The United States government has released its first batch of files on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). These are objects that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies cannot identify. If they are real and not spurious, there are two possible interpretations: either these are familiar human-made or natural objects, or these are non-human objects. Regardless, the matter is of great importance for both national security and basic science.
However, perhaps the biggest impact of this week’s release is psychological: this topic deserves a place in mainstream public discourse. Like any detective story, the mystery can be resolved with high-quality evidence. Knowing the distance, velocity and acceleration of these objects would address the question of whether any of them lies outside the performance envelope of human-made technologies.
