TY - JOUR
T1 - The Scientific Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Using Multimodal Ground-based Observatories
AU - Watters, Wesley Andres
AU - Loeb, Abraham
AU - Laukien, Frank
AU - Cloete, Richard
AU - Delacroix, Alex
AU - Dobroshinsky, Sergei
AU - Horvath, Benjamin
AU - Kelderman, Ezra
AU - Little, Sarah
AU - Masson, Eric
AU - Mead, Andrew
AU - Randall, Mitch
AU - Schultz, Forrest
AU - Szenher, Matthew
AU - Vervelidou, Foteini
AU - White, Abigail
AU - Ahlstrom, Angelique
AU - Cleland, Carol
AU - Dockal, Spencer
AU - Donahue, Natasha
AU - Elowitz, Mark
AU - Ezell, Carson
AU - Gersznowicz, Alex
AU - Gold, Nicholas
AU - Hercz, Michael G.
AU - Keto, Eric
AU - Knuth, Kevin
AU - Lux, Anthony
AU - Melnick, Gary J.
AU - Moro-Martin, Amaya
AU - Martin-Torres, Javier
AU - Ribes, Daniel Llusa
AU - Sail, Paul
AU - Teodorani, Massimo
AU - Tedesco, John Joseph
AU - Tedesco, Gerald Thomas
AU - Tu, Michelle
AU - Zorzano, Maria-Paz
PY - 2023/5/13
Y1 - 2023/5/13
N2 - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) have resisted explanation and have received little formal scientific attention for 75 years. A primary objective of the Galileo Project is to build an integrated software and instrumentation system designed to conduct a multimodal census of aerial phenomena and to recognize anomalies. Here we present key motivations for the study of UAP and address historical objections to this research. We describe an approach for highlighting outlier events in the high-dimensional parameter space of our census measurements. We provide a detailed roadmap for deciding measurement requirements, as well as a science traceability matrix (STM) for connecting sought-after physical parameters to observables and instrument requirements. We also discuss potential strategies for deciding where to locate instruments for development, testing, and final deployment. Our instrument package is multimodal and multispectral, consisting of (1) wide-field cameras in multiple bands for targeting and tracking of aerial objects and deriving their positions and kinematics using triangulation; (2) narrow-field instruments including cameras for characterizing morphology, spectra, polarimetry, and photometry; (3) passive multistatic arrays of antennas and receivers for radar-derived range and kinematics; (4) radio spectrum analyzers to measure radio and microwave emissions; (5) microphones for sampling acoustic emissions in the infrasonic through ultrasonic frequency bands; and (6) environmental sensors for characterizing ambient conditions (temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind velocity), as well as quasistatic electric and magnetic fields, and energetic particles. The use of multispectral instruments and multiple sensor modalities will help to ensure that artifacts are recognized and that true detections are corroborated and verifiable. Data processing pipelines are being developed that apply state-of-the-art techniques for multi-sensor data fusion, hypothesis tracking, semi-supervised classification, and outlier detection.
AB - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) have resisted explanation and have received little formal scientific attention for 75 years. A primary objective of the Galileo Project is to build an integrated software and instrumentation system designed to conduct a multimodal census of aerial phenomena and to recognize anomalies. Here we present key motivations for the study of UAP and address historical objections to this research. We describe an approach for highlighting outlier events in the high-dimensional parameter space of our census measurements. We provide a detailed roadmap for deciding measurement requirements, as well as a science traceability matrix (STM) for connecting sought-after physical parameters to observables and instrument requirements. We also discuss potential strategies for deciding where to locate instruments for development, testing, and final deployment. Our instrument package is multimodal and multispectral, consisting of (1) wide-field cameras in multiple bands for targeting and tracking of aerial objects and deriving their positions and kinematics using triangulation; (2) narrow-field instruments including cameras for characterizing morphology, spectra, polarimetry, and photometry; (3) passive multistatic arrays of antennas and receivers for radar-derived range and kinematics; (4) radio spectrum analyzers to measure radio and microwave emissions; (5) microphones for sampling acoustic emissions in the infrasonic through ultrasonic frequency bands; and (6) environmental sensors for characterizing ambient conditions (temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind velocity), as well as quasistatic electric and magnetic fields, and energetic particles. The use of multispectral instruments and multiple sensor modalities will help to ensure that artifacts are recognized and that true detections are corroborated and verifiable. Data processing pipelines are being developed that apply state-of-the-art techniques for multi-sensor data fusion, hypothesis tracking, semi-supervised classification, and outlier detection.
KW - Aerial anomaly
KW - anomaly detection
KW - aerial object tracking
KW - UAP
KW - UFO
KW - unidentified aerial phenomena
KW - unidentified aerospace phenomena
KW - unidentified anomalous phenomena
U2 - 10.1142/S2251171723400068
DO - 10.1142/S2251171723400068
M3 - Article
SN - 2251-1717
VL - 12
JO - Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation
JF - Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation
IS - 1
M1 - 2340006
ER -