The declassifying of military UFO reports by the United States will open a window into new physics and science, an Australian astrobiologist says, even if he finds it “highly unlikely” extraterrestrial entities are visiting Earth.

This week the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its much-anticipated preliminary assessment into what it calls Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

With its release came the admission that all but one of 144 recorded events between 2004 and 2021 were unexplained.

The assessment included incidents of military pilots tracking UAPs, with footage of some encounters having been declassified and released in recent years.

“As soon as you take these out of the top-secret locker and make them public, you suddenly open them up to scrutiny of a much wider variety of people with very different expertise,” University of Southern Queensland’s Centre for Astrophysics’ Professor Jonti Horner said.

“That means you find explanations.”

Elves and sprites

Professor Horner, an astronomer and astrobiologist, said a good example was the relatively recent confirmation of upper-atmospheric lightning, named elves and sprites.

“There were reports from pilots of these peculiar flashes above thunderstorms that were a bit colourful, but they got pooh-poohed,” he said.

“They said, ‘This is stupid. You must be imagining things’ — so they were essentially UFOs.

“Then our camera equipment got better and better and people started getting photos of these things from the ground and they’ve been confirmed to exist.”

Professor Horner said a similar scepticism had greeted reports of electrostatic phenomena associated with meteorites and fireballs falling from the sky.

“There were things like weird noises in the house because the electrics were getting set off, and the radio’s making noises, and there are weird noises and sonic booms and, at the time, everybody pooh-poohed them and said, ‘That doesn’t make sense’,” he said.

“But nowadays we know those phenomena are real in a small number of cases.

“So I think a release like this is a really positive thing, because it encourages people to voice the things they see without feeling embarrassed about it.”

Not-so-close encounters

Professor Horner’s comments on ABC Radio Adelaide prompted several people to call in and describe their own experiences with “UFOs”.

A caller by the name of “Delta” said he had seen several UFOs near Swan Reach and had his first encounter in October 2018.

“It was a Saturday night, about 9:30pm and I was probably on my second can of beer, just listening to Fresh FM,” he said.

“It was a giant ball of super-bright light about 300 metres away, about 200m up, in dead silence with no wind, no clouds … moving about 80 kilometres per hour in a southerly direction.

“The brightness of these things is like a welding arc — it’s like plasma.”

Professor Horner said about 50 per cent of UFO sightings could be attributed to Venus, because it appeared to hover silently and low in the sky after sunset.

It could appear to be moving, he said, depending on the viewer’s perspective.

“In reality, it’s a planet some 30, 40, 50 million km away and it’s not moving,” Professor Horner said.

“But your perspective on it gives you this instinctive feeling that it’s moving really quickly, accelerating and making these incredible corners and doing all this weird stuff.”

Sphere over Exmouth

Luke Abberley shared a photograph his grandfather had taken at Exmouth in Western Australia.

“He was taking a photo of Ningaloo Reef – like a seascape photo – and, on returning home, going through his photos on a digital camera, there was a round silver ball in between the clouds over the ocean,” Mr Abberley said.

Upon viewing the photograph, Professor Horner said the object was most likely a weather balloon, or a helium-filled balloon that might have escaped a children’s party.

He said the one case the ODNI report did manage to explain turned out to be a deflating weather balloon.

Startling findings

But the report also contained startling findings, including that most of the UAPs were probably “physical objects”.

Some 80 events were recorded on multiple military sensors, including radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon-seekers and visual observation.

A small amount emitted radio frequency energy.

The report said 18 events involved UAPs moving with unprecedented capability without a discernible means of propulsion, and there were 11 documented instances of pilots reporting near misses.

“I think it’s really good fun, because almost all of them – if not all of them – will end up having an explanation and we’ll figure it out,” Professor Horner said.

“Some of them will be optical illusions, some will be matters of perspective.

“But the beauty will be the ones you can’t explain, because they’re sometimes a window into new physics and new science.”

Despite this, he said, the likelihood of any of ODNI cases turning out to be extraterrestrial in nature was “high unlikely” — although he would not rule it out altogether.

“A big part of that is the vastness of both space and time, and the likelihood of aliens coming here is very small when there’s so much more to explore,” Professor Horner said.

“Also, the likelihood of them coming now, when we’re in a position to record and document them, is very unlikely as well.”