The deployment of a geomagnetic variometer station as auxiliary instrumentation for the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Abstract. Witness reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) occasionally associate UAP sightings with local electromagnetic interferences, such as spinning magnetic compasses onboard aircraft or sudden malfunctions of mechanical vehicles. These reports have motivated the incorporation of a magnetometer into the instrumentation suite of the Galileo Project (GP), a Harvard-led scientific collaboration whose aim is to collect and analyze multi-sensor data that collectively could help elucidate the nature of UAP. The goal of the GP magnetometry investigation is to identify magnetic anomalies that cannot be readily explained in terms of a natural or human-made origin, and analyze these jointly with the data collected from the other modalities. These include an ensemble of visible and infrared cameras, a broadband acoustic system and a weather-monitoring system. Here, we present GP’s first geomagnetic variometer station, deployed at the GP observatory in Colorado, USA. We describe the calibration and deployment of the instrumentation, which consists of a vector magnetometer and its data acquisition system, and the collection and processing of the data. Moreover, we present and discuss examples of the magnetic field data obtained over a period of 6 months, including data recorded during the May 2024 G5 extreme geomagnetic storm. We find that the data meet and even surpass the requirements laid out in GP’s Science Traceability Matrix. Key to the evaluation of our data is the proximity of the variometer station to the USGS magnetic observatory in Boulder, Colorado. By comparing the two sets of data, we find that they are of similar quality. Having established the proper functioning of the first GP variometer station, we will use it as the model for variometer stations at future GP observatories.