This is part of FJN’s Topic Briefs for Journalists series.
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The UAP phenomenon occurs right where science and spirituality meet. It has as much to do with astrophysics as with the human psyche and soul. Certain aspects of the esoteric realm, including ancient spiritual traditions, touch on the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence (ET).
In modern times, the discovery of the mind-boggling quantum world, where Newtonian physics no longer works, has pushed natural science closer to philosophy and areas that would have been considered purely spiritual half a century ago. It has also given rise to novel theories about what UAPs and ET encounters really could be. Are they happening in the real world, however that is defined, or in our collective unconscious? Or in both?
More than 90% of all UAP sightings can be dismissed as military aircraft, stars, planets, meteors, flares, birds, swamp gas, weather balloons and manmade hoaxes. But 5% still means that hundreds, if not thousands of cases cannot be accounted for by ordinary science.
Editor’s Note: The topic of UAPs and Life Beyond Earth is a hot topic, and a developing story. Stay tuned to SOURCES for the latest. Below we provide key information to provide context for journalists covering this fascinating topic.
Recent disclosure
While reports of UAP sightings and Non-Human Intelligence interactions have spanned the globe, the United States has been the hotbed of official investigation and acknowledgment of these phenomena.
The unprecedented disclosure of space phenomena began in December 2017, whenThe New York Times ran a major piece that implied that extraterrestrials are real and the US government has been tracking them for years. It said metal alloys and other materials had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.
Four years later, the Pentagon released a report that said there were more than 140 unexplained encounters between the armed forces and UAPs between 2004 and 2021. Three videos were released, showing fighter jet radar recordings of strange objects flying in ways and speeds that are impossible with current human technology.
The main source behind The New York Times article was former head of AATIP Luis Elizondo. Shortly after the article appeared, Elizondo began working actively to raise public awareness about the US government’s UAP investigations and knowledge.
New legislation has been passed requiring that the government regularly inform the Congress about UAP investigations. It also allows for civil servants to legally reveal classified information about such investigations.
In July of 2023, whistleblower David Grusch, an intelligence officer and Air Force veteran, claimed under oath that the US government had recovered alien spacecraft and that the US has likely been aware of nonhuman activity since the 1930s.
In the same hearing, former US Navy pilot David Fravor told about a 2004 sighting and recording of a spectacularly strange object, the so-called tic-tac object (one of the cases revealed by the government in 2021), that moved in ways that are inexplicable with known human technology.
Similar revelations have been made in subsequent open Congressional hearings.
A number of incidents and sightings have taken place at or near nuclear weapons facilities, not only in the US but also in the Soviet Union/Russia and China. Former US Air Force personnel have testified that UAPs interfered with nuclear missiles in the 1960s. On one occasion, 10 warheads were inexplicably turned off.
Several secret projects designated to study and document the UAP phenomenon have been initiated within the US government. Two projects in the late 1940s were called “Sign” and “Grudge”. Project “Blue Book” ran from 1952 to 1969. The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, AATIP, a Department of Defense (Pentagon) unit, was operational 2007–2012. It was followed in 2020 and 2021 by Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, UAPTF, and from 2022 by AARO, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
Elizondo, Grusch and other sources with official credentials claim that the recent historic disclosures merely have scratched the surface. They contend that covert UAP investigating units are still covering up information and material evidence of ET contact, as well as evidence of access to technology yet unknown to the scientific community.
There is an ongoing tug-of-war between the executive branch and Congress as to how much more should be revealed.
In January 2025, TV network News Nation aired a spectacular interview with Jacob Barber, a whistleblower from within the US security apparatus. Barber told of his involvement in a UAP craft retrieval program, and he also provided a video showing the transporting of an egg-shaped object, purportedly of non-human origin.
In May 2025, yet another whistleblower, this time from within the Pentagon, came forth on the Weaponized podcast. Matthew Brown claims to be the author of a leaked report about an unacknowledged UAP special access program with the cover term Immaculate Constellation.
Swedish astronomer Beatriz Villarroel and co-researchers published two notable scientific papers in 2025, showing that a large number of “stars” in astronomical photos before 1957, i.e. before the satellite era, are in fact transient star-like objects of unknown origin. The objects appear on photographic plates and disappear within an hour, which indicates that they might be technological artifacts reflecting the sunlight. The “transients” cannot be explained by plate defects or any known natural phenomenon, according to Villarroel’s articles. Even more intriguingly, these objects seem to appear more often in association with nuclear weapons testing or UAP reports.
A seminal documentary called The Age of Disclosure was released in November 2025, featuring 34 US government insiders who confirm that UAPs are real and that the US has covered this knowledge up for 80 years. There is a secret program for retrieving non-human craft and reverse-engineering advanced technology of non-human origin, they say. Some of the participants are high-ranking, including the present Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio (who was a senator when the film was made).
In early 2026, two American presidents made statements that clearly indicated that the UAP phenomenon and/or Non-Human Intelligence are taken seriously by the government. In a podcast interview, former president Barack Obama was asked about aliens and replied: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they aren’t being kept in (the military base) Area 51”. A few days later, president Trump informally directed the Department of Defense and other “relevant departments and agencies” to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)”.
The first batch of declassified material was released on May 8. These initial documents were widely considered to be of little significance, although some pictures of unexplained lights taken by the Apollo mission from the surface of the moon in the 1970s gained interest. According to the Pentagon website established for the purpose, “the Department of War will be releasing new materials on a rolling basis as they are discovered and declassified, with tranches posted every few weeks.” Public interest was immediately immense. In the first 24 hours after its launch, the site received 500 million hits.
Nobody can claim to have the final solution to the UAP enigma, but “to insist on prosaic explanations, one must disregard the data”, to cite Bernardo Kastrup.
It is hardly hyperbolic to say that if the whistleblowers are right, what might be revealed in the coming months and years will dwarf many other earthly concerns.
“The likely terrestrial presence of UAP and, at least by proxy, their nonhuman designers and operators, holds almost unfathomable existential implications for Americans and humanity”, writes anthropologist Peter Skafish, director of the Sol Foundation.
History
People have documented sightings of unexplained phenomena, primarily in the sky, for thousands of years.
There are ancient rock paintings that bear an uncanny resemblance to what we would perceive as UAPs and aliens, or humans in spacesuits, for example in Australia,India,Italy and US. Some Mayan and Egyptian artwork resemble modern aircraft and modern conceptions of alien spaceships.
Researchers who stray outside of the mainstream interpret aspects of ancient creation myths and other traditions as pointing to contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, for example the Sumerian tales of the Anunnaki and certain Mayan artwork and scripture.
In the 19th century, anthropologists documented that the Dogon People in Mali, through religious teachings, knew about a star in the Sirius system that is invisible to the eye and wasn’t discovered by astronomers until the 20th century. According to Dogon mythology, this astronomical knowledge was given to them by aliens from the Sirius star system visiting earth in the distant past.
Some passages in the Bible have been read as indications of alien visits, such as the reference in Genesis to the mysterious Nephilim and the vision of prophet Ezekiel.
In the 15th century painting, “Madonna with Saint Giovannino”, an odd structure looking somewhat like a UAP can be seen in the sky behind the Madonna. In the background, a man and his dog stare at the celestial object.
Some UAP-like occurrences have been interpreted in religious terms, perhaps most notably the so-called miracle of the sun event in Portugal in 1917, when 70,000 people witnessed what was thought to be the sun move in strange ways. The celestial phenomenon was the culmination of a series of visions experienced by two children.
Modern sightings
Reports of UAP sightings increased In the mid-20th century. Toward the end of World War II, allied fighter pilots began reporting inexplicable lights that followed their aircraft, a phenomenon that was to be known as “foo fighters”.
A pivotal year for modern UAP lore was 1947, when a sighting of nine disc-shaped objects moving at tremendous speed near Mount Rainier, Washington, gave rise to the previously popular term ‘flying saucer’. It was also the year of the incident in Roswell, New Mexico, where unofficial reports, based on witness accounts, say a crashed alien spaceship was recovered. The official version claimed it was a weather balloon.
Here are a few well-documented UAP sightings that have been reported since then:
- Westall, Australia, 1966. A cluster of “dazzling, silvery objects” was seen hovering over a school in a Melbourne suburb by almost a hundred people.
- Colares, Brazil, 1977–1978. UAPs attacked thousands of people over several months with intense beams that left burn marks. The attacks were investigated, witnessed and documented by the Brazilian Air Force. The report was covered up, until it leaked in the 1990s.
- The Rendlesham forest incident, UK, 1980 (‘Britain’s Roswell’). Military personnel at two air force bases reported a series of sightings of lights, craft and, according to some sources, nonhuman beings.
- The Belgian UAP wave, 1989–1990. Thousands of people witnessed triangular UAPs flying over various parts of the country. On multiple occasions Belgian officials tracked these objects using radar.
- The Varginha case, Brazil, 1996. Several witnesses separately claim to have seen a craft crash and non-human beings. Intense military activity in the area during the time of he sightings is well-documented.
- The Phoenix lights, US, 1997. A huge V-shaped UAP passed silently over Phoenix. The object was described as large enough to block out the stars as it flew overhead. Thousands of Arizonans witnessed it moving across the sky.
- O’Hare airport sighting, US, 2006. A saucer-shaped craft was seen hovering over the airport in Chicago. The object was visible for a few minutes and was seen by close to a dozen United Airlines employees.
In December 2024, mass sightings of light-emitting objects moving strangely in the sky were reported for several weeks in the eastern US, along with similar in the UK and other countries. Numerous videos were posted online by witnesses.
Official sources admit to not knowing what the objects – mostly referred to as “drones” – are or where they come from. In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI vow to “investigate this situation and confirm whether the reported drone flights are actually drones” and say they find no evidence the objects pose a threat to national security.
Related phenomena
The UAP subject extends beyond “flying saucers” to several other categories of phenomena and human experiences.
One is the crop circle, a beautiful, intricate and often symbol-laden pattern of flattened crops that appears overnight in a field. In some cases their appearances coincide with reports of UAPs in the same area. Most crop circles appear in England.
Two darker categories are unexplained cattle mutilations and reports of abductions of people by aliens. Harvard psychiatrist John Mack interviewed nearly 100 patients who claimed they had experienced being abducted. The consistency of the highly detailed accounts shifted Mack from a skeptic to a believer in the patients’ accounts.
Alternative explanations
The predominant mainstream explanation for most of the UAP and ET related phenomena has been that they are figments of imagination, sometimes triggered by optical illusions. The “psychological desire to interpret images” is said to account for many visual reports. They cannot account for all reports, however, which has been proven by the recent disclosures by the US government.
Psychologists have suggested that a common experience known as “sleep paralysis” may be the culprit behind the abduction stories. However, that doesn’t explain the consistency and level of detail in what the abductees relate.
Non-physicalist alternative explanations have been put forward, as well. Idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup differentiates between “high strangeness” events like alien contact and abduction, and UAP spottings and purported physical evidence.
In Kastrup’s view, the former are part of a natural feedback mechanism intrinsic to the human mind, which seeks to dislodge it from set worldviews: “The visions in question emerge from collective, phylogenetically ancient layers of the human mind, which … communicate to the executive ego through dream-like, immersive metaphors. They should be taken seriously, just not literally.”
The latter, Kastrup thinks, could be evidence of some form of a terrestrial Non-Human Intelligence (NHI). He aligns with the so-called ultraterrestrial, cryptoterrestrial and silurian hypotheses, which posit that there has been ample time in earth’s geological history for earlier nonhuman civilisations to emerge and become extremely advanced and then suffer extinction events. Remnants of such civilisations could still exist on the planet – perhaps underneath the surface – and occasionally check on the other beings roaming the surface.
A similar, but more esoteric, hypothesis is the extratempestrial model, suggested by anthropologist Michael P. Masters. It holds that UAPs and aliens are future human descendants, coming back through time to visit and study their hominin evolutionary past.
Written by Anders Bolling. Edited by Liza Horan.
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