Humanity has long speculated the existence of life beyond our planet, though the probability of space life may not be all that far-fetched. In June 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) commissioned a research team to study and examine Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). UAP are essentially observations in the sky that cannot be characterized as an aircraft or naturally occurring phenomenon. You may be more familiar with the term Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), but due to the connotations of conspiracy and paranoia aligned with the term UFO, government officials have chosen to switch to the term UAP.

To destigmatize and bring awareness to the presence of UAP, Benjamin Radigan, junior computer science major, recently founded the UAP Awareness Club. Radigan hopes to destigmatize and create open conversation around the topic of UAP.

“I preface it as an awareness club. It’s a topic that gets a lot of scrutiny, and I think it’s a topic that deserves more serious discussion,” Radigan said. “And what I’m trying to do with the club is not spread an agenda or anything like that. I’m not spreading my beliefs on the topic, but really giving people the tools to do that on their own by informing them of the phenomenon and encouraging discussion.”

Although the UAP Awareness Club is not a registered student organization, Radigan plans on expanding the scope of the club to include discussions from guest speakers and professors on campus, as well as potentially planning field trips to areas of UAP sightings.

Maxton Lynch, junior finance major, happened to be leaving the Coates Student Center when he was asked to sit down and join the conversation with the UAP Awareness Club. Similarly to Radigan, Lynch hopes to destigmatize the conversation surrounding UAP by engaging in active conversation surrounding the topic.

“To me, it was more to bring awareness to UAP and to just have a civil sitdown discussion about them and to get other people’s point of views and their experiences, which I wasn’t super familiar with before,” Lynch said.

Noor Jahlul, senior sociology major, attended the meeting after a friend encouraged him to join the UAP Awareness Club’s GroupMe. Jahul said he enjoyed hearing people’s experiences with UAP and after the meeting even received some materials regarding UAP from Radigan to expand his understanding of the topic. The conversations surrounding UAP centered mostly around the energy capabilities of UAP, and how fostering said energy would change the course of harnessing energy entirely.

“Before, I was expecting the conversation to be about recent developments, about the U.S. government and Mexico, revealing the existence of aliens and stuff,” Jahlul said. “But I felt like the conversation was a lot more nuanced, like how things aren’t what meets the eye.”

The UAP Awareness Club typically hosts meetings every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Coates Student Center. To learn more about the UAP Awareness Club, there are flyers around campus, which contain important information regarding the club.