China uses AI technology to track UFOs

Researchers use artificial intelligence (AI) to track and analyze the growing number of unidentified flying objects in Chinese airspace.

Analysts are increasingly receiving reports of UFOs from military and civilian sources, said Chen Li, a researcher at the Air Force Early Warning Academy. The frequent appearance of UFOs in recent years brings many great challenges to national security, Chen concluded in a report at the conference of senior information technology scientists in Beijing in 2019. .

AI could help authorities classify UFOs faster. (Photo: Aaj Tak).

Experts in the Chinese military are relying on AI technology to analyze UFO data. According to Chen, the advantage of AI is that this technology can examine information scattered in many data sets at many different times and places, helping to identify foreign objects that appear to be human, natural or natural. other kernel.

UFOs often capture the imagination because people don't know if it's an alien spaceship or not. Recently, the US military confirmed the authenticity of several videos recorded by naval pilots, in which flying objects move in ways that cannot be explained by current technology or the laws of physics.

The only UFO sighting officially confirmed by China occurred at a military base in Cangzhou, Hebei province, on October 19, 1998. According to a report in the Hebei Daily, two military aircraft were ordered to intercept a low-flying object that appeared suddenly above the airbase. This object resembles a short-legged mushroom with two beams of light emanating from its abdomen. As the planes approached, the object flew to an altitude of more than 20,000 meters at lightning speed before disappearing from view and radar sight.

According to Chen and colleagues, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has a three-level reporting system for handling unidentified flying objects. The basic level includes military radar stations, air force pilots, police departments, weather stations, and observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which are responsible for collecting as much raw data as possible. Information is processed at the second level by the local military commander. They will conduct preliminary analysis and transfer the data to a nationwide database.

With the help of AI, PLA headquarters classifies each object into a "threat category" based on behavior, occurrence, aerodynamic design, radioactivity, materials, and more information. is different. AI can be chained with other information to determine the object's purpose. For example, if similar unidentified objects tend to appear during important political events or military exercises, they are more likely to be viewed as man-made devices deployed by other countries to collect information.

Nature also contributes largely to anomalous activities detected by the military. For example, electrically generated ionized particles in the air can create images that are difficult to interpret on radar or other electronic sensors. Verification of phenomena of this type often takes time, but AI can quickly identify most natural causes by cross-checking various sources of information such as weather satellite data, according to the researchers. military rescue.

A radar scientist in Xi'an in northwest China's Shaanxi province, said the growing number of unidentified objects in Chinese airspace were more likely caused by humans rather than aliens. The Chinese government has been slowly loosening its controls on low-altitude flying over the past few years, while drones have also become increasingly cheap and common.