with a systematic scientific approach to increase our understanding of these phenomena. When you consider that research in this area could generate a scientific revolution, it is clear that more institutions should be involved.

Former White House science adviser and University of Oklahoma professor Kelvin Drogemeier said we are now in a bold second era of science and technology (referring to the first era after the World War II where the US government funded the major advances of the time, such as space exploration, nuclear power and high performance computing). Today we are seeing similar advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum information science, renewable energy, environmental conservation, and space travel – the difference being that most of them occur. produce in the private sector and academia with philanthropic funding. With similar support, advancing our understanding of UAP may be the crowning achievement of this new era in human history.

Rear Admiral (Retired) Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is a researcher affiliated with the Galileo Project at Harvard University and former director of the United States Naval Observatory. He previously served as Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and Navy Oceanographer at the Pentagon. While serving as 1 star vscommanding officer below U.S. Fleet Forces Command in 2015, Gallaudet first seen odo not PAU videos later declassified by the Pentagon.

Avi Loeb is the head of Harvard Galileo Project, a systematic scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts. Loeb is the founding director of Harvard Black Hole Initiative, Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Theory and Computation Center for Astrophysics, and he chairs the Breakthrough Starshot Project Advisory Board. He is the author of “Alien: the first sign of intelligent life beyond Earth. “