Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) have long been a subject of social, scientific and religious fascination. The term UAP has gradually replaced unidentified flying object (UFO) in scientific discourse, as it avoids long-held assumptions and connotations. Be it a UAP, UFO or other acronym, the noun refers to the same thing - unexplainable craft, atmospherics or events that litter the sky with regularity.

Throughout the 20th century, UAPs were relegated to the realm of science fiction. And for many, that is where they remain. However, in recent years there have been data releases and new information made public that has confirmed that at least some UAPs are real and unexplainable to even the smartest scientists, highest ranking military and utmost of skeptics.

In a 2021 television appearance, former U.S. President Barack Obama had this to say: "What is true, and I'm actually being serious here, is that there there's footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern."

Many are eager to classify these as extra-terrestrial, but that is a logical leap. All we know is that UAPs are unexplainable and science, investigation and critical thinking are the only way to get to the bottom of the mystery.

There is another reason interest in UAPs has recently piqued - space tourism and commercial enterprises are more common and within reach. As humanity looks increasingly toward the stars, it is fair to wonder if there is anyone looking back.

A recent history of UAP sightings

The narrative of UAP sightings is as old as human civilization itself, its roots entrenched in ancient folklore, religious texts and historical archives worldwide. These accounts gained a newfound focus in the mid-20th century, especially following high-profile incidents that caught public attention.

The 1947 Roswell incident is a prime example, sparking widespread interest and setting the stage for countless reported encounters in the following decades. Trained observers, including military personnel and astronauts, have contributed significantly to these reports. Yet, due to the stigma associated with these phenomena, the incidents often ended up being dismissed, ridiculed or outright ignored.

In the world of UAPs, several incidents have captured the world's attention and curiosity, prompting both public speculation and scientific examination.

Roswell, 1947

U.S. Army Major Jesse A. Marcel display remnants of the Roswell UAP crash for reporters, July 1947. Technically, this may not count as a UAP. But it is certainly worth mentioning as this can be traced to many modern UAP/UFO theories.

This incident began when a rancher in Roswell, New Mexico, discovered unidentifiable debris in his sheep pasture. The rancher at first thought little of the debris, but brought the materials to local law enforcement, who escalated it to a nearby U.S. Air Force base. U.S. Air Force officials arrived, collected the debris and publicly announced they recovered a flying saucer. That was quickly rescinded and the story changed to a downed weather balloon. Many observers found the government's story suspicious.

Almost five decades later, the government revealed it was a high altitude, balloon-based instrument meant to monitor Soviet atomic activities. The "alien bodies" reported by some witnesses are now explained as misinterpretations of anthropomorphic test dummies that the project used for scientific research.

Kecksburg, 1965

Artist's recreation of the Kecksburg UAP. Source: Ryright/CC BY-SA 3.0Residents of at least six U.S. states and Canadian provinces reported a large fireball streaking across the nighttime sky, along with shredded debris and sonic booms. The craft crashed to Earth in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, 30 miles west of Pittsburgh. Nearby residents approached the site, but a perimeter was established by law enforcement. Military officials and vehicles later arrived to truck the craft away; some witnesses state they saw an acorn-shaped craft visible under tarps.

In 2005, NASA revealed that their investigation identified the craft as a downed Russian satellite, but said that their records of the event were lost - a not uncommon phenomena itself at the agency. There remains some debate if the UAP was a satellite, meteor or something else.

Travis Walton, 1975

Walton was a member of a seven-man logging crew who were tasked with clearing brush near Snowflake, Arizona. As the team drove home in the evening, they crossed paths with a bright, glowing hovering craft in an open field. Walton exited the truck and ran toward the craft, and the rest of the team state he was zapped by a bright light from the UAP and thrown roughly 20 feet. The rest of the team, terrified, sped off. After several miles, they regained their composure and turned around to check on Travis. Travis was gone.

The rest of the logging team reported this to law enforcement, who quickly assumed the story was the cover for a crime. After multiple interviews and lie detector tests, officers began to believe their story.

Five days after first disappearing, Travis was discovered walking along a highway. Walton reported medical experiments and close interaction with small alien beings but did not understand he had been missing for five days. He too later passed polygraph tests.

Travis and the rest of the loggers maintain their story to this day. It served as fodder for the 1993 movie Fire in the Sky, albeit with creative liberties.

Phoenix lights, 1997

Millions of residents across Nevada and Arizona witnessed a series of slow-moving lights glide across the night sky. Those who got close enough reported a silent, V-shaped aircraft at an altitude of just 150 feet.

Shortly afterward, Arizona Governor Fyfe Symington III threw cold water on the event, even "arresting" an aide in an alien costume. Indeed, the Phoenix lights seem like a classic case of misconception, as there were civilian flares and low-altitude fighter plane drills concurrent with the lights.

However, years later, Symington recounted how as a governor he felt a need to reassure the public, but that he saw the craft and believed it was of unexplainable origin. Himself a pilot, he felt there was no way he could mistake a known aircraft for what he saw.

USS Nimitz, 2004

A guided missile cruiser from the U.S. Navy spent weeks off the California coast tracking UAPs with unusual behavior. This type of warship had advanced radar capabilities, which depicted UAPs descending from 80,000 ft to 20,000 ft in seconds. Sometimes the UAPs would disappear altogether.

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier responded and launched flight crews to the scene. Seasoned pilots reported finding aircraft that could outperform any known aircraft in terms of speed, maneuverability and flight duration, and could also break the speed of sound with no sonic boom. Naval pilots captured some of these UAPs on video, which were leaked and confirmed to be original in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Defense. Pilots described the UAPs as oblong, rounded objects and nicknamed them "tic tacs," after the mint.

The department also admitted it had no explanations and has since released several more UAP videos that were captured by military drones, aircraft or ships. Videos captured UAPs submerging below the water as well.

Many of these have failed to find rational explanation. In addition, the U.S. Pentagon maintains a department dedicated to investigating these types of events.

Chinese spy balloons, 2023

Earlier this year, clamor arose when a rather large balloon, some 200 ft in diameter with a 2,000 lb payload, was spotted drifting across Western Canada, and the U.S. Midwest and East Coast. Eventually the balloon was shot down, recovered and attributed to Chinese spy technologies.

In the days and weeks that followed, several more UAPs were shot down over Canada and the northern U.S. At least three UAPs from early 2023 remain unaccounted for, and by definition unexplainable. It is highly likely they are more Chinese balloons, as they were also discovered in Taiwan, Eastern Europe and South America - all of them places where China has strategic interests.

UAPs vs. extra-terrestrials

Investigations into UAPs often coincide with discussions around the possibility of extraterrestrial life. While the existence of UAPs is confirmed, their origins remain a mystery, opening doors to various theories, including potential non-terrestrial sources.

Yet, a UAP is not equivalent to an extra-terrestrial. Skeptics often note that many observers conflate UAPs with extra-terrestrials in large part due to a personal or perceived bias, probably shaped by years of horror movie or science fiction motifs. Non-skeptical observers are more likely to assert alien life is behind a UAP, rather than try to prove the UAP fits the behavior of benign weather, aircraft or light sources. Some of histories' most enduring UAP incidents fit this framework, including the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident.

The presence of extraterrestrial life has been a subject of human curiosity and scientific exploration for decades. The vast expanse of the cosmos, coupled with discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets and signs of water in our solar system, suggests that the conditions necessary for life may not be exclusive to Earth.

This is part of the basis of the Fermi paradox, a hypothesis put forth by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950. He relies on two pieces of empirical evidence to reverse engineer the question: are humans the only form of intelligent life?

• With billions of stars, and trillions of planets, a good number of them will contain habitable conditions for intelligent life.
• There is no know intelligent life beyond Earth.

The former was a scientific assumption in Fermi's day but has since been confirmed with the discovery of numerous exoplanets. The latter remains true.

With this in hand, Fermi endeavored to explain why, if life should be duplicative in the universe, humans have yet to encounter it. Multiple explanations exist, although they all generally fit one of a few solutions. And this rationale can be applied to UAPs, to potentially explain their purpose.

Intelligent extraterrestrial life is rare or non-existent

The conditions on Earth are so unique, that even if life exists elsewhere, it is rather simple and cannot communicate with humans. This means UAPs are unlikely to be extra-terrestrial at all.

Extraterrestrial life is too evolved

Extraterrestrials are too far evolved to care about humans or communicate with us, or perhaps have evolved to a point where technology and biology have intertwined. Or their technology is so advanced they can send probes to Earth for periodic check-ins or data gathering.

Extraterrestrial life has died

Either by their own doing or external forces, extraterrestrials exist no longer. UAPs could be technological remnants of their societies.

Extraterrestrials want to be left alone

UAPs are sent to Earth to undermine or monitor humanity's advances toward the cosmos.

Humanity offers nothing for extra-terrestrials

Earth remains the intellectual backwater of the cosmic community. UAPs monitor progress until extra-terrestrials deem humans worthy of contact.

Extra-terrestrials are here already

The UAPs are their supply and reinforcement transports.

Do any of these hyptheses explain why UAPs continue to be seen, yet never inch closer to a real explanation? No. But it does offer context to extra-terrestrial motivations, if they are in fact behind them.

Anticipating the future of UAPs

In 2022, NASA announced it would be setting aside funding to investigate UAPs. NASA's entry into the field of UAPs is a crucial step in legitimizing its study. By leveraging its scientific expertise and extensive atmospheric data, NASA aims to enhance its understanding of UAPs, which could potentially include identifying their origins and nature.

This shift underscores the growing acceptance of UAPs as a valid research area, signaling a significant change from previous reluctance, and setting the stage for a more serious, systematic, and scientific approach to unraveling the mysteries they present.

The future of UAP studies is likely to be shaped by ongoing technological evolution. Machine learning and artificial intelligence promise to transform the massive datasets collected by observatories and radio telescopes into actionable insights. It is possible that AI could find a common thread among UAP sightings that has been distorted by all the personal biases influencing the conversation.

If humanity wants to take real strides toward the study and understanding of UAPs, regardless if extra-terrestrials are behind them or not, then a multi-national agency, coordinated by the UN or NATO, would be key. Unifying the evidence around UAPs would give Earth's smartest physicists the best chance of answering, once and for all, what is out there.

And if it is aliens, then we are one step ahead. In 1987, former President Ronald Reagan said it best while addressing the UN.

"I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world."

Author byline

Jody Dascalu is a freelance writer in the technology and engineering niche. She studied in Canada and earned a Bachelor of Engineering. As an avid reader, she enjoys researching upcoming technologies and is an expert on a variety of topics.