THE UAP SCIENCE ADVISORY COUNCIL

THE COUNCIL

The UAP Science Advisory Council is a multidisciplinary panel led by Avi Loeb, the Harvard theoretical physicist behind the Galileo Project's instrument-based search for anomalous objects. Loeb framed the council's mandate plainly: "to advise the U.S. government on how to resolve the nature of" unidentified anomalous phenomena — that is, to help determine whether unexplained sightings represent national-security threats, mundane explanations, or genuine scientific discoveries. Reported members include retired Navy admiral and oceanographer Tim Gallaudet, philosopher of science Carol Cleland, Stanford molecular biologist and materials researcher Garry Nolan, and science writer and noted skeptic Michael Shermer — a deliberately mixed roster of believers, agnostics, and critics.

THE GOVERNANCE BOARD

The council does not sit at the top. It reports to a higher-level UAP Governance Board established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI, and the Department of Defense to support the administration's UAP transparency directive — the same policy that produced PURSUE. The board held its first meeting in mid-June 2026. In effect, the Governance Board oversees the records and the policy; the Science Advisory Council offers outside scientific judgment on what the records might mean.

THE ACCESS QUESTION

One tension has already been reported: that the scientists brought in to advise on the UAP question may not have direct access to the most sensitive classified files the Governance Board controls. If accurate, that gap matters — scientific guidance is only as good as the data the advisers are permitted to examine. It is, for now, a reported concern rather than a confirmed limitation, and worth watching as the council's work begins. Umbra takes no position on it; the point of the app is to keep the public, declassified half of the record readable while these institutional arrangements settle.

WHY IT MATTERS FOR THE RECORD

A standing scientific body is a meaningful change from the ad-hoc task forces of the past. Whether the council's reviews ever reach the public is uncertain, but its existence signals that the PURSUE-era releases are meant to feed analysis, not just publicity. Umbra indexes every tranche those institutions release, with each file's AARO assessment intact, so you can read the source material the council is being asked to interpret.