 | This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(March 2024) |
The Sol Foundation is a think tank established in California [1] in August 2023 to research the political, philosophical and scientific implications of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). [2] The foundation held its first conference in November 2023 at Stanford University.
The foundation aims to be the leading source of research on UAP and to provide recommendations to government. [2] The foundation states its ambition is to "champion methodical, scientifically-robust assessment and analysis" of UAP Phenomenon. [3]
The Sol Foundation's mission is to fund and set a clear direction for research into UAP, non-human intelligence (NHI) "and the implications for their existence." In addition, its mission statement asserts that it intends to provide "cutting edge advisory research" to the United States Government as well as other governments and corporate clients. The aims of the foundation include a commitment to "establish and maintain democratic oversight over UAP engagements" by the United States Government and other national governments around the world. [4]
In November 2023 the Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy conference was held at Stanford University. The purpose of the conference was, according to the foundation, to answer unanswered questions regarding this "deepening enigma" that was enjoying unprecedented public interest, particularly after the David Grusch UFO whistleblower claims. [6] David Grusch also made a "surprise appearance" at the event. Notable speakers at this event included Charles McCullough, the former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Colonel Karl E. Nell the former Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Africa Command. [7] [8]
An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UAPs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is an international research institute or think tank focusing on defence and security issues. Since 1997, its headquarters have been at Arundel House in London. It has offices on four continents, producing data and research on questions of defence, security and global affairs, publishing publications and online analysis, and convening major security summits. The Guardian newspaper has described the IISS as ‘one of the world’s leading security think tanks.’
The Hoover Institution is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. While the institution is formally a unit of Stanford University, it maintains an independent board of overseers and relies on its own income and donations. It is widely described as conservative, although its directors have contested the idea that it is partisan.
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies." It was incorporated in the United States in 2004, as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes.
Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is an independent global think tank based in Delhi, India. The foundation has three centres in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. ORF provides potentially viable inputs for policy and decision-makers in the Indian Government and to the political and business communities of India. ORF started out with an objective of dealing with internal issues of the economy in the wake of the 1990s reforms. However, today its mandate extends to security and strategy, governance, environment, energy and resources, economy and growth.
The Australia Institute is a public policy think tank based in Canberra, Australia. Since its launch in 1994, it has carried out research on a broad range of economic, social, and environmental issues.
James Andrew Himes is an American businessman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Connecticut's 4th congressional district since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Christopher Karl Mellon, is a private equity investor, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and later for Security and Information Operations. He formerly served as the Staff Director of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a member of the influential Mellon family out of the Greater Pittsburgh area. Mellon has lobbied for U.S. government investigations into UFO/UAP.
Fei-Fei Li is a China-born American computer scientist, known for establishing ImageNet, the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s. She is Sequoia Capital professor of computer science at Stanford University and former board director at Twitter. Li is a co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and a co-director of the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab. She served as the director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 2013 to 2018.
Timothy Cole Gallaudet is an American oceanographer and retired Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. Gallaudet worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce as the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As of 2024 he is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC., and hosts The American Blue Economy Podcast.
The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) is a think tank dedicated to policy analysis at the intersection of national and international security and emerging technologies, based at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. CSET's founding director is the former director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Jason Gaverick Matheny. Its current executive director is Dewey Murdick, former Chief Analytics Officer and Deputy Chief Scientist within the Department of Homeland Security.
The Pentagon UFO videos are selected visual recordings of FLIR targeting from United States Navy fighter jets based aboard aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015, with additional footage taken by other Navy personnel in 2019. The four grainy, monochromic videos, widely characterized as officially documenting UFOs, have received extensive coverage in the media since 2017. The Pentagon later addressed and officially released the first three videos of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in 2020, and confirmed the provenance of the leaked 2019 videos in two statements made in 2021. Footage of UAPs was also released in 2023, sourced from MQ9 military drones.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is an office within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense that investigates unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and other phenomena in the air, sea, and/or space and/or on land: sometimes referred to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" or "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAP). Its first director was physicist Sean Kirkpatrick, and its current acting director is Tim Phillips who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
Garry P. Nolan is an American immunologist, academic, inventor, and business executive. He holds the Rachford and Carlota A. Harris Professor Endowed Chair in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Nolan founded biotechnology companies, wrote numerous medical research papers, and has been active in ufology.
The James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for fiscal year 2023. Analogous NDAAs have been passed annually for over 60 years.
Sean Michael Kirkpatrick is an American laser and materials physicist and was the first director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the United States Department of Defense. Kirkpatrick is also an adjunct assistant professor of physics at the University of Georgia.
In 2023, David Grusch, a United States Air Force (USAF) officer and former intelligence official, was interviewed by journalists and testified in a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. Grusch claimed that the U.S. federal government maintains a secretive UFO recovery and reverse engineering program and that it is in possession of "non-human" spacecraft along with their "dead pilots". In 2022, Grusch filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) to support his plan to share classified information with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also filed a complaint alleging retaliation by his superiors over a similar complaint he made in 2021.
The NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team (UAPIST) was a panel of sixteen experts assembled in 2022 by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and chaired by David Spergel to recommend a roadmap for the analysis of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) by NASA and other organizations.
Investigation and analysis of reported UFO incidents under the federal government of the United States has taken place under multiple branches and agencies, past and current, since 1947. In spite of decades of interest, there remains no evidence that there are any purported UFOs with extraordinary provenance and, indeed, those identified all have been shown to be natural phenomena, human technology, misapprehensions, delusions, or hoaxes.
I. Charles McCullough, III is an American law enforcement and intelligence official. He is an attorney who served as the first Inspector General of the United States Intelligence Community.