What do you think the UAPs might be?

So my question would be if Mr Spergel doesn't have access to all the data ie classified material, then how can he provide an accurate report to NASA?

I'm happy to see that this scientist running this program at NASA takes the conversation of UAP's more seriously than Neil and his other guest

'So David, how did you step in to this?' Folloween by laughter and snickering by the co-hosts. I love that David Spergel kept a straight face and let them finish giggling before he answered the question. David not playing along with the stigma. Kudos David

I believe the content of this video helps to increase the stigma around those who do sightings of unidentified objects as pilots. The attitude of science is to collect data and experiment, not to spend most of the time laughing at other people who may naively have a credulous attitude.

There is a difference in accepting the possibility of extra terrestrial life and believing they already visited earth. Nowadays I see many people arguing that the first is proof for the second.

As scientists you guys must be more curious and ask government to investigate and not the common man. When you believe in science then you should know our understanding is very limited. Anything completely out of our current understanding is actually an opportunity to learn and take a giant leap instead of laughing at it. Galileo was also laughed at.

I hope NASA gets the app going, when I was a kid (the 90s) me and my dad listened on the scanner to the local cops flip out about a UFO, eventually they found the local farmer who had built a helicopter to spray his crops.

Also, if they crossed vast distances of outer space, there's no need for lights out there. The question shouldn't be if they have lights, it should be WHY WOULD they have lights? Just because we put lights on our craft, does not mean that they would want lights on theirs. Especially if they don't serve a purpose

The whole reason why the images are classified really opened up my perspective, Thanks for making that clear.

I like how the guys stays calm and doesn't get upset good job not letting your emotions get involved great conversation

"Tell military HD cams exist" - military does have HD content (e.g Senators see them behind the scenes). As discussed, military is inteterested in not revealing those images and capabilities, and they release a lower quality image on purpose.

My husband and I saw a UAP in the 1990's. Before cell phones. It was at night, and happened so fast, that there was no time to get a camera. We didn't know of any technology at the time that could fly like that. It was incredibly fast, and moved abruptly, changing angles, and then was gone. Cell phones, even in our hands, would not have been fast enough to capture it before it was gone. We assumed it was a secret military craft, with technology that we were not familiar with.

I respect these guys but the idea that people are being tricked by camera artifacts; especially trained millitary personal who are very familiar with thier own equipment, - and then to chuckle about it, is extream hubris. They know so much that they don't have room for different ideas. It's a classic full cup scenario.

At 20 mins and 14 secs, David says he has no clearances. Does that apply to his ability to access classified data on UFO’s as-well? Love the show ❤

I just want to say how happy I am that this exists. I've always been horrible at science, always got bad grades, and my partner is the one who listens to StarTalk. It took a few years but I'm finally starting to listen to these out of my own curiosity about what's really out there. Thanks for making this stuff interesting

Lt Ryan Graves, in 2014 stated, "We were trying to figure out what the heck these things were. We were seeing them pretty much daily. We would go out there and they would be out there in the morning, they would be out there in the evening." Of course, the military would be very interested in the technology, so how are we to believe that they haven't rigged jets with imaging devices that can gather incredible images, video and other critical data.

We miss Chuck Nice

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...' Isaac Asimov

My favorite UFO cartoon: A couple standing in their front yard, and the man points at the sky, saying, "Look Marge, a UFO! Run inside the house and grab the crappiest camera we have."

I love rewinding the video to hear the question again after an ad completely interrupts my focus gained after only 3 minutes since the last ad.

The triangle 'artifact' is called bokeh... Normally they are circular, but when the camera only has 3 aperture blades, you get a triange. But the point of that video was, I think, that there was something there... It wasnt just the sun, imho, because it was flashing on and off...

About the quality pictures, I tried filming satellites, the auto focus at night just does not work that well. You can see the objects, but not really a quality movie even though you film them in 4k. Sometimes you get good ones, sometimes bad ones, but I too started thinking that the issue is mainly auto focus does not work at large distances with the mobile phones and smartphones and if you zoom in it gets even worse.

Took an online class taught by David. Learned a lot.

The app should start recording in a standardized camera mode as soon as it’s opened, and that’s all it does, with the option to opt in a feature that alerts you when someone nearby is recording something. Enjoyed the interview.

We don't try to teach english to cockroaches because we think they couldn't possibly have the capacity... To think any advanced life form would try to contact us is laughable. At best they are fascinated by the depth of our hubris.

until I see physical proof I'm still skeptical. don't get me wrong I welcome aliens honestly. think it would help our human species if we know we're not the only species in our universe

"What is it?" "I don't know!" "OH MY GOD IT'S ALIENS!!!"

To me it makes sense that UAP’s are more likely to be unmanned drones/ robots. I can’t imagine they would choose to send a pilot and resources, light years away

What I would love to see is a round table discussion with the Nimitz crew and Neil and allow Neil to ask every question he wants and allow all of us to ascertain wether human eye witness accounts are in fact a level of evidence that can’t be overlooked. The day before every major discovery in history there has been a large cohort of humans who have said no I will only believe it when I see it.

I'm impressed that you gave this a thorough re-visit and I admire your reflection on the feedback from your past attempts to address the UAP hearings.

my favorite episode. StarTalk can you please interview Commander David Fravor?

I swear whenever Chuck isn't there, a bit of me dies 😢😢. Especially for this topic.

They should totally look into using fireball/meteor observation networks! I might be biased because I'm a researcher who studies meteors/fireballs, but the cameras record the entire night sky covering continents. Also there are already fireball recording apps that exist that are essentially already doing what you are describing.

I think the main reason why we don't have one single clear photo of a UAP is because if we did, it would be identifiable...

As a person whom had the experience of seeing a very fast moving object similar to the one in the “tic-tac” video (I don’t have F16 cameras for of eyes), I find it disheartening that some respected scientists spend more time looking at camera glitches and all other potential issues with equipment rather than trying to take it slightly more serious when so many believable witnesses are reporting the same matter while nuking they’re on carriers in doing so.

The UFO/UAP/Star Wars app would be cool if it can automatically make the camera settings ready for long-distance quality picture taking for the moon or planes and even when attached to a telescope (you can buy attachments for your phone to connect to your telescope), so it can double up as an astrophotography app. Which would be part of the tools to find UAPs. This could potentially make smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei, Apple, etc, to make phones specialized just for this.

At the start, I wasn’t sure how this conversation was going to go, but I really enjoyed it a lot. Hearing scientist discuss a Once taboo subject. This was great.

That's how the Chinese were able to spy with their balloons for so long, people were afraid to report the sightings because of the stigma.

Some of the images we've seen are grainy because we are looking at forward looking infrared camera footage.

I really appreciate David giving extremely level headed perspective on this topic which seems wild that its takes Neal's platform before we can get sensible answers. THANKS!

Humans will never believe in UFO or UAP until one of the well known scientists directly experience it 😂

Billions to train high IQ pilots, yet they can't identify a slow balloon?😂 Great argument

The way a good teacher operates, is to present the class with unanswered questions and answers to different circumstances that may compliment or contrast with the stage of development already achieved. A Teacher taking reasonable precautions for the safety of the students will present them with an overwhelming reaction to stop excessive destructive behaviour.., like playing with unstable politics of nukes and such.

Are we all forgetting that there has been a reporting center for UAP's since 1974 named NUFORC :)

“The complete waste of time committee”. Yeah….so funny I forgot to laugh.

They are monitoring our demise.

I CANT WAIT FOR THE ALIENS TO PROVE NEIL WRONG.

I think the stigma against people reporting UAP comes not so much from the act of reporting but the unbelievable set of adjectives and acclamations they add to their sentences. If people would just stick to the basic facts and plain descriptions, then it wouldn't be so ridiculed. I totally agree with the collecting good/better data bit.

What about the other two "Balloons" that couldn't be recovered???

Leaping from "unidentified thing" to space aliens, is like jumping from "cold breeze" to ghost hauntings. There are a million other explanations for these phenomenons before landing on aliens (or ghosts).

1. I appreciate David taking this seriously instead of just chuckling and mocking. 2. David says he doesn’t have a clearance; perhaps the lead of the panel should have a clearance so they can look at all the data. 3. Regarding the question of why “every image is classified”, which isn’t true, when they are classified (I say this coming from 30 years in the Intelligence Community (IC)) it is most often “to protect sources and methods”. For example there is radar data, but the nation does not want our adversaries to know how well (or poorly) it works. There are documented cases of sources, in this case people, being identified as spies by adversaries and killed because a picture that leaked was traced to the source. 4. It’s more than a stigma. Even reporting an unknown flashing light can and has caused flight surgeons to ground pilots - not just a stigma, but a loss of livelihood. 5. I suggest starting with the “Tic Tac” incident. Happened in daylight and perfect flying conditions, was visually observed by six people (3 pilots, 3 WSOs, from three different aircraft with different perspectives), was seen on multiple sensor types (human visual, camera visual, IR, and radar) from multiple platforms (3 F-18s, USS Nimitz, USS Princeton an Aegis cruiser with one of the most sophisticated radars, and an E-2 Hawkeye), reportedly actively jammed one aircraft (technically an act of war), appeared to have insight into our systems (it moved to the CAP point of the operation), and exhibited no means of propulsion and moved at near hypersonic speed. (Again, I like David, but the lead needs a clearance and should see all the data. It also took place in 2004, 3 years before the first iPhone FYI. 6. The Gambler’s Fallacy: just because there have been many debunked incidents, does not imply this one is wrong and the laughter at the subject tells me that a biased view has been normalized. 7. I’m definitely not saying this is alien in origin, not at all. I am saying that scientific rigor and national security suggests this should be investigated seriously. Being a huge Carl Sagan fan Neil will probably know the quote better than my recollection, but didn’t Carl say we should investigate such things even if we think it is ludicrous (and it was in context of UFOs)? I am highly skeptical of 99% of UAPs, but there are enough odd events happening that warrant investigation - and please don’t tell me it’s swamp gas or ball lightening.

Regarding the camera idea, I have a better solution! Make sure that the default camera app on every phone has a simple switch you tap and bang, science analysis mode and instead of just one photo it takes a sequence of photos and video, preferably while providing instructions on improving the users phone pointing etc

What I think is interesting, as a kid I saw these believe it or not shows on cable that had these guys that claimed to be WWII era pilots that saw these metal/translucent spheres that seemed to be able to move any direction at any speed. As a kid I was a little skeptical. As an adult I didn’t think about it much but being low budget cable TV in the 90, I would write it off as a complete fabrication. But now, the physics defying, metallic/translucent spheres are back.

David Spergel and NASA should have a CGI expert on the committee. They are experts at being able to detect flaws in video evidence that would fool even scientists.

Corridor Digital has taught me you can't trust UAP images and video from the public anymore.

The Senate is introducing legislation giving contractors & government entities 6 months to willfully produce retrived tech or biologicals.

The SMUG laughter is not what this subject needs. Its sober reflection and examination.

We are often obsessed with the idea that there is an answer as in a specific phenomen that's happening yet it's key to remember that we are looking up at a Universe full of mysteries, that being said, a host of phenomenon are likely to be happening all at once.

I would like to know your opinion about the radar detections of the Aircraft carriers.

StarTalk has 2.45 Million subscribers. Somebody gotta develop that app, man.

I was standing on the top of the 2200 foot mountain near the Santa Cruz California coastline. it was a clear night and while watching the stars I locked in on a red dot traveling inland bound. Based on the fact that it appeared as just a red dot and the rate of travel my wild guess is that it was at about 80,000 feet up and traveling at about 3 times the pace of a satellite. What made it something other than some kind of whatever...LOL is that, while I was staring straight at it, the one red dot split into 2 red dots and the two dots hung sharp 90 turns away from each other with one heading up the coast line and the other heading down the coast line. I tracked them until they faded away in a crystal clear sky.

Sir i just watched interstellar and i got a doubt. In the movie romilly stays on the space ship and cooper goes to the planet and when cooper returns in 3 hours and romilly says he waited for 23 years. My doubt is suppose cooper and romilly are talking on facetime the whole time while cooper is on the planet then how it will be like? . Will cooper talk for 1 hour and romilly will feel that he has been talking for 7 years . Sir plz reply.

Excellent conversation; whoever that unscientific fellow in the middle is, please have him on more often!

There is a saying that if we both agree, we're both wrong. Amazing.

A commercial pilot, a military pilot, and a scientist walk into a bar….

The idea of a standardized app with basic meta data and imaging features is a great idea

I don’t remember the last time I was this bored with a discussion

Nothing like having an open mind. Mr. Tyson, I loved your Cosmos series. In particular I empathized with the scientists who had theories about the universe but were persecuted for it. Do you see the ridicule of this topic as a similar behavior pattern in humans when someone comes up with an idea that isn't mainstream? I'm neither a UFO believer nor a skeptic, but enough people with good reputations have come forward with some interesting information. Should we just ridicule them?

A question I have for David is, science depends on repeatability and observability, ideally in a controlled environment. How do you approach a relatively rare event like UAP sitings? Are videos/photos of UAP 'good enough' to make certain claims, or will we require physical materials in the end. In what ways can we rely on science principles to study UAP?

Great to see you back again Paul

"WHAT??? HD cameras exists?" everyone in a underground base

Hello Dr.Tyson, I would like to say that really appreciate the fact you have a new co-host. Nothing Personal against the last guy, I just felt as though he was clueless in whatever subject you were talking about more often times than not. I appreciate having a collective group of geniuses explain these complex and pertinent topics as opposed to 2 geniuses and a comedian. All around great episode none the less, I appreciate the vast sea of information that resigns in this video. Please continue this structure of interviewing

If we ever decide to travel in universe we may send machines with AI instead of going by ourselves

I like the idea of a smartphone application. A user needs to be able to just click on one button that has pre-customised settings for ISO, exposure time etc.

So what would said phone app have as features? - Image capture at full raw resolution - Full metadata capture including GMT, location, angle, GPS location including elevation, Star field, temperature - data encryption - upload to central server with user account and classification - broadcast alerts for those in proximity to participate - possible those in trajectory The point made of fuzzy images being ambiguous is very relevant - perhaps the alert could engage those with high end automated telescopes to immediately home to the area of interests. Nothing is better than a big lense and hires camera. Unistellar has a network for its automated EVScope users. Connect with that.

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena It's used because it covers all forms of unknown sightings.

Good show and nice to see the UAP subject not completely ridiculed, when they say no HD photos, everyone seems to forget the Mosul orb which was even shown at the last NASA report, unless they think that comes under the special drone technology, I'd like to get me one of them if they are a drone, it has no wings, means of propulsion, noise etc etc wow, I don't know but a drone that looks and moves like that,who knows but maybe one day we will know, just hope I'm around to see it and the reaction of these guys if uaps are from somewhere else

Great show! Do you think you could do one on glitch in the matrix or the Mandela Effect if you haven't already? Keep up the good work and thank you for making the world of astrophysics available to everyone!

The MQ-9 Predator is a reconnaissance UAV which is supposed to have high resolution cameras on board but it seems that it cannot get a clear image of a "commercial aircraft" in the middle east and manages to only record artifacts in 4 out of 5 frames. Top it all off, they don't explain the media format, resolution, frame rate, distance and speed of the target... but it's a "commercial aircraft".

You guys avoided the question... what do scientists think the videos presented in the congressional hearings are? I know you won't say it is ... blank, but what do think it is most likely...? other?

Healthy skepticism at all times, not especially when the claims seem wild. A good persuader will never make wild claims.

I’m so glad I found your channel. You dumb it down for people like me 😉

I have a really hard time believing that aliens would let us study their equipment much less their people.

Neil still doesn’t know what UAP stands for 😂

Spergel's situation with regards to his committee analysing unclassified data is analogous to him sampling a cup of water from the ocean and saying, yep, there's no fish, ergo there are no fish in the ocean. 😂

Please hire me to evaluate these videos from this app. It is going to take an army to filter through all the videos.

Um, one problem with the app. There is no way a large portion of normal citizens is going to give the government any additional access to their personal cell phones. This app is dead in the water

Finally, an official report review of this

o.0 Looking forward to this. Brb after watching this video 🙂 *1st Edit* First thoughts, we have to remember Cellphones won't and now can't be the answer. See thanks to gimmics that Samsung (who decided to put AI that "improved" / Faked photos of the moon you take) to emulate or make the photos look "more like you expect a photo of a moon to look" - Into their phones without telling anyone about it. Apple isn't free of guilt here as they are forcing tech that will automatically Zoom in on anything the AI thinks is a QR code now, and also have admitted having forms of AI on the phone modify photos to "improve them" - So we can't rely on this because one could correctly state that if Cellphone companies are modifying the Moon and other objects with AI on the phone itself - It would be possible they can or already do have such AI purposely Censoring things Government(s) don't want you taking photos or sharing. This is what happens when you secretly do stuff to peoples technology without us knowing and it leaks out or has to be admitted while products are out there, you fuel the conspiracy Real or Not.

We get crystal clear Reaper Drone footage a couple days after a Russian jet hits it with flares - same platform has it’s images classified for UAP event .

I tried video on the craft but it jams and was only to take pics

Thank you for this information. Another excellent podcast.

Very interesting conversation! It was great to hear from dr Spergel, especially on the topic of national safety, very important points. Just a little thing I've been meaning to say to dr Tyson in light of the recent events, and please let me preface it by saying 2 things: 1. I do not personally believe those reports to indicate aliens either. I'm not from the hype circle, although I sure am curious to know what these things are (or aren't)! 2. I've been a long-time fan, and I really appreciate what you do for the widely understood popular science in social media, kindling curiosity (reviving Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series - brilliant!) - in my humble opinion it's one of the most honorable things we can do as scientists and science enthusiasts (cognitive sci bachelor here, hey :D). This is important moving forward in my comment below. What I've been meaning to say, and I hope I can express myself correctly, is that there seems to be a certain amount of what I've been struggling to avoid calling ridicule coming across in many of the recent discussions on this topic. That 'vibe' also present in Startalk's episodes on UAPs, while of course fitting the comedy-popsci format of the show and bringing some laughs, does several - I believe unintentional, but very unfortunate - things: It increases the gap between the seekers (people who want to try to understand something) and the explainers, that is figures like yourself, who have the specific knowledge of stuff we laymen might not even realize half of what we don't know about (courtesy of the Dunning-Kruger effect) solidly grounded in the scientific method. By that I mean it carries that unfortunate element of ostracism where it's not ok to have a different starting point of view on things, because one will be laughed at and the discussion will be over with a nil result, with no encouragement to go further and look deeper, which seems to go against what I've been taught by my alma mater. Again, this is not about who's right or wrong or whether aliens have or haven't visited us. I'm sure if you're anything like me, you'd LOVE to see or talk to aliens, you'd be absolutely extatic to find out that here, yes, demonstrably we are not alone in the universe, the whole thing is greater than we thought (or just AS great as we imagined!), share the technological and cultural achievements etc. I'm saying this to touch base, and to signal I'm on the same side of cautious skepticism when it comes to the recent situation. But: While there are many who just slap the alien label on stuff very willingly, come any shape of semi-credible testimony or second-hand witness material, to satisfy their (powerful, as we know) confirmation bias, there are people in that same community who genuinely, sincerely wish to see this thing under the magnifying glass of science, who look to scientific figures of authority such as yourself, and want to see there a willing conversationalist, who - as he was academically trained - looks at ALL the categories of the presented material (not to say 'evidence' yet), avoiding cherrypicking, patiently explaining all the bits and bobs of WHY something doesn't classify as proof, of what exactly would be required to make it so. Instead of repeating a catchphrase about fuzzy aliens for example, why not do a detailed look into what might have caused 2 navy officers to testify that an unknown shape appeared between their crafts? What possible phenomena could explain such an event (if it was an alien craft, what could it be doing there, and how?), or what could motivate people to conjure up such claims in high stress environments? I'm talking deep-dive! I know very intelligent people who happen to be part of that community, who want to explore these phenomena and see what there is to learn about them (and the US and other countries' government's politics regarding said reports). People with interest in - say - the military technology, and a good dose of common scientific knowledge, while not being scientists themselves. These people sadly turn away from your content, because of the ridicule I've mentioned, and the lack of multi-layered approach, whereby we would consider some "what if"s for example, or talk about what would need to happen for it to demonstrably BE aliens, and why it is so. I just think the discussion around this topic needs a bit of work in order to make it a more constructive environment - while again I don't think we're looking at aliens here, I just sincerely believe that those who happen to exercise that possible scenario in their minds shouldn't be thrown in the same bag as the conspiracy theorists who deny hard scientifc facts. I hope my little essay here will not cause any grief on either side of the fence, I just wanted to voice my opinion on the importance of how science communicators' input in such discussions might shape future discourse, how we should strive to remain kind and open to one another, and go through those interesting times as colleagues in curiosity, emphasizing the crucial aspects of good science and discovery, while maintaining a healthy discourse regime that encourages both sides to actively listen to one another, with respect, even when faced with extraordinary claims :) Keep looking up! Love the app idea btw

I'm gonna do a montage of all these people perpetuating unscientific stigma. This vid has some great clips XD. Neil is a gold mine

The government literally said they found ET ships, and bodies, and these guys are like, yeah, whatever, I need more data. Seriously!? They didn't even address the data presented!!

Neil...you make me smile...

It s a very interesting time to live...a lot of indications they ve been here but the lack of clear verified evidence today keeps me sceptical...but then again.. they should easily be capable of giving us the least of necessary information abt them 🤔🤔🤯

That's great, now please provide a reasonable explanation to what my father in law saw along with another coworker: the setting is near the Merced River at Gallo Winery around 4am while taking a smoke (tobacco) break in the grape fields adjacent to to the river. I'll be brief. Bright light in the sky begins to approach them. Comes within 100ft of them. It lands in the river. They are looking directly at it. It's a metalic disk with an array of windows around the circumference. They eminate light from within but cannot see anyone or any feature inside. Craft then lifts above the trees and shoots off completely silent at all times. The tree branches sway. They feel a breeze reach them and they heard a "swoosh" as it left. There was a vapor trail left behind that was lingering and still slightly visible as the dawn broke. What could that have been?

So 3 guys without the clearance are trying to discredit David who has the highest clearance?