BBC: Mystery flying objects

Now, you might know them as aliens, UFOs, little green men or even UAPs. UAP stands for 'unidentified anomalos phenomena' and it's the word scientists now use to describre mysterious things not from this world. So, Beth, how would you feel if you looked up and saw strange objects glowing and twisting through the sky?

Wow. Well, I might stare for a bit. I don't know if I'd believe what I was seeing, and I guess I'd be a bit scared!

Well, that situation is exactly what Navy pilots caught on their fighter jet cameras on a training flight in 2004. They recorded mysterious oveal objects flying at 24,000 meters. The footage is known as the Tic Tac videos, and they have had millions of views on You Tube. Now, these videos are being reviewed by US Congress to try understand what these objects were. 

Were they flying saucers, the disc- shaped craft flown by aliens, or is there a more rational explanation? In this programme, we'll be discussing whether we are alone in the universe, and, as usual, we'll be learning useful new vocabulary as well. 

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Thousands of UFO sightings are recorded every year, but, which country has had the highest number of reported sightings since records began, according to the National UFO Reporting Center? Is it:

a) The USA    b) Canada  or c) China?

Hmm, I think it must be the USA.

OK, Beth, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Now, while astronomers are scientists who study questions concerning things outside of Earth, they often avoid investigating supposed aliens. Adam Frank, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Rochester, explains why the footage in the Tic Tac videos can't give any definitive answers of alien life to BBC World Service programme, The Inquiry:

I don't think the pilots are lying. You know, I think the pilots are being honest and had a lot of integrity about what they say they're seeing. They're not saying they're aliens. They're saying they behaved in ways that no jet could behave. But you know, again, personal testimony. You can't do any science with that. So, what may happen now is we're gonna begin to get us some scientific study of this and we'll try and get a better handle on it. 

Adam says the pilots have integrity, a noun meaning to have honesty and moral principles. However, what they saw is based on personal testimony. A personal testimony is a story or statement of evidence supported only by a person and what they saw, rather than any external evidence or hard facts. 

To find out more about exactly what the pilots saw, scientific studies ae being carried out to try and get a better handle on the situation. If you get a handle on something, you understand it and are then able to deal with it. 

Taking a ore scientific apporach to what the pilots saw, the Tic Tac videos were examined by a panel put together by NASA. Here's Adam again discussing the findings on BBC World Service programme, The Inquiry:

At the NASA panel, one of the scientist showed a simple analysis of the video that shows the object traveling at seemingly high speed over the ocean. And what the NASA scientist showed was that with a simple analysis you can show that that was moving at 40 miles an hour, so certainly nothing very extra- terrestrial about that.