An interview with professor Avi Loeb on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena* (*UAPs, formerly known as UFOs)
“FOR DECADES, MANY AMERICANS HAVE BEEN FASCINATED BY OBJECTS MYSTERIOUS AND UNEXPLAINED, AND IT’S LONG PAST TIME THEY GET SOME ANSWERS. THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO LEARN ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES OF UNKNOWN ORIGINS, NONHUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND UNEXPLAINABLE PHENOMENA.”
—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
It wasn’t some wild-eyed true believer in flying saucers and little green men who made the above statement—rather, it was U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last July, when he coauthored, with other senators, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023 as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. Schumer’s statement and the proposed measure aim to provide greater transparency to UFO-related matters and exemplified the fact that high-level members of the government, military, intelligence and academia are increasingly taking unidentified flying objects seriously. The Hill describes this process as a “seismic shift in the government’s official stance on UFOs.”
The same month as Schumer’s assertion, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs held a hearing on “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency.” At this eyebrow-raising July 26, 2023, congressional session, three military veterans testified, under oath and penalty of perjury, about their experiences regarding what may be extraterrestrial crafts and even beings.
There have been other upper-echelon investigations of UAPs (yes, UFOs even have a new, more respectable-sounding moniker). Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines submitted reports in the 2020s to Congress about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. In May 2023, the Five Eyes intelligence partners held a UFO briefing presented by the director of the Pentagon’s UFO research program. That same month, NASA presented its first public meeting on UFOs, a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration followed suit in September with its “UAP Independent Team Study Report.” And so on.
All of this high-ranking heightened interest in UAPs leaves us scratching our heads and asking, what the heck—if anything—is out there? And if space aliens do exist, are they coming here? To find out, HUSTLER asked a scientist who has been leading the research in this field.
