The Central Research Network for Extraordinary Celestial Phenomena (CENAP) is a point of contact for people in Germany who are looking for a scientific explanation for what they observe in the sky.
CENAP director Hansjürgen Köhler says they have never received as many reports as they do at the moment: “We receive between three and six reports a day. Without question, we’re the busiest reporting centre in the German-speaking world.” By August 2026 he and his team had cleared up some 14,000 cases.
Köhler is an amateur astronomer; it all started “with youthful recklessness.”
“We were working at the observatory and expanding our knowledge there. Back then, lots of calls were coming in and the observatory was getting fed up with it. That prompted us to take a closer look at the whole UFO subject.”
As an 11-year-old he watched the moon landing on television. It left a deep impression on him and laid the foundations for his interest. “If I’d known back then what was coming, I wouldn’t have done it; there really were a few annoying years, but these days I enjoy it because we can give people a sensible explanation.”
“In 1973, at the beginning, when we were young men starting to grapple with this subject, we obtained microfilms from the USA from the Second World War era showing flying objects that were considered inexplicable phenomena.”
“We realised that even back then, during the war, there were repeated natural phenomena,” says Köhler. “Some of the images were quite striking – not least because of the pilots’ reactions, as they asked themselves in astonishment what might just have flown past them.”
Pentagon files put UFOs back in the spotlight
Today, with the Pentagon in Washington having released the so-called UFO files, the topic is gaining momentum again.
After the US Navy had already released videos showing unidentified flying objects – now officially mostly referred to as “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP) – the Pentagon in April 2020 for the first time formally confirmed the authenticity of three recordings from 2004 and 2015. The videos show encounters between US military pilots and flying objects whose origin could not initially be clearly determined.
In December 2022 the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office” (AARO) was even set up within the US Department of Defense. The office is tasked with systematically investigating UAP reports, assessing any potential threats to national security and reviewing past cases.
For Köhler, that’s old hat: “We already know the archives anyway; there was nothing in them that was new to me. For the younger generation, though, it is something new. We can only yawn when we see the old footage.”
One of the recordings, the so-called “Gimbal” video, was made in January 2015 during a training flight by a US Navy F/A-18 off the coast of California. The infrared footage shows an unidentified object that appears to rotate on its own axis and is commented on in astonishment by the pilots. The Pentagon itself has confirmed the authenticity of the recording but, by its own account, has so far been unable to clearly establish the object’s exact identity.
Köhler is convinced that the video shows nothing more than a balloon. He explains its apparently rapid movement as a relative motion between the aircraft and the balloon: because of the jet’s high speed, it creates the impression that the object is racing past at enormous pace.
He also has something to add on the F/A-18 itself: “Ever since it was introduced by the US Navy it has had issues with its electronic tracking systems. It has received nine updates to get that under control, and there are still misreadings, including in the speed indications.”
But, as Köhler says with some frustration, “all of that simply gets lost. The film is shown again and again, and the debunking is like a drop in the ocean, it too just disappears. Above all on social media and on X, the kind of tall tales that are told there are so absurd. I don’t even watch it any more because it annoys me; it runs counter to my work.”
Köhler boils down the reports that reach him to one core idea: “Supposedly, visitors from far out there drop by every day to see what we’re up to here. I do not deny that there is life out there. But are we really to believe that they travel across galaxies with highly advanced technology to our blue planet and then crash of all places here above the desert?”
Critics of CENAP occasionally complain that the organisation assesses many UFO sightings very sceptically and places a strong emphasis on conventional explanations. Supporters see that as precisely the organisation’s strength: CENAP seeks to classify observations in scientific terms and distinguish between genuinely unexplained phenomena and misinterpretations.
The differing assessments mainly stem from the question of how open one should remain to explanations that are still unknown.
“I understand that people start puzzling over it; I can end up in that situation too,” says expert Köhler. “Some people call the police at 2:00 in the morning and say they can see something flashing in the sky. Then the officers call us because the people insist so strongly that there is something there. So you have two police officers standing there, looking up at the sky together with the caller, unable to explain it either and phoning us.”
Köhler has a recommendation for such cases: “Members of the public can find out what they are observing – there are free astronomy apps. You can point your phone at the sky and the name of the celestial body then appears.”
What has he been able to identify so far?
Aircraft, helicopters, rocket stages, satellites, astronomical causes such as meteors, bright fireballs (daytime meteors), planets, bright stars, balloons of all kinds (weather, atmospheric, hot-air) and decorative foil balloons in XXL format from children’s birthday parties and weddings, as well as lasers used by event organisers that sometimes shine over distances of several kilometres.
There are, however, also cases that Köhler has not been able to resolve. Anyone hoping to see them as proof of extraterrestrial visitors will be disappointed: “These were not alien visits. The cases have simply remained unexplained because we lack key information. For a serious investigation we need the date, time, place, direction in the sky and, if possible, visual material. Only then can we start our research.”