NASA talked publicly Wednesday about the work of its independent study team formed last year to take a new look at “events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomenon.”

Along with that new look comes a new name for the objects – “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP) – to replace the familiar Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). “Conversations like this are the first stop to reducing the stigma in UAP reporting,” said Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. There has been no evidence that UAPs relate to aliens, he said, but there is a concern for national security.

Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, called the new study important and said it is “really disheartening to hear of the harassment that our panelists have faced online all because they’re studying this topic.”

“NASA stands by our panelists and we do not tolerate abuse,” Fox said.

Panel Chair and astrophysicist David Spergel said public opinion is a big challenge to UAP research. “We have a community of people who are completely convinced of the existence of UFOs, and we have a community of people who think addressing this question is ridiculous,” Spergel said. “And I think as scientists, the way to approach questions is you start by saying, ‘We don’t know,’ and then you collect data and you try to calibrate your data well.”

Proper study needs good data, Fox agreed, and there isn’t enough clear data now. Data from eyewitnesses and background images can be muddled and inconclusive, she said. Classified data isn’t the answer, Fox said, because most classified government images are classified because of the equipment that collected the data, not the data itself. Fox invited viewers and readers to explore its archives at data.nasa.gov to see tens of thousands of its images. She also recommended data.gov/open/data.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Department of Defense’s All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, shared recently declassified trends and data with the panel. His office gets between 50 and 100 new reports each month, Kirkpatrick said, but the number that could be real anomalies is 2-5 percent of the total.

The most reported objects are “orbs, round spheres,” Kirkpatrick said, “making very interesting maneuvers.” They range in size from 1-to-4 meters, are white, silver or translucent; fly between 10,000 and 30,000 feet at speeds up to Mach 2 and have no thermal exhaust.

One goal of the new research is to make it more acceptable to report a UAP. David Spergel, chair of NASA’s UAP team, said commercial pilots are reluctant to report strange objects because of the stigma of seeing flying saucers. “One of our goals is to remove the stigma,” Spergel said.

“What are we even looking for?” scientist and science journalist Nadia Drake asked fellow panel members to consider. Of the hundreds of sightings over the years, 2-5 percent of those might be “not readily understandable … something doing something weird.” But there is “no conclusive evidence suggesting an extra-terrestrial origin for a UAP.” What to do with that fact is something the panel needs to consider as it begins its work, Drake said.