A Trust Framework for UAP Disclosure Agents and Organizations
A 5-Pillar architecture for UAP Legitimacy
The UAP disclosure effort has faced some challenges. Legislation hasn’t passed the way it was intended. Government shutdowns are hampering advocacy and scientific efforts (like access to NASA’s 3I-Atlas images)1 . And as always, the disclosure movement itself is under attack.
Whether it’s disinformation from official government offices like AARO2, coordinated “pseudoskepticism3” like the Guerrilla Skeptics of the World45, or social media manipulation, the tactics of the gatekeepers are clear. For decades, they have successfully kept this topic on the fringe by discrediting and downplaying the work of serious people who dared to take this seriously.
And to be blunt: the field of study, community, and culture known as “UFOlogy” has made discrediting easy. We’ve made their goal easier to achieve because of our failure to bring standards of operations and transparency to the fore of what it is we’re trying to do.
The immature public spats on twitter, the cults-of-personality, and the allegation of grifting are all over the place, and the end result is a highly toxic environment to try to engage in serious work. This is exacerbated by the fact that the gatekeepers appear to amplify these elements to drive wedges between people wanting to make a difference.
Beyond that, the longer we spend doing this work, the more clear it is that it’s split between those with a focus on self, and those with a focus on others. There are those of us who wish for all of us - every human on earth - to benefit from this topic. And then there are those who look at this topic as a way to enrich themselves and gain advantage over others, wishing to simply take over from the folks currently in charge, displacing them in their underground doomsday bunkers and nesting-doll yachts, and continue the obvious trend of not having the everyman’s interests in mind.
Team Humanity doesn’t want to replace them - we want to reclaim our agency from them, and live in a better world where they don’t control us. It seems clear that people involved in this topic fit into one of those two camps: Team Humanity and Team Self.
I know which team I am on (Team Humanity, in case you don’t know me). I also know that is where the majority of people are. And for people like us in the “Team Humanity” camp, we have the chance to adopt new strategies that can help us be successful.
We can build the new world we want to see, rather than do things according to the rules, expectations, and limitations of the current one we see collapsing around us.
The gatekeepers perfected their tactics against this current paradigm - the one that’s falling apart. They know exactly how to exploit people and organizations in our current system. But, there’s an advantage in their tactics being entirely from that “old” paradigm; like all bureaucracies, gatekeepers will struggle to quickly adapt to the new, transparent, and decentralized world we find ourselves in.
If we, as a community, change the way we operate, we can make their attacks against our efforts near obsolete - or at least, we can “short-circuit” the old playbook by building organizations that are more resilient to these tactics from the ground up.
That’s what this is about. This piece proposes a new strategy: a 5-pillar framework that any UAP organization can adopt to build unshakeable legitimacy and help humanity to win. Because the success of “Team Humanity” UAP organizations is the success of all of us.
Pillar 1: Radical Transparency
For decades, this field has been plagued by accusations of hucksterism. An incredibly compelling story is told by a whistleblower, but if they dare charge money for details on that story in a book, they are a “grifter”. Well-intentioned organizations get spun up through the volunteer efforts of committed individuals, but the moment they attempt to fundraise for even the most basic operational costs, they’re accused of only being in it for the money.
These accusations hang over these storytellers like storm clouds, causing anyone coming to this topic to potentially be put off because “they checked it out” (i.e. read the first three comments on Reddit) and saw “everyone was saying he was a grifter”. That person then shuts their minds to this topic, which in essence is priming them for a major (and likely unpleasant) surprise as the reality they ‘checked out’ (poorly) comes home to roost over the next few years.
The only antidote for this poison is radical, painful transparency. This is antithetical to the modern capitalist system where transparency around money is a taboo idea, despite it being essential for everything. But radical transparency means opening the books.
It’s not just who donates, it’s where every dollar goes. It’s about being transparent about what those donors got in return in terms of access and influence, and about building structures to guarantee that influence is minimized. This also means no more black boxes, no more ‘trust me’ funding.
The #1 killer of UFO orgs is accusations of grifting and hidden agendas. If you run an organization in this space, and you accept that the community has a right to see your budget, you’ve just eliminated this killer entirely.
A Framework for Transparency:
It’s time. We’re not trying to get rich, and if you truly believe in the mission of disclosure for humanity’s sake, there should be no problem being transparent on where the money is going and what it’s used for.
Publish Your Financials: This means posting a simple, annual report showing money-in (by general category, like “small donations,” “grants,” “merchandise”) and money-out (by program, admin, etc.). For a non-profit, this means making your financial statements easy to find on your website. Publish your damn budget. Google Sheets makes it easy.
Create a Public Donor Policy: People need to see and know who might be holding financial controls of your organization. This means writing down and posting your rules. Be clear about what donors do not get. For example: “Donations do not grant any control over our research or editorial content” - but also be clear on what they do get. Then, be clear and report exactly how that donor money was used. While smaller anonymous donations are probably okay, create a framework for what donation you consider to be significant, and what your source disclosure is on those significant donations.
Transparent Compensation: If you have paid staff, be transparent about it. You don’t need to post exact salaries of individuals, but publishing salary bands or a clear philosophy on compensation is critical. Moreover, how do you ensure your goal - advocacy, scholarship, communication of information - remains your focus, and not the money that comes in as you inevitably get good at doing that work, and how do you ensure your compensation model always reflects that goal at the outset?
Pillar 2: Verifiable Evidence
The second pillar is rigour. We must move from ‘storytelling’ to ‘storytelling and data-sharing.’ To be clear, as you’ll see in Pillar 3, stories and the people who tell them need to be respected, so this doesn’t mean to discount those experiences. What it means is this:
Ensure that every claim or story you repeat, tell, or amplify comes with a dossier of key information that the average person can then use to fully understand and validate the information from start to finish. The dossier should enable the average person to answer questions like “Where did this video come from, and what is its chain of custody? What analysis was done, and by whom?”
Organizations and individuals need to adopt the attitude of “Here is the raw data—check our work. We will publish our methods, share our data, and welcome independent replication.”
The core idea here is to show your work, not just your conclusions. That means if you are a content creator, publish a bibliography of what you looked at to reach your conclusions, and give a bit of context on what data point is in what location.
Blurry images and videos, when released, tend to immediately get swept up by pseudoskeptics speculating on facts, which enables massive leaps in logic to explain why this evidence is fake. These speculations then get cemented as plausible doubt, even when that doubt is misplaced because later the speculation is proven false. A lie is around the world before the truth has left your lips, as they say, and this approach helps ensure a facts-first distribution of truthful information.
A Framework for Evidence:
The “Evidence Dossier”: When releasing any media (photo, video, document), attach a simple dossier that includes:
Provenance: Where did this come from?
Chain of Custody: Who has handled it, and when?
Knowns & Unknowns: What do we know for sure (date, time, device)? What is unknown or unconfirmed?
Source Your Work: If you are a podcaster, writer, or YouTuber, include a “Sources” section or bibliography in your show notes or description. This simple act moves you from “storyteller” to “researcher”, and that’s what this topic needs more of - credible, decentralized, primary-sourced information that leaves no doubt as to what’s true; this act lets the sunlight in, and sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Share Raw Data (When Possible): If you conduct analysis, publish the raw data (appropriately redacted for privacy) alongside your report. This invites replication and shows you aren’t afraid to have your work checked.
Pillar 3: Ethical Stewardship of People’s Lives
People matter. The human beings that walk alongside us every day on this pale blue dot we call home are more important than the phenomenon.
I’m going to write that out again because I think we often forget this fact:
People are more important than the phenomenon.
This topic isn’t just about data; it’s about people. For too long, witnesses and Experiencers have been treated as disposable assets. This pillar puts their safety and dignity first. It means iron-clad consent protocols, trauma-informed interviewing, and a commitment to never release a person’s identity or private details without their explicit (but revocable) permission.
We must be guardians, not exploiters. The other side are the exploiters.
We are not them.
A Framework for Responsible Stewardship:
There are ways organizations can ensure they are practically and easily adopting this pillar. The critical thing is this: Do not over promise and under deliver. If you cannot guarantee that you will be able to stand behind your commitments in this space, do not make them. But, do everything you can.
Declare how can experiencers expect to be treated when they interface with you or your organization. This should be on every UAP organization’s website. Experiencers and witnesses of the phenomenon - inclusive of citizens having “random” encounters, government whistleblowers and eyewitnesses to clandestine programs, and others - face a great deal of stigma. When Edward Snowden blew the whistle on government spying on communications, most people reacted with belief because we generally knew such technology was inevitable with the onset of the digital age. However, when we’re talking about a UAP encounter, the individual faces a decades-long stigma against the subject of their story even existing. When encountering an experiencer, the agent or organization should commit to a supportive first response:
”Thank you for sharing that with me. I believe you. What do you need?”
Remember, it’s not your job to judge the person’s story. They aren’t sharing it with you for that reason. There’s a good reason to develop an “Experiencer Bill of Rights” that would explicitly frame this approach, and be inclusive of concepts like the access to unbiased and belief-based psychological and physical treatment and access to a thorough and informed investigation of the experience, if desired, with further guarantees of respecting the autonomy and anonymity of the individual. We’ve not treated these people well, and it’s time we start being decent by default.Plain-English, Active Consent Forms and Practices: Stop using dense legalese that your lawyer drafted for you to CYA. Create simple, clear, and revocable consent forms that a witness or experiencer can easily understand and sign, which clearly state what you will and will not do with their story. Go further and commit to affirmatively and actively updating your content (with consent) - not just passively remove, but commit to creating new content to explain. Podcast hosts, Content Creators, Authors - this means you folks. We know that some Experiencers report that their memories are “mask” or “screen” memories - falsehoods designed to cover up something else. But, they remember these falsehoods as true, and if they tell a story on your program that they later realize is a screen memory, they might want to have that taken down until they figure things out.
Train Your People: If your organization interviews people, provide training in trauma-informed interviewing. The goal is to gather information without causing more harm, ensure the Experiencer knows they are believed, and helping them know they don’t need to figure out what happened to them by themselves - others have been there, and they might be able to help.
A “Privacy-First” Default: All information from a witness should be anonymous by default. Making it public should be an explicit, opt-in step that the witness actively chooses, not the other way around. It’s long past time where experiencers need to be put on trial; we should not assume fabrication. We should assume data, and follow that data where it leads, while preserving the person who is having an experience that many cannot even begin to comprehend.
Pillar 4: Independent Governance
Since getting into this work, it has become clear that this field is full of fiefdoms built around a number of single personalities. The egos involved are huge; some individuals lord over their “followers” like subjects, trickle-truthing them with the latest juicy gossip from their ‘sources’. However, what has also become clear is that our own egos are a huge barrier to properly understanding what it is that’s going on, and these egoistic personality cults have been a common occurrence in UFOlogy for years.
That has to end.
A legitimate organization has real governance. This means an independent board of directors who can fire the founder or a regular and regimented election cycle for democratic selection of leaders. It means term limits, public codes of conduct, and clear separation of powers. The mission must be durable enough to outlive any single individual, because the mission of disclosure is bigger than any one of us.
We all need to keep a sharp axe and an empty bucket and be ready to chop wood and carry water for our community of good people wanting to get this done for our species - not because of what it’ll do for your ego to provide wood and water, but because that’s what people with an others-focus believe is the right thing to do. No single person should “be” an organization or “the movement”. This is for all of us, so it has to be by all of us.
A Framework for Governance:
Embodying this pillar means asking hard, structural questions: Who has authority over whom? How do they exercise that authority, and by what guidelines? These are critical processes to develop and codify in bylaws or governance documents.
Establish a Real Board or Member Oversight Mechanism: If you run a non-profit or advocacy organization, the board/membership is your boss, not the other way around. A majority of these decision makers must be independent (not family, not staff) and have the real power to provide oversight through robust systems.
Publish Your Bylaws: Your organization’s rules, code of conduct, and conflict of interest policy should be public. This shows you have a structure and are accountable to it.
Term Limits: Leadership and board members should have term limits. This is the single best way to prevent an organization from becoming a “fiefdom” and ensures the mission remains the focus.
Pillar 5: Responsible Communication
We have a communication problem. We confuse analysis with fact, and speculation with reporting. This pillar is about discipline. We must clearly label what is fact (verified), what is analysis (our opinion), and what is speculation (a hypothesis).
We need to define what we mean by evidence - a scientific standard of evidence is a lot different than a court of law, and if we aren’t clear on which we’re speaking of, we’ll pour countless energy into the disagreement. We need to be clear when stories have become datasets with statistically valid correlations, and when they are not; this doesn’t mean they are not valid, only that we mustn’t present one as the other.
We need to be responsibly communicating what it is we’re doing, all the time. Irresponsible communication, just one time, kills future credibility. That’s not to say we can’t get it wrong, because we will. Probably often, because anyone who has studied this subject understands how complex it appears to be. The key is to communicate with discipline before we’re proven wrong. That way, when we inevitably have to walk something back, we can do so with additional clarity and understanding, not conflict and mudslinging.
Critically, when we get it wrong, we need to publish a correction that is more prominent than the original error. We must end the ceaseless, damaging rumour mill, the foolish factional infighting, and the “misinformation cascade” that makes the whole topic look like a circus. Trust is a fragile monument that takes great effort to build, and it must be maintained and protected with transparency and accountability.
A Framework for Communication:
There are a few concrete steps people can take to ensure they are communicating clearly in unclear times. We are surrounded by power fallacies - the talking head on the news channel appears authoritative but is designed to make you reactive, not informed. We need to break through that with a recognition that communication is both saying things, but also, ensuring those things are heard and understood.
A “Labeling Standard”: For all public communications, adopt a simple standard:
Fact: This is a sourced, verified piece of data.
Analysis: This is our interpretation of the facts.
Speculation: This is a “what if” hypothesis or idea.
A Public Corrections Policy: Have a visible “Corrections” page or policy. When you make a mistake, own it, post it there, and share the correction with at least the same prominence as the original error.
Define Your Terms: Publicly state what your organization’s “standard of evidence” is. This prevents “moving the goalposts” and clarifies your discussions.
Conclusion
The pillars above provide a framework that UAP professionals and organizations can adopt. It short-circuits the gatekeepers’ strategies, and aligns a lot more with the world we’re building rather than the world we’re watching fall apart. Remember, there are two groups of us - those who are on “Team humanity” and those who are on “Team Self”.
If you are in that first group of pro-human disclosure advocates with us, we know that you want to build this world with us. We have hope for the future of humanity - great hope - but that future is not a passive inevitability; it’s a narrow possibility that can only be achieved by the concerted efforts of good people trying to do good things. My sincere hope is that the pillars above serve as inspiration or a model for people to help make doing good things just a little bit easier.
If you are in the second group of “Team Self”, you can fuck off back to your bunkers.
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