A new investment risk: Unidentified flying objects
A two-year-old investment fund is warning investors about a potential threat to their portfolio that may strike some as out of this world: That "unidentified aerial phenomena" — colloquially known as UFOs — to hurt their investment returns.
The Procure Space ETF, which trades under the ticker "UFO," added the warning to its prospectus this month following a report from a U.S. government task force that documented a number of sightings of unexplained objects. Because the fund invests in space exploration and satellite companies, it added the warning due to the possibility that such unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, could interfere with the operation of satellites or other objects in space.
Procure co-founder Andrew Chanin acknowledged in a statement that tales of unidentified flying objects were "once a figment of science fiction." But while fans of "The X-Files" may believe the truth is out there, the government task force report was hardly definitive about what may explain UAPs, finding no evidence that the objects are extraterrestrial.
Still, Chanin said that the possible impact of UAPs shouldn't be discounted, regardless of their origins.
"Whether originating from foreign adversaries or extraterrestrial activity, UAPs have potentially wide-reaching implications that we need to start taking seriously," he said. "We are truly just scratching the surface of what we know."
Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters earlier this month about the task force's findings said that nearly all of the investigated incidents remain unexplained. Of the 144 reports of UAPs cited in the panel's report, only one object's origin was verified — as a deflating balloon. The other UAPs were physical objects, not optical illusions, the report found.
To be sure, adding a warning about the risk of UAPs could help fuel attention for the relatively small $128 million fund, described as the first ETF to purely focus on space-related stocks. But Procure Space ETF noted that the unidentified objects "could create unintentional or deliberate operational, data security, 'cyber' and other interference with the operation of satellites and other objects in space."
The Procure Space ETF invests in companies including Virgin Galactic, a spaceflight company, and Garmin, whose GPS trackers use satellite data to track users' location.