After years of making headlines, air vehicles of nameless origin, unknown intent, and seemingly odd capabilities are still being reported within America's national airspace, allegedly flying over sensitive facilities and interfering with commercial air traffic. All of this aerial weirdness involves unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP for short. Whatever they are, UAP continue to be seen, reported and even documented through various sensor technologies. However, despite years of whistleblowers testifying before Congress, there seems to have been a bottleneck in getting to the bottom of the UAP issue in 2025. Why so?
The pilot of a private plane reportedly made an eerie discovery while flying thousands of feet over Rhode Island, marking the latest in unexplained encounters baffling both experts and civilians alike. Newly resurfaced video shared on YouTube in October by the VASAviation channel reveals the head-scratching moment the pilot radioed to the ground team at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport regarding a mysterious small, silver cylinder hovering near the wing of his aircraft, telling Air Traffic Control (ATC), "It appears to be standing still."
"Looks like a strange, small object that we just floated by," the pilot told ATC, according to the clip. "A small silver canister. Do you know what that could be?" ATC went on to inform the pilot there were no other reports regarding an object in the area and asked the pilot if it could be a drone or balloon.
"I saw nothing attached to it," the pilot responded, according to the clip. "It was sort of hovering there. It was astonishing. I don’t know what it was." The object was reportedly seen floating near the right wing tip of the Piper PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II at an altitude of 3,500 feet, before flying alongside the aircraft and later disappearing from view.
"Creepy," the ground team can be heard saying on the radio, with ATC joking, "Good luck with the aliens." Other pilots quickly took to the radio to join in on the mystery, as one added, "I want to believe him."
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"The FAA documents UAP sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility," the FAA said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
The Plurality of Minds and Scientific Investigation
The UAP phenomenon benefits from having a plurality of minds engaged in disciplined debate, suggests Michael Cifone, founding executive director and President of the Society for UAP Studies, based in Los Angeles, California. Today, there's a division emerging between classical Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), aka "flying saucer," incidents and studying UAP from the point of view of observational and experimental science. But engaging scientific methods and instruments turns out to be neither trivial nor cheap, Cifone said.
"Perhaps the holdup is reluctance to dump time, energy and money into what looks to some like a wild goose chase," said Cifone. Cifone said that progress, like in any other science or research area, will be slow but hopefully steady, albeit incremental.
"What will likely happen is that there will be downstream benefits that aren't foreseeable exactly now. Maybe new sciences will break away. So it will be a win for the growth of knowledge and for science in particular," Cifone senses. For Cifone, his view is to keep the eye on the ball and work out the observational framework design and required instruments and observational modalities before we can have the reliable datasets we need. "But science doesn't always go as planned. In any case, there's a lot of work to be done."
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The Role of Scientific Methodology
"Like any other scientific venture, both funding and institutional support is required," Cifone said. "Given the historical stigma associated with the topic that has been hard to achieve. But now with the emphasis no longer on chasing forensic cold cases, and relying on reports of UAP, serious scientists and student researchers are getting involved."
The upshot is to deploy scientific methodology to establish the observational framework with the proper instrumentation, Cifone added, "in order to generate the data on UAP from which more secure conclusions can be derived."
There's need to be able to scientifically test a hypothesis that some UAP are potentially extraterrestrial craft, said Robert Powell, executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). "I consider extreme acceleration to be the best characteristic that has the potential to eliminate a terrestrial explanation for a UAP," said Powell.
"The military has the capability with radar, satellite, and optical systems, but the scientific community does not have access to these systems." He thinks the work ahead could be done now via military systems, but only if there were no national security concerns. "I think it will take many years to do it through privately-financed civilian systems but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue working at it," Powell concluded.
Institutions Studying UAPs
Cifone points to an increasing number of institutions that are studying UAPs. Indeed, work underway on UAP has blossomed into a world-wide field of research, he said.
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To Cifone's point, there's the University of Würzburg in northern Bavaria, one of the oldest universities in Germany. An Interdisciplinary Research Center for Extraterrestrial Studies (IFEX) has been established. One effort the university is developing is an "AllSkyCAM" able to capture UAP. An automated reporting system is currently under construction with the university cooperating with the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, the national civil aviation authority of Germany, to research unusual phenomena in the country's airspace.
Then there's the Galileo Project led by astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University. They have designed and built an array of sensors to scan the sky for aerial phenomena and assess atmospheric anomalies that may not be of terrestrial origin. This type of research can produce data on UAP, Cifone said, "then we need to experiment with the data and produce theories, or what you call explanations, and perhaps even understanding! We're only at the observational framework design and testing phase. Then we need to let the systems run, probably for many years."
Observations and National Security Implications
Ryan Graves is chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Integration Committee. He is also director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, a military pilot group devoted to aerospace safety and national security, but focused on UAPs.
"Highly credible people and professional observers are seeing objects that appear to exhibit capabilities beyond the state of the art," Graves told Space.com. "In the data received, there seems to be this core anomalous aspect that we can't just ignore or rationalize away."
Graves speaks with UAP eye-witness authority as a former Lt. Navy and F/A-18F pilot. He was the first active-duty pilot to publicly point to his own encounters and spotlights his military colleagues regarding their UAP sightings.
In July 2023, Graves testified about UAPs before the House Oversight Committee's National Security Subcommittee in Congress, a hearing centered on UAP and the implications for national security, public safety, and how best to attain government transparency on the issue.
"We need to pay attention to this and recognize the national security implications," Graves said. Objects are operating in sovereign air space, he said, potentially collecting intelligence and trying to break into or set the stage to counter our defenses and set the country up for strategic surprise.
In blunt talk, Graves said UAP are engaged in actions "that would be recognized as acts of war or at the minimum preparation for an attack."
AIAA's Role and Data Retention
For its part, the AIAA UAP Integration & Outreach Committee is a strictly agnostic, science-first committee inside the AIAA. "Our remit is to bring aerospace rigor to an area with real safety-of-flight implications," Graves said.
The committee has been convening experts across AIAA's technical committees, publishing peer-reviewed and conference papers, and producing policy guidance that standardizes how aviation professionals document and share safety-relevant observations, Graves added.
While AIAA provides technical expertise rather than lobbying, Graves said the work on UAP has helped clarify best-practice reporting standards as well as set standards for retention of data on what's being reported.
One early payoff is that AIAA's UAP effort parallels what Congress has been considering in the standalone bill "Safe Airspace for Americans Act," introduced in January 2024 and reintroduced in September of this year. representatives Robert Garcia of California and Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, legislation crafted to support civilian UAP reporting.
"Transparency surrounding UAP is crucial for national security, public safety, and making sure people trust that our government is taking these reports seriously," Congressman Garcia said in a statement. "This bill creates a clear, protected pathway for pilots and other aviation professionals to report UAP incidents without having to fear stigma or worry about retaliation. This is a vital step forward to make sure our skies are safe and our government is responsive."
Optimism for Closure
Graves also points to the current leadership of the Department of Defense All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO. It too is established to minimize technical and intelligence surprise by "synchronizing identification, attribution, and mitigation of UAP in the vicinity of national security areas," the AARO states.
"I'm optimistic. There is significant organizational change across the government that I think will bare fruit. There process is maturing to the point where they can start delivering on their expectations," said Graves.
Overall, Graves is heartened by current UAP interest and on-going activities. "I don't know if there's been a better time to hope for closure on this topic.