For decades, Mark Rodegheir has worked on his own dime to scrape together accounts and scientific data on unidentified flying objects, more commonly known as UFOs.
“Nobody gets paid to do UFOs and study UFOs,” said Mr Rodegheir, a statistician who also is the scientific director of the Centre for UFO Studies, a loose coalition of scientists and researchers dedicated to chronicling sightings and gathering information on UFOs.
UFOs have long captivated the popular imagination but have not been given the serious attention many say they deserve, with mainstream science and the government dismissing them as science fiction – until now.
The US Congress will receive in June a report compiled by the director of national intelligence on what the US government refers to as “unidentified aerial phenomena” – government-speak for UFOs.
For Mr Rodeghier, it is a validation of his life's work.
"It is, in fact, quite satisfying to myself and my colleagues," he told The National.
“I’m not yet going to leap for joy until we see the results of the report, but certainly, you know, this is great.”
In April 2020, the Pentagon released three videos recorded by US Navy fighter pilots. The videos, which had already been leaked online years before, showed small spherical objects moving across the skies and even entering the crosshairs of some of the US government's most advanced technology.
A pilot can be heard saying in one video: “Look at that thing, dude.”
The Pentagon released the footage after determining it did not reveal any “sensitive capabilities or systems”.
Upon its release, the Pentagon said “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterised as ‘unidentified'."
The videos ignited a renewed interest in UFOs that has spread all the way to the US Congress.
Last August, the Pentagon launched a task force dedicated to detecting, analysing and cataloguing "unidentified aerial phenomena".
“We've got an unprecedented situation where instead of the usual denials and debunking, we've got almost official confirmation of the reality of this, and now, quite rightly, of course, Congress is demanding answers and saying, ‘Well, what are we dealing with?’” said Nick Pope, who served as a UFO investigator for Britain's Ministry of Defence from 1991 to 1994.
While the idea of extraterrestrial life is perhaps the most exciting explanation of what was recorded by the pilots, there are more sinister explanations as well.
“Is it our own technology? Is it Russia? Or is it China? Is it something else?" Mr Pope asked.
The US government does not take such questions lightly.
“The Department of Defence and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorised aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report," the Pentagon said.
Some UFOs have later turned out to be objects with an Earthly explanation such as weather balloons, metallic party balloons or drones, all giving off differing radar signatures.
Some sightings could even be highly classified Pentagon prototypes.
It is unknown how much the report to Congress will reveal. An unclassified version will be made public while a more detailed version will remain classified.
UFO researchers like Mr Rodegheir hope the government will be as transparent as possible with the report.
“I'm hoping that this doesn't get into some classified area where you and I and then the public will not be able to know whatever they discover,” he said.
Regardless of what the report reveals, its very existence is a win for many.
“I'm glad that this is happening while I'm still around,” Mr Rodegheir said.
“It's the kind of thing that we've been saying for years, which is simply that the UFO phenomenon is a serious problem. Potentially, it's a scientific problem, potentially an intelligence problem, if in fact there are no aliens who are visiting. And so it deserves to be studied seriously.”
Despite dedicating his life to the subject, Mr Rodegheir said he remains "on the fence” about the existence of extraterrestrial life.
“The bottom line is, we simply don't have the evidence to really make any flat-out assertion about the ultimate origin of the phenomena.”
He hopes that changes in June.
-
Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope captured the tiny moon Phobos during its orbital trek around Mars. Because the moon is so small, it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures. The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus. Phobos is one of the smallest moons in the solar system. It is so tiny that it would fit comfortably inside the Washington, DC. Courtesy: Nasa -
This is the first image of Saturn's ultraviolet aurora taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in October 1998, when Saturn was a distance of 810 million miles (1.3 billion km) from Earth. Courtesy: Nasa -
Astronomers are using the Nasa / ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras — stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere — on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter. Courtesy: Nasa -
This colourful bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), roughly 6000 light-years away from us. Courtesy: Nasa -
This majestic false-colour image from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope shows 'mountains' where stars are born. These towering pillars of cool gas and dust are illuminated at their tips with light from warm embryonic stars. Courtesy: Nasa -
This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope photograph captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Courtesy: Nasa -
These eerie, dark, pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the Eagle Nebula (also called M16), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens. Courtesy: Nasa -
In this image provided by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Omega Nebula (M17) resembles the fury of a raging sea, showing a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulphur. The nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, is a hotbed of newly born stars residing 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Courtesy: Nasa -
Nasa / ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Courtesy: Nasa -
The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's Eye. Courtesy: Nasa -
The Cone Nebula resides 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. Radiation from hot, young stars (located beyond the top of the image) has slowly eroded the nebula over millions of years. Courtesy: Nasa -
This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective: our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star. Hot blue gas near the energising central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary. Courtesy: Nasa -
This image shows the galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring around Messier 94 new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it – thanks to this, this feature is called a starburst ring. The cause of this peculiarly shaped star-forming region is likely a pressure wave going outwards from the galactic centre, compressing the gas and dust in the outer region. Courtesy: Nasa
