A new petition has been launched to request the American government release all unclassified unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), or Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), footage to the general public.
The petition, created by Adam Goldsack from the United Kingdom on February 10, is directed towards senators Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, Marco Rubio from Florida, Jeanna Shaheen from New Hampshire, and three others.
By February 24 the petition had been signed almost 2,500 times. On the Change.org petition, Goldsack writes: "The radical 'transmedium' technology of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is currently being withheld from the American public.
"The UAPTF-DNI preliminary report on UAP found that 143/144 cases were classified as 'Unidentified.' We request that the new UAP office created by congress make available all unclassified videos and cases so that civilian science can investigate and better understand this technology."
Transmedium technology is a term that is used to describe vehicles capable of operating in multiple mediums, with one striking example suggested being submersible aircraft. The term has also been applied to UFOs which are now labeled UAPs.
The petition comes at a time when attitudes towards UFOs and UAPs are changing, with the subject being taken more seriously by scientists and officials.
In June 2021, the Pentagon and the U.S. director of national intelligence released a report detailing UAPs. The report stated: "The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP.
"In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight
characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis."
The report continues by saying that there are probably multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations based on the wide range of appearances and behaviors described by reports, adding they may pose a threat to flight safety and U.S. security.
The Galileo Project, operated by Havard University, aims to bring the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs) from anecdote and legend to the mainstream of transparent, validated and systematic scientific research.
Havard researcher and head of the Galileo Project, Avi Loeb, told Newsweek: "The Galileo Project aims to collect open scientific data on UAP and publish its transparent analysis in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This is the scientific method of advancing our knowledge. It should be applied to figuring out the nature of UAP."
In addition to searching for installer intruders in the solar system, like the asteroid 'Oumuamuna, the Galileo Project gathers high-resolution images of UAPs to try to determine their nature.
The aim of megapixel images and analysis along with Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning is to determine if these objects originate from another country, are common objects like birds, balloons, or drones, or could come from nearby extra-solar planets.
The Galileo Project will also search for potential 1 meter-scale or smaller satellites of extra-solar origin, meaning originating outside the solar system, that may be exploring Earth hundreds of kilometers above the planet.
To do this it will rely on future telescope technology such as the Vera C. Rubin observatory, which will conduct the massive Legacy Survey of Space and Time when it begins operations in 2023.
Loeb said: "The Galileo Project is a big tent that includes both advocates and skeptics regarding an extraterrestrial interpretation of UAP. I brought both groups together as a teaching experience about the scientific method."
Before this Loeb said that within the next few months he and his team will assemble the first telescope system of the Galileo Project on the roof of the Harvard College Observatory.
The researcher said: "It will take a continuous video of the entire sky in infrared and visible light, as well as radio and audio. The hardware will be accompanied by artificial intelligence algorithms that will differentiate between a bird, a drone, an airplane or something else.
"This will just be a test run. Once the first system works according to our specifications, we will make copies of it and distribute them in various geographical locations of interest. My hope is that we will collect some low-hanging fruit in the coming year or two."
Loeb added that once his Havard team gets quality evidence, in the form of a high-resolution images or detailed data on the behavior of UAP, both skeptics and advocates should agree on the interpretation "irrespective of their initial opinions."
"This is how science works," he said. "Evidence unites us. I wish the same was true in politics."
Commenting on the petition, Loeb concluded: "My view is that waiting for the government to declassify documents is like waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett's famous play. A much better approach is to get new data or higher quality.
"The sky is not classified and the cameras available today are far better than those used decades ago. Scientific evidence is founded on the reproducibility of results. We should be able to see the same things by observing the sky again."
