A panel recently spoke with members of the media about the show, which is centered around a subject that has the whole world either convinced or dismissive of alien visitations.

When asked about this controversial topic, the show’s producer, director and writer Terri Randall said, “There are more scientists now that are willing to come forward, but we’re still in that period of time where it’s transitional. So there are scientists (for whom) it’s still taboo for them.”

Randall explained that the term “UFO” is simply “unidentified flying object” and not necessarily aliens.

“So if you don’t deal with the topic as a UFO, then you’re going to immediately identify it with alien spacecraft and then you don’t want to talk about it. And that means that people aren’t dealing with talking about things in the sky that we don’t know what they are.”

Pilots from the military to commercial airlines have reported seeing strange objects while flying. One of them, Ryan Graves, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, has come forward to discuss his sightings. It is not an easy thing to do for any pilot. Testifying about seeing objects in the sky can be a daunting experience.

“I will suggest that I perhaps was fearful of doing that, going on that ledge and participating in that hearing,” Graves admitted. “So I won’t pretend that I didn’t experience those type of emotions at all. But from my perspective, I wasn’t doing it for myself. I was doing it to enhance the conversation that I’ve been receiving from other pilots, to be able to move the conversation forward.

“I truly believe that as we have more data in this conversation, that we’re going to be able to finally get to some answers. And I’m doing my part by providing a safe place for pilots to come forward and share their experiences.”

Graves added, “When we first started experiencing this, we did not jump to any type of conclusions. In fact, we weren’t even really talking about it other than with kind of hushed whispers amongst the crew that experienced it.” Needless to say, this subject was and is a sensitive one to broach with others.

According to the former military officer, “It wasn’t until we had an incident where there was a near miss with one of these objects that we kind of came together as a squadron to talk about it.”

Many people have faked photos of objects, and as Mick West, an author/UFO analyst and founder of the Metabunk website/discussion platform, pointed out, “I think that’s a big part of the problem is that a lot of the videos that we see online, especially from TikTok, are either fake or they’re kind of over-interpretations of what’s actually out there, which is why it’s very important to get the original source of the video when it comes out.”

West continued, “But as the topic gets more and more popular, we’re going to see more and more of this type of thing, and we’ll especially see more AI-generated videos as things like the new (artificial intelligence) from ChatGPT, Ipen AI, comes online being able to make videos. It’s definitely going to be a problem down the line.”

“Nova” co-executive producer Chris Schmidt explained about why this documentary is relevant today: “So, a lot of ‘Nova’ programs that we make, we make when we think that there is a sufficient level of curiosity in the zeitgeist that we can actually help shed light on essentially. So, we certainly didn’t set out to just say that UFOs are aliens or UFOs are not aliens. We really wanted to know what science thinks about these things.”

It’s clear the unidentified objects in the sky are getting more and more attention, and with the added element of drones being so abundant, people are curious about what is an explained drone and what is an unidentified object flying above them. This documentary looks at the subject of UFOs through a scientific lens. And more information is coming out as more people are seeing these objects.

The UFOs have been spotted by pilots and civilians, and everyone is searching for answers. The momentum for finding answers is growing, and the filmmakers hope this documentary will get people talking about the subject and get the scientific community together to figure it out.

“We are living in an age of conspiracy, and we need facts now more than ever,” Randall said. “This film is able to address some of the viewer’s most urgent questions about UFOs from a scientific perspective.”

“What are UFOs?” premiered last month and is available to stream on the free PBS app.