By Marcia Dunn
NASA held its first public meeting on UFOs Wednesday a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings.
The space agency televised the hourslong hearing featuring an independent panel of experts. The team includes 16 scientists and other experts selected by NASA including retired astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space.
Several committee members have been subjected to “online abuse” for serving on the team, which detracts from the scientific process, said NASA's Dan Evans, adding that NASA security is dealing with it.
“It’s precisely this rigorous, evidence-based approach that allows one to separate the fact from fiction," Evans said.
The study is a first step in trying to explain mysterious sightings in the sky that NASA calls UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena.
The group is looking at what unclassified information is available on the subject and how much more is needed to understand what's going on in the sky, according to astrophysicist David Spergel, the committee's chair who runs the Simons Foundation.
No secret military data are included, such as anything surrounding the suspected spy balloons from China spotted flying over the U.S. earlier this year.
The meeting was held at at NASA headquarters in Washington with the public taking part remotely.
A final report is expected by the end of July.
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Fans will be banned from the Tokyo area’s stadiums and arenas when the Olympic Games begin in two weeks.
The National Hurricane Center says Tropical Storm Elsa is strengthening and could became a hurricane before making landfall along Florida’s northern Gulf coast.
Elsa has strengthened into the first hurricane of the Atlantic season and it's blowing off roofs and snapping trees in the eastern Caribbean.
The Biden administration says it is hiring more federal firefighters — and immediately raising their pay — as officials ramp up response efforts in the face of a severe drought that's setting the stage for another destructive summer of intense wildfires across the West.
Electronic cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc. will pay $40 million to North Carolina and take more action to prevent underage use and sales.
Danish toymaker Lego has presented its first building bricks made from recycled drinks bottles — an experimental project that if successful could eventually go into production.
Human stampedes have been a chronically understudied topic and there's been an uptick in reported crushes as populations have increased.
The Tokyo Olympics are not looking like much fun: Not for athletes. Not for fans. And not for the Japanese public.
Australia says it will fight against plans to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status due to climate change, while environmentalists are applauding the U.N. World Heritage Committee’s proposal.
A sharply limited number of fans will be allowed to attend the Tokyo Olympics. The decision announced Monday comes as organizers try to save some of the spirit of the Games where even cheering has been banned.
