Facts

• In a finalized 36-page report issued on Thursday, an independent group of NASA scientists said they had found no concrete evidence to suggest that UAP — unidentified anomalous phenomena, NASA's preferred term for UFOs — is extraterrestrial.
• NASA's top administrator Bill Nelson said the team "did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin," though the experts accompanied the report's release with the acknowledgement that "the collection of data is sparse, unsystematic, and lacks any curation or vetting protocols."
• At the same time, the experts stated that eyewitness accounts can often be unreliable. They suggested that, "a rigorous, evidence-based, and data-driven scientific framework" to understand UAP should be followed.
• Nelson has additionally stated that new science techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) will be needed to better understand the phenomenon and its origins.
• Amid the report's publication, the space agency also announced it was appointing Mark McInerney — who previously served as its liaison to the Defense Department — as its first research director of UAP.
• This news comes shortly after the Pentagon launched a website to allow current and former US government employees, service members, and contractors to report their alleged UAP sightings.