UFOs: A Scientist Explains What We Know (and Don’t Know)

Robert Powell, a founding Board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, has studied the UFO subject for 17 years. His work is encapsulated in UFOs: A Scientist Explains What We Know (And Don't Know) which provides a scientific rationale for the reality of non-terrestrial craft that are intelligently controlled. Powell begins his book by familiarizing the reader with the history of UFOs and he identifies the more enigmatic and interesting UFO sightings. He examines the characteristics of these sightings that argue against a prosaic explanation: extreme acceleration, electromagnetic interference, bending light, no obvious propulsion mechanisms, and a lack of interaction with the atmosphere. Powell discusses the recent events that have caused our government to change the term from UFO to UAP. Included is information never before released indicating the government possesses not just two videos but five videos from 2015 of UFOs operating in the vicinity of the USS Roosevelt nuclear aircraft carrier. Powell's later chapters in the book discuss the extraterrestrial hypothesis considering the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered in the last twenty years. Powell challenges the reader to consider all the implications that must be considered if intelligent life discovers us first. He looks at how we as individuals and as a society react to UFOs. He documents actions taken by our military that include instances when we have fired on UFOs. Powell argues that it is time for a change in the study of UFOs. The phenomenon has been with us for 75 years and we have learned very little as the decades have passed. The author makes the case for what needs to be done going forward. The solution he proposes will require a paradigm shift in our thinking and his book provides the information needed to understand that paradigm shift.

About the Author :
Robert Powell has 28 years of engineering experience in the semiconductor industry. He helped Advanced Micro Devices develop its first flash memory technology that is used in today's flash cards for cameras, PCs, video cameras, and other products. His experience includes managing a state-of-the-art chemistry laboratory and managing a Research and Development group that worked on nanotechnology using atomic force microscopes, near-field optical microscopy, and other techniques. Robert is also a co-holder of four patents related to nanotechnology. Robert Powell is a founding Board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). He was the Director of Research at MUFON from 2007-2017 and created MUFON's Science Review Board in 2012. Robert is one of two authors of the detailed radar/witness report on the “Stephenville Lights” as well as the SCU report "UAP: 2013 Aguadilla, Puerto Rico". He is also the primary author on the recently published paper, “A Forensic Analysis of Navy Carrier Strike Group Eleven's Encounter with an Anomalous Aerial Vehicle” and a secondary author of a paper published in the journal Entropy entitled, “Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles.” Robert is a member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, the UFODATA project, and the National Space Society.

Review :
The case for more transparent scientific study of these phenomena is well done, and it is timely, as the US government appears to be releasing previously closed records and NASA appears to be beginning just the type of study the book proposes. Robert Powell is one of the luminaries of the UFO world, an accomplished scientist who brings rational, objective analysis to a complex subject where the evidence is all too often peremptorily dismissed by dedicated skeptics or naively accepted without proper analysis by true believers. Even-handed, methodical, and insightful, Robert's new book will help the educated reader to understand and interpret the best current evidence regarding one of the world's greatest and most portentous mysteries. The first comprehensive stock-taking of the UFO problem, both scientific and big picture, since the Pentagon's about-face in 2021 confirming the existence of “UAP” and their potential threat to national security. Sober, reliable, and refreshingly free of conspiracies, Powell's book is in the great tradition of Sturrock's The UFO Enigma (1999) and Hynek's The UFO Experience (1972). Clear prose and a logical structure make it an outstanding introduction to the field. Robert Powell clearly explains the role that science must play in furthering universal understanding about UFOs. Scientists must claim this investigation as their own, and balance the national security narrative that has become so dominant. What facts do scientists already know about this phenomenon and how can they go about studying it in the future? I found the information in UFOs to be educational, though-provoking and inspiring.