New App Classifies The Unexplained

Think you've seen a UFO (or UAP)? Now there's an app for that. New York startup Enigma Labs hopes people will download the mobile app (still in beta) and report their sightings in real time, adding to a database the company has compiled that already has 300,000 entries. “At our core, we’re a data science company," COO Mark Douglas told Wired. "We’re building the first data and community platform exclusively dedicated to the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).” That's the new term that's edging out UFO as the more broad-ranging name for such things.

Anyone who spots something for which they can't explain its existence can bring up the app, which will quiz them on the size, shape and nature of it. They can also upload photos and videos of it. Then Enigma's proprietary algorithm goes to work to classify the sighting and toss out any explainable things like aircraft or weather phenomena. It's that sorting process that Douglas said sets their app apart. “The core issue to studying this has been a data problem: ‘What is credible, what is not, who is credible, who is not?’” he said. “What we’re trying to do is bring a level of standardization and rigor to that.”