Yes—Würzburg University has opened a UFO-reporting portal for pilots, and Germany’s civil-aviation authority says it wants in.
But the story is bigger (and stranger) than one headline suggests.
The Surprise in Würzburg
On 15 July 2025, the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Extraterrestrics (IFEX) at the University of Würzburg quietly pressed “publish.”
Out went a new website—complete with a sleek form that invites cockpit crews to log every odd light, radar echo, or metal-freezing close encounter they spot above 10,000 feet. Within hours, aviation blogs were buzzing: Was this Germany’s first academic UFO hotline? And was the federal aviation regulator, the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA), really backing it?
What our fact-check found
| Claim | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| University launched a pilot-only UAP portal | True | Official portal live 15 July 2025 (uni-wuerzburg.de) |
| LBA supports the project | Mostly true, with a caveat | Uni press release quotes LBA’s intent to link to the portal; no independent LBA press note yet |
| Germany never had a UFO hotline before | False | Citizen groups CENAP & NARCAP-DE have existed for decades; the new aspect is a university-run, pilot-focused site |
Why Pilots, Why Now?
Professor Hakan Kayal, satellite-engineering specialist turned UAP sleuth, says pilots are “ground truth in the sky”—trained observers whose reports come with altitudes, bearings, and timestamps. For years, Kayal’s team has run SkyCAM-5, an AI camera network scanning the night sky for anomalies. The new portal simply turns pilots into a human extension of that sensor net.
“Unclassified pilot data are gold. They let us test machine-learning models against real-world weirdness.”
—Prof. Hakan Kayal, University of Würzburg (14 July 2025 press briefing)
Is the Regulator Really On Board?
The University’s press release says the LBA “supports the approach” and plans to add a direct link under its general “Occurrence Reporting” page. That is significant—if it happens:
- The LBA has issued no separate public statement (checked again 16 July 2025).
- No German media outlet has reported an LBA denial.
- Aviation insiders note that linking a third-party form is a low-risk, low-budget way for the LBA to look proactive while Brussels and Washington debate UAP transparency.
Translation: Support yes, full-throated endorsement not yet.
How This Differs from the Old-School UFO Hotlines
- Academic stewardship
• Data go to a university lab, not a hobby club. - Aviation-grade metadata
• Flight number, altitude, weather, radar logs—fields hobby sites rarely demand. - Target audience
• The form politely but firmly asks only professional flight crews to file.
Long-running citizen hubs like CENAP (since 1973) or NARCAP-DE still invite the public to report. The Würzburg portal narrows the funnel, betting on quality over quantity.
What We Still Don’t Know
- Will pilots actually use it? Airline policies vary; some still discourage UFO talk.
- Will the data be public? IFEX promises anonymised “yearly summaries,” but no raw database so far.
- How deep is LBA’s commitment? A hyperlink is easy; funding scientific analysis is harder.
The Road Ahead
Germany now has its first university-run, aviation-linked UAP hotline—a small step for pilots, a potentially giant leap for standardized data. If the LBA follows through, it could normalize cockpit reporting of the unexplained, much as NASA’s safety hotline did for near-misses.
Until then, the portal waits, its blank fields ready for the next baffled captain at 35,000 feet to type: “Bright sphere, pacing left wing, no transponder.”
Want to read the sources yourself?
- Official portal (University of Würzburg)
https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/ifex/forschung-projekte/uap-meldestelle-fuer-piloten/ - University press release announcing LBA support
https://www.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/raumfahrttechnik/aktuelles/single/seite-1/?tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=231720 - Telepolis coverage
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Mysterioese-Begegnungen-ueber-den-Wolken-Piloten-berichten-10487601.html - Historical citizen portals
CENAP: https://www.welt.de/255086178
NARCAP-DE: https://narcap.de/einfuehrung.htm
Bottom line: The headline checks out, the context matters, and the sky just got a little more transparent—at least on paper.