Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb Here. You're in good company
Speaker 1: if you often look up into the dark night, into
Speaker 1: the glittering specs of space and sky, and think you
Speaker 1: see something extraordinary, fantastic, or even inexplicable streak across the sky.
Speaker 1: People have been reporting unexplainable objects this guy since at
Speaker 1: least the time of the ancient Greeks. One of the
Speaker 1: earliest known discussions of the possibility of alien life appears
Speaker 1: in a book written around fifty BC. These days, we're
Speaker 1: used to hearing these objects, called unidentified flying objects or
Speaker 1: UFOs A. NASA now even has an independent team of
Speaker 1: sixteen scientists and astrophysicists who will be studying and attempting
Speaker 1: to understand more about these mysterious observations in the sky,
Speaker 1: which they call Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or u A p
Speaker 1: ease four nine months, starting in October two, The team
Speaker 1: is pouring over the unclassified data collected by civilian stargazers
Speaker 1: and national intelligence and security departments. The purpose is to
Speaker 1: discover new ways to collect and understand UAP data in
Speaker 1: the future, and to determine the best ways to use
Speaker 1: that information to ensure the safety of aircraft. They'll release
Speaker 1: their findings to the public in mide This isn't the
Speaker 1: first time a US government agency has studied UFOs. One
Speaker 1: of the most famous is Project Blue Book, which went
Speaker 1: on in the nineteen fifties and sixties, but this might
Speaker 1: be the first time they focused on U A p
Speaker 1: S instead of UFOs. We know we were confused to
Speaker 1: at first. The acronyms UFO and u AP both refer
Speaker 1: to the same unidentified events reported in our sky unidentified
Speaker 1: objects and balls of light. The issue with using the
Speaker 1: term uf OH is that you can't say it or
Speaker 1: hear it without also thinking about extraterrestrials, you know, aliens
Speaker 1: from outer space. And that's because we've been calling those
Speaker 1: flying saucers, hovering lights, and floating disks that suddenly zip
Speaker 1: off disappearing into the night UFOs since the late nineteen forties.
Speaker 1: One of the first and most notable discussions of unusual
Speaker 1: flying objects happened after June ninety seven, when pilot Kenneth
Speaker 1: Arnold flew over Mount Rainier on his way to neighboring Oregon.
Speaker 1: Arnold reported seeing nine bright circular discs moving and what
Speaker 1: appeared to be an organized echelon formation in the sky
Speaker 1: at speeds as fast as one thousand, two hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour. That's one thousand, nine hundred kilometers an hour.
Speaker 1: It was the first time in reported history that the
Speaker 1: terms flying saucer or flying discs were used to describe
Speaker 1: unexplained events. After seven, the US government created some investigation
Speaker 1: task forces as more sightings like Arnold's were reported around
Speaker 1: the US and the world. These events became known by
Speaker 1: the term UFOs, and the term morphed out of flying
Speaker 1: saucer and was coined by civilians and government officials in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. Since then, UFOs have fostered a fascination
Speaker 1: with the unexplained world of space and sky for generations,
Speaker 1: and have always been tied to aliens. But if we're
Speaker 1: all familiar with UFOs, why would the government bother to
Speaker 1: rename them first? U a P s are considered unexplained
Speaker 1: sights in the sky rather than unidentified flying objects. U
Speaker 1: a P is a pretty new term. It came into
Speaker 1: our lexicon in the twenty teens when the U. S
Speaker 1: Department of Defense declassified several Navy videos that showed U
Speaker 1: a P s. Then in the Office of the Director
Speaker 1: of National Intelligence released it's much anticipated report called Preliminary
Speaker 1: Assessment Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, without a single mention of extraterrestrials.
Speaker 1: Here's a brief quote from the report. Most of the
Speaker 1: U a P reported probably do represent physical objects, given
Speaker 1: that a majority of U a P were registered across
Speaker 1: multiple sensors to include radar, infrared, electro optical, weapons, seekers,
Speaker 1: and visual observation. It might be easy to dismiss eyewitness reports,
Speaker 1: but it's much more difficult to reject a u a
Speaker 1: P observed by eyewitnesses and corroborated on radar. This is
Speaker 1: also allowing researchers to apply the scientific method to study
Speaker 1: U a P s, similar to what study has been
Speaker 1: doing since the nineteen seventies. This is all to say
Speaker 1: that the renewed focus on U a P s in
Speaker 1: government intelligence circles is a good thing. It indicates that
Speaker 1: they're taking unexplained aerial activities and our skies seriously, the
Speaker 1: Navy videos were well alarming, so it's good news that
Speaker 1: they're being investigated. And all of this does not mean
Speaker 1: that extraterrestrials are being completely left out of the picture
Speaker 1: or scientific investigations. The UAP moniker might be the scientific
Speaker 1: and intelligence communities way of finally admitting that these objects
Speaker 1: are out there and saying that it's okay to talk
Speaker 1: about unexplained aerial phenomena without the concern of being alienated
Speaker 1: for sounding bonkers. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: Scientists Want You to Say U A p S not
Speaker 1: UFOs on house toff works dot com, written by Alison Troutner.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio and partnership
Speaker 1: with house toffworks dot com, and it's produced by Tyler
Speaker 1: klang A. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the
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