A group of researchers wants to turn the study of UFOs into an academic field. Experts call these unidentified anomalous phenomena (or UAPs).
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A group of researchers says it’s time for academia to get serious about UFO research.
The movement, led by the UAP Research Association, seeks to put together an international conference aimed at establishing a new academic field dedicated to the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (the more formal term for UFOs is UAPs).
Michael Cifone, the association’s co-founder and president, said he is interested in what he calls “experiential weirdness.”
His overarching phrases include anything that blurs the line between reality and possibility, phenomena that cannot be easily explained: spiritual, paranormal, parapsychological, UAP, etc.
Mr. Sifone holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from the University of Maryland, College Park, hopes that UAP research will become the subject of serious, rigorous academic research with the same scientific objectivity as in any field.
The UAP Research Association recognizes that this is a tall order that requires an open mind and an extraordinary amount of collaboration. UAP research needs to be scientific, but it cannot be done in a laboratory. Therefore, researchers need to collaborate on physical and theoretical studies.
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Cifone spoke to USA TODAY the day before the UAP Research Association’s international conference begins on Dec. 4. He is the nonprofit’s executive director and co-founder, along with Elizabethtown College philosophy professor Michael Silverstein. Chiffon is currently a researcher at the Center for Alternative Rations in Global Perspectives at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany.
The UAP Research Association’s advisory board, board of advisors, and leadership include dozens of scholars from around the world representing a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, law, science, and the humanities.
“We don’t necessarily take a position” on whether UAPs are evidence of extraterrestrial life or what their presence means for humanity’s understanding of its place in the universe, he said. “But we’re interested in taking these themes that don’t fit neatly anywhere. As academics, our skill is in establishing a framework. So rather than just speculating, we place it within a historical, cultural, and scientific framework.”
From YouTube to UAP
Mr. Sifone initially had only a passing curiosity after watching “The X-Files,” he said, and wasn’t really interested in astronomical or supernatural things. But when the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, he found himself watching a YouTube video featuring Kevin Knuth, a professor, former NASA research scientist, and physicist who has studied quantum information, robotics, planets, and UAPs.
Intrigued and aware that their academic worlds often overlap, Sifone began learning more about Knuth’s work by reading his works published in scientific and scholarly journals.
At one point, he realized that “although[the UAP research]had been the subject of ridicule, there was still something odd and strange about it, and there seemed to be some good anecdotal and witness evidence against it, evidence that could not be easily dismissed by conventional analysis.”
In search of “persistent and rigorous understanding”
It wasn’t just Knuth, and it wasn’t just ordinary people reporting strange and unexplained sights. In 2004, U.S. Navy pilots and radar operators aboard the USS Nimitz and the USS Princeton reported witnessing “unusual aircraft,” or AAVs, performing maneuvers that appeared impossible to the trained eye above where civilian and military aircraft could fly. Congress held hearings on the issue in 2024, and the Pentagon said it had found no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life, but said there were “obvious anomalies.”
Congress held additional hearings in early 2025 based on hundreds of UAP reports. The Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office determined that the data showed “continued geographic collection bias based on the proximity of U.S. military assets and sensors operating around the world.”
“We have no idea whether (extraterrestrial) life is already here or whether these images on the screen are evidence of intelligent life,” said keynote speaker Steve Fuller, author and professor at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, at the second UAP Research Association conference. But he said we (the global “we”) should be prepared for that possibility and open to that possibility. Fuller discussed the nature of humanity and how we can fit into a galactic or cosmic population.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Cifone said the association’s goal is to bring scientific and academic rigor to a phenomenon that is still a fringe idea for many. They aren’t trying to convince anyone, including themselves.
“We want to emphasize positional neutrality,” he said, emphasizing the “methodologies and standards of evidence” that are part of other academic pursuits.
He acknowledged the challenge that starting a completely new field of higher education requires not only professionals willing to do it, but also resources and institutional support. The association is currently funded by private and philanthropic donations and receives no government support.
He is taking a long-term view and said there has been little resistance so far.
“It’s a self-selected group,” he said. “The people I interact with are already interested and love that science, scholarship and research come first. The subject matter is what we do. We are the people doing the work. We focus on research in order to understand all aspects of the phenomenon in a lasting and rigorous way.”
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