NASA has announced a 16-member team that will begin studying "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) on Monday and release its findings to the public in mid-2023.

The independent study team will spend nine months examining the observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena to hopefully shed light on their origin.

NASA said the study will focus solely on unclassified data.

"Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are at NASA," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable." 

UFOS HAVE LANDED IN CONGRESS, WHERE LEGISLATION ADDRESSING THEM WILL BE CONSIDERED

While NASA said one of its key priorities is the search for life elsewhere in the universe, the agency said it "has not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, and there is no evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial."

The team will work with data gathered by civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources to find ways it can be analyzed to learn more about UAPs and eventually recommend how NASA can use UAP data analysis in the future.

"NASA has brought together some of the world's leading scientists, data and artificial intelligence practitioners, aerospace safety experts, all with a specific charge, which is to tell us how to apply the full focus of science and data to UAP," said Daniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. "The findings will be released to the public in conjunction with NASA’s principles of transparency, openness, and scientific integrity." 

Among the 16-member team of scientists and professors is former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, biological oceanographer Paula Bontempi and Nadia Drake, a freelance journalist and contributing writer at National Geographic.

In May, the U.S. Congress held its first hearing on UFOs in a generation. The Pentagon showcased declassified photos and video of UFOs to Congress – including a flying object without a "specific" explanation" – as lawmakers pressed military officials on the mysterious sightings.