UAP Disclosure Forum in the U.S. Senate
The magnificent Kennedy Caucus room in the Russell office building of the U.S. Senate looks like a cathedral. A fly on the wall would have been privileged to witness the historic events hosted in this room, including a report on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the announcement of the Presidential candidacies of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and the Watergate hearings in 1973–1974.
Yesterday, I attended a UAP Disclosure Forum in that room, hosted by the Disclosure Foundation, in the company of members of Congress and other panelists. My panel focused on the science of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) whose nature is unknown. I pointed out that most of the time scientific research operates in a state of uncertainty. Textbooks summarize rare moments of tranquility. Attention to anomalies is the best path for gaining new knowledge. We must keep our eyes on the orbs, not on social media. The video of my preliminary remarks is available here and the panel discussion is available here.
It is premature to converge on particular interpretations of UAP given the low quality of the publicly available data. I am privileged to lead the UAP Science Advisory Council in service of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the All-Domain Resolution Office (AARO) in the Pentagon, the White House, the FBI, and the Intelligence community. A few days ago, the Council submitted a request for information on more than 50 items involving historic UAP reports. The quality of our analysis will depend on the quality of the evidence that is shared with us. If the analysis remains uncertain, we will propose how future data could resolve it. The UAP mystery resembles a detective story where the truth must be revealed by better clues. The scientific resolution of anomalies is done by imagining possible explanations and ruling out possibilities through the collection of new experimental data. Those who are not curious about anomalies or argue that they know the answers in advance of evidence are not following the spirit of science. As I explained to Rep. Eric Burlison on his podcast after the Senate discussion: when faced with uncertainty we must follow the approach of kids for exploring the unknown without prejudice, fear or bias.
The first question to me by the moderator, the brilliant Kristin Fisher Forehand, was why have I not selected the second panel discussant, Hal Puthoff, for the UAP Science Advisory panel that I am leading. I responded that my first priority was to get young scientists with no historic baggage on this subject so as to examine it with fresh eyes. The U.S. government is currently collecting data with much better sensors than used decades ago. We should seize this moment — as the government partners with scientists to resolve the mystery of UAP. At the very least, my council will help the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies accomplish their mission of protecting the U.S. from adversarial nations. But exceptional data might also reveal beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of non-human-made technology. Without seeking such evidence, we will never find it.
Scientific research requires allocation of resources. The down-to-Earth interpretation of UAP is that they are human made. In that case, the existence of unrecognized objects hovering near strategic assets raises the national security alarm. For any Chinese spy balloon, there could be thousands of spy drones. Nevertheless, according to the recent report released on June 12, 2026 by Dr. Jon Kosloski from AARO (accessible here), the anomalous orbs detected on October 2023 did not behave like drones. This means that more resources must be allocated to the scientific study of UAP. Through a comprehensive scientific study, we can reveal the nature of these orbs and verify whether they were made by humans. I receive slings and arrows on a daily basis from skeptics and believers who think they already know the answer.
The files released so far through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) had 1.5 billion views since May 8, 2026. There is no doubt that the topic is of great interest to the public. If future data will indicate that we are being visited, then the finding will have huge implications for the future of humanity. The study of UAP must therefore receive a high priority. Since science is funded by taxpayers, the study of UAP must enter the mainstream of science. This is common sense. But common sense is not always common in academia.
Hal Puthoff suggested that UAP may be propelled by manipulations of spacetime. Any exotic interpretation has unavoidable consequences that can be tested experimentally. The gravitational signal from a warp drive moving near Earth could be detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA interferometers. But more importantly, such an object would inevitably compress the air around it and generate a bright fireball flash and a blast wave that should be detectable by cameras and microphones.
When people propose new physics interpretations of UAP, they must keep in mind that old physics must work in the circumstances applicable to it. When Albert Einstein came up with the notion of gravity as the curvature of spacetime, his theory was fully consistent with Newtonian gravity which provides an excellent description of systems with weak curvature. Cameras can only detect an object that interacts with light. Such an object must therefore interact electromagnetically with air molecules. There is no way to eliminate its friction on air and avoid a fireball other than a low speed, given known physics.
Appealing to extra dimensions is also not a viable explanation to an object larger than a millimeter, given that existing pendulum-torsion experiments by the University of Washington Eöt-Wash group (reported here) rule out extra dimensions larger than a tenth of a millimeter. If the extra spatial dimension were big and not curled up on tiny scales, then Newtonian gravity would have declined differently than an inverse-square law — which is only applicable for three spatial dimensions.
My day ended with an interview on the NewsNation television studio of The Hill, where I noted that we must seek a higher intelligence from outer space, because it would be rather disappointing if we represent the best natural intelligence ever created in this vast Universe. While reading the daily news it is obvious that there is room for improvement. A more accomplished sibling in our family of intelligent civilizations could serve as our role model. It will teach us how to become more competitive on the cosmic scale.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is chair of the UAP Science Advisory Council to the White House, Pentagon, FBI and intelligence agencies, director of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, former director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Professional website:
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/
Social media:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb
https://open.spotify.com/show/1zhndXkvSY2b8FdjspFpCd
https://x.com/ProfAviLoeb
