Image: Anna Paulina Luna, a U.S. congresswoman leading efforts to promote greater transparency on UAP-related information. The growing public and political debate in the United States surrounding Pentagon disclosures underscores the shift from data collection to systematic analysis using artificial intelligence. Photo: Scott Applewhite / AP.

The White House may be pushing, and the Pentagon may release the data — but it is artificial intelligence that will ultimately do the real work: separating the known from the unexplained.

As the Pentagon prepares to release new data and videos related to UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), it is becoming increasingly clear that the central challenge is no longer data collection — but the ability to analyze it. In an era of vast observational datasets, the key question is not only “what did we see,” but how to systematically distinguish between what is known and what remains unexplained.

This is where artificial intelligence comes in — not as a tool to prove hypotheses, but as a neutral filtering mechanism based on elimination: removing all known explanations until a genuine anomaly remains, one that is worthy of scientific investigation.

There are many hypotheses regarding unidentified objects in Earth’s vicinity or within the solar system. Broader questions also arise about the development of life in different environments — for example, whether there may have been any connection between Mars and Earth around three billion years ago, or how we might track civilizations across the universe through technological signatures (technosignatures), advanced telescopes, and the intelligent use of AI.

There is also a theoretical possibility that we are not the first technological civilization to have existed on Earth over its long history. If a civilization similar to ours existed hundreds of millions of years ago, most of its traces may have been erased by geological processes. In such a scenario, detectable remnants might survive only as objects in orbit or as anomalous technological signatures.

One approach is to wait for a direct encounter with another civilization. Some scientists even entertain this possibility when discussing anomalies in interstellar objects such as 3I/ATLAS. However, an alternative approach is gaining traction: rather than waiting, we can search for indirect evidence — measurable technosignatures left behind by technological activity.

In a universe approximately 13.5 billion years old, with a solar system about 4.5 billion years old, estimates suggest the existence of trillions of planets, including over a billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone. As a result, the search for other civilizations is increasingly focused on identifying biological, chemical, climatic — and especially technological — signatures.

Earth as a Laboratory for Technosignatures:

If we treat Earth as a “laboratory,” we can identify the types of traces a technological civilization leaves behind and how they might appear to an external observer:

Radio leakage: Radio, television, and radar transmissions create a bubble of artificial signals expanding into space.

Light pollution: Artificial illumination alters the night-side brightness of the planet.

Technofossils: Industrial materials such as plastics, concrete, and refined metals leave distinct geological signatures.

Atmospheric signatures: Industrial gases like CFCs do not occur naturally.

Nuclear signatures: Isotopes such as plutonium-239 provide clear evidence of technological activity.

These examples demonstrate that technology leaves measurable traces — sometimes long after the activity itself has ended.

From Earth to Other Worlds:

If this is how technological signatures appear on Earth, the question arises: can we detect similar traces elsewhere?

Mars is a natural candidate for such investigation. Geological evidence suggests that it once had flowing water and a denser atmosphere. At the same time, Earth hosted microbial life, primarily in stable ocean environments. This raises the question of whether similar processes may have occurred on Mars — or possibly beyond.

However, the loss of Mars’ magnetic field and atmosphere made it a far more hostile environment. If life existed there, it would have faced significantly harsher conditions.

The Oceans as a Hidden Archive:

Earth is geologically active, meaning that most ancient evidence is gradually erased. However, the deep ocean floor may serve as a different kind of archive, preserving chemical or structural anomalies over long periods.

Advances in sonar, underwater robotics, and seabed mapping now allow exploration of regions that were previously inaccessible.

Space Debris and AI: The Elimination Method.

Another domain for detecting technosignatures is Earth’s orbital environment.

Today, tens of thousands of tracked objects orbit Earth, alongside millions of smaller fragments. The challenge is not collecting data — but identifying anomalies within an enormous dataset.

This is where AI becomes essential.

The issue is not a lack of data, but an overabundance of it. AI systems can perform anomaly detection at a scale beyond human capability:

Comparing all tracked objects across multiple datasets.

Filtering objects associated with known launches.

Identifying objects that do not match known profiles.

Such anomalies are not proof — but starting points for scientific investigation.

Similarly, AI can analyze planetary imagery to detect structures or features that are not easily explained by known geological processes, flagging them for deeper analysis.

A Shift in Scientific Approach:

In recent years, a shift has begun to emerge: from searching for deliberate signals to systematically identifying anomalies.

The combination of advanced telescopes, massive datasets, and artificial intelligence now makes it possible, for the first time, to separate the known from the unexplained in a structured and scalable way.

Conclusion:

The first evidence of another civilization may not arrive as a dramatic encounter — but as a subtle anomaly within a vast dataset.

In such a world, the key question is no longer only what we are looking for, but how we recognize what we do not yet understand.

Rather than waiting for a singular event, science is developing a new approach: understanding how technology leaves traces, searching for them across environments — from Earth to Mars — and using tools like artificial intelligence to distinguish between the known and the anomalous.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)