When the Associated Press ran a headline on June 30 saying a “polarizing Harvard professor” had been picked to lead a government UFO panel, it signaled something that the disclosure community had been tracking for weeks but the mainstream press had largely missed: the Trump administration has built an institutional framework for investigating UAP that goes beyond file dumps and press conferences.
At the center of it is Avi Loeb – the Harvard cosmologist who founded the Galileo Project, who argued that ‘Oumuamua might be an alien light sail, and who now chairs the UAP Science Advisory Council, a body that reports to the White House, Pentagon, FBI, and the intelligence community.
The council is real. Its members are credentialed. And it has already started making demands.
What the Council Is
The UAP Science Advisory Council was established at the direction of ODNI in response to President Trump’s February 2026 transparency directive. Loeb was tasked by an ODNI representative to assemble a team of outside scientists to analyze government-held UAP data and advise the interagency apparatus on how to resolve specific cases.
The council reports to a higher-level UAP Governance Board – an interagency body jointly established by ODNI, the FBI, and the Department of War. The Governance Board met for the first time in June 2026. Its mission: provide coordination at the interagency level, bringing together military, law enforcement, intelligence, and civilian agencies.
Loeb described the structure in a July 2026 Medium post:
«I was tasked by a representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – who works together with the Pentagon, the FBI, and the White House – to establish a council of advisors. I assembled about 15 scientists with expertise in physics, oceanography, statistics, data analysis, and psychology.»Original ▸
"I was tasked by a representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (who works together with the Pentagon, the FBI and the White House) to establish a council of advisors. I assembled about 15 scientists with expertise in physics, oceanography, statistics, data analysis and psychology."
The AP, Scientific American, WBUR, The Independent, and military.com all ran stories in the span of three days. The Scientific American headline was unambiguous: “The White House Goes All In on Aliens.”
The 15 Members
Loeb supplied the roster in his initial announcement. The council includes:
| Member | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| Avi Loeb (Harvard) | Chair; astrophysics |
| Carol Cleland | Anomaly identification |
| Richard Cloete | Data analysis and AI tools |
| Omer Eldadi | Data management, AI, human psychology |
| Tim Gallaudet (Rear Admiral, ret.) | Oceanography |
| Ross Howard | Communication |
| Ben Lamm | Oceanography and biology |
| Devesh Nandal | Numerical analysis and astrophysics |
| Garry Nolan (Stanford) | Molecular biology and materials science |
| Michael Shermer | Study of anomalies |
| Peter Skafish | Anthropology |
| Matthew Szydagis | Instrumentation and data collection |
| Jennice Vilhauer | Quantitative psychology |
The inclusion of Garry Nolan – the Stanford immunologist who has analyzed alleged UAP materials and testified that he’s seen evidence of “something that was not made on this Earth” – stands out. So does Tim Gallaudet, who has spoken openly about NHI, called the missing scientists pattern “potentially suspect,” and received a full-day briefing at Skinwalker Ranch the same week the council was announced.
Michael Shermer, the longtime skeptic and editor of Skeptic magazine, is a more unusual pick. His inclusion suggests the council wants to inoculate itself against accusations of confirmation bias – though Shermer’s recent public questioning of UAP evidence on X drew criticism from the community.
The 50-Item Request
After the council’s first meeting, it sent a formal request to the Pentagon asking for more than 50 videos, images, and other documents related to known UAP incidents. Loeb described the request as targeting both motion data and, potentially, physical materials:
«The first thing we did after meeting was to ask for more than 50 items of information from known incidents and potentially not only videos, but also materials if they exist.»Original ▸
"The first thing we did after meeting was to ask for more than 50 items of information from known incidents and potentially not only videos, but also materials if they exist."
The phrase “materials if they exist” is carefully chosen. Loeb has consistently framed the UAP question as an empirical one: either the data confirms anomalous performance or it doesn’t. But by asking for physical materials – not just videos – the council is probing whether the government possesses recovered objects, even if it has to do so in unclassified channels.
The Classification Problem
This is where the architecture breaks down.
The council operates exclusively on unclassified material. Loeb confirmed this in multiple interviews. Scientific American reported that “the council will not have access to any classified UAP material, and will instead focus its work on archival materials, such as those contained in the recent Pentagon releases.”
Gallaudet was blunt: the group’s work “will be limited” without access to classified data.
This creates a structural gap. The three PURSUE tranches released so far contain 294 files – a mix of historical documents, FBI reports, AARO case summaries, and sensor footage. Some of it is genuinely interesting. But lawmakers including Luna and Burlison have said the best material is being held back – in classified vaults, inside FFRDCs, and behind contractor walls.
If the 50-item request comes back with only what’s already been released, the council will function as a peer-review layer for public files. Useful, but not paradigm-shifting.
If the Pentagon responds with material it hasn’t shared publicly – or acknowledges the existence of physical samples – the council becomes the first credentialed civilian body to evaluate government-held UAP evidence at scale.
Where This Fits in the Framework
The Trump administration has now built a three-tier structure:
- PURSUE – the public file release system at war.gov/UFO, managed by the Department of War
- UAP Governance Board – the interagency coordination body (ODNI, FBI, DoW), meeting since June 2026
- UAP Science Advisory Council – the outside scientific panel advising the Governance Board
This is more institutional infrastructure than any previous administration has erected around the UAP topic. But it has a common weakness: every component works within the unclassified boundary. None of the three tiers has documented access to the material that David Grusch described under oath – crash retrieval programs and non-human biological material managed by intelligence agencies and defense contractors.
When asked at the Disclosure Forum whether his council would work with Congress, Sen. Mike Rounds said: “I honestly don’t know.” When asked if Trump is on the Governance Board, Loeb said he has not met the President and has no plans to.
The framework exists. Whether it reaches the material that matters is the question nobody has answered.
What Happens Next
Loeb has vowed to brief the public and create a website to share findings. The council meets behind closed doors but will publish results. Loeb said the goal is for findings to appear in “prestigious science journals.”
In the meantime, the broader disclosure push continues from Congress. Luna has confirmed a public UAP hearing in July. Comer wants another Oversight hearing. Rounds has reintroduced the UAPDA. And on the Burlison podcast where Loeb appeared, a former Lockheed executive confirmed the company’s involvement in crash retrieval – a claim Loeb is now in a position to investigate, if the Pentagon gives him the access.
Sources
- AP News – “New government UFO panel led by polarizing Harvard professor” (June 30, 2026)
- Scientific American – “The White House Goes All In on Aliens” (July 2, 2026)
- WBUR – “Harvard professor with polarizing alien theories is picked to lead new White House UFO council” (July 1, 2026)
- DefenseScoop – “New science advisory council forms to help US government ‘resolve the UAP mystery’” (June 17, 2026)
- Avi Loeb – “On the Partnership Between the U.S. Government and Science in Figuring Out the Nature of UAP” (July 2026)
- Avi Loeb – “About UAP and Interstellar Objects” (June 28, 2026)
