Looking Lethargic: the Society for UAP Studies

 A few years ago there was formed what is called the Society of UAP Studies. This society has a website at https://www.societyforuapstudies.org/.  After examining the website I can describe some things I find not quite right.  

Glitch #1: Its Definition of UAP

Everyone knows what UFO stands for: Unidentified Flying Object. But there is some ambiguity in the term UAP. When I look for the definition of UAP I find that the Merriam Webster dictionary defines it like this: "unidentified aerial phenomenon, unidentified anomalous phenomenon —used especially as an alternative to UFO or unidentified flying object." 

The term "UAP" was introduced by people trying to avoid some of the stigma associated with the term "UFO."  But the term "UAP" has two definitions, one much more narrow than the other:

• A definition of UAP as "unidentified aerospace phenomena" or "unidentified aerial phenomena" is very narrow, limiting things to only what is observed in the sky or space. 
• A definition of UAP as "unidentified anomalous phenomena" is a much broader definition that includes very many spooky things that might not commonly be called a UFO. 

A US government announcement in 2024 used the second of these definitions, and was entitled "DOD Examining Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena." But the Society for UAP Studies defines UAP in the more narrow way, defining the term as meaning "unidentified aerospace phenomena." The society locks itself into this definition by using a subtitle at the top of all of its pages, a subtitle defining itself as a society "Advancing the study of unidentified aerospace phenomena through interdisciplinary dialogue."

Why is it problematic to define UAP as "aerospace phenomena"? One reason is that there is a continuum between sightings of strange things in the sky and strange things seen in people's homes and backyards. Specifically:

• People very often report seeing mysterious bright objects in the sky, which have very many shapes, including very often a spherical or ball shape. 
• People often report seeing or photographing mysterious spherical or circular objects in their homes or in their backyards.  You can read about one class of such reports by reading my 181 posts with a tag of "orbs visible to naked eye." You can read such posts by using the link here, and continuing to press Older Posts when you get to the bottom of the page. 

In light of the reality mentioned in the second item on the list above, it makes no sense to be defining UAP in some limiting way, as only "unidentified aerospace phenomena." It's much better to use a broader term that allows you to study a wider spectrum of reports. 

Glitch #2: Its Snooty Snobbish Elitism

A page of the Society for UAP Studies makes clear that it is rather an "old boy network."  On this page we read this: "As a learned society, only those applicants with advanced degrees or specific and relevant expertise, as well as demonstrated excellence in their field or profession, will be seriously considered for full 'affiliate'  membership status." This makes no sense. There are no PhD degrees or Master's Degrees issued in the topics of UFO studies or UAP studies. So it makes no sense to be organizing some Society for UAP Studies and limiting it to those with PhD degrees or Master's Degrees.   

On an "Our Team" page there is a description of a hierarchical structure of the Society for UAP Studies, something that rather reminds you of the hierarchical structure of academia. We are told that there are four layers: (1) a "Board of Advisors" consisting of 36 members, almost all PhD's; (2) an "Advisory Council" consisting of 6 people, mostly PhD's; (3) a "Divisional Leadership" consisting of what looks like six PR folks involved in marketing efforts "positioning the Society as the leading critical voice and trusted source of information, analysis and knowledge production in contemporary UAP Studies" (something it is not); (4) two "Senior Strategic Advisors." 

But where are the actual field researchers in this society? Where are the guys who knock on doors to question witnesses?  None seem to be mentioned on this "Our Team" page. We get the impression of a society that may have been created largely to give honorary titles to the group of people listed on the "Our Team" page or another page listing an Editorial Review Board of 17 members.

Glitch #3: The Not-Very-Diligent Scholarly Efforts and Paywalls

On its home page the Society for UAP Studies sounds in various ways like it is not very serious about the diligent study of unidentified phenomena, but more interested in discouraging  "speculative or interpretive anarchy."  The outputs of this Society for UAP Studies are to be found in two places:

(1) A publicly available journal called Limina, which since 2024 has published on a twice-a-year schedule. 

(2) A blog on the Society for UAP Studies site. 

The first edition of the Limina journal can be read here. It starts out in a very ignorant-sounding way. In the first paragraph of text the editor states, "Ever since publication of the Journal

of UFO Studies came to an end in the early 2000s, for the English-speaking audience there has been no serious and sustained scholarly publication focused exclusively on the subject of what is now termed 'unidentified aerial or anomalous phenomena' (UAP). " This is not true at all. To give an example, there is The Journal of Scientific Exploration which has been published on a quarterly basis since 2010 (you can read all its issues here). That journal has been primarily devoted to documenting anomalous phenomena. 

In the first edition of this Limina journal we have five articles, none of which is particularly noteworthy. One article is an overview of previous studies of UFOs and UAP. Another is a lecture about best practices in UFO/UAP research. Then there is an article on using astronomical techniques to investigate UFOs. Then there is a book review, and a profile of Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635), who is called the first UFO investigator.  I am left asking, "This is the best we can get as the first effort of this grand new society?" 

The page here lists other articles or papers available in one or two other editions of the Limina journal. We do not actually get links to full articles that we can read from that page. All we get are abstract summaries. So this is the grand result of the Society for UAP Studies -- a free first journal issue, and then mostly the annoyance of paywalls? It is true that someone can go to the trouble of looking up the article titles on Google Scholar, and can try to find the full text for free. But doing that is inconvenient. 

The Limina journal has 17 members on its Editorial Review Board, which is a number higher than the number of authors contributing papers or articles of decent length each year. 

The blog page of the Society for UAP Studies has 31 posts published since 2023. Most are not very deep or long posts. 2 are identified as "1 minute reads"; 6 are identified as "2 minute reads"; 8 are identified as reads of 3, 4 or 5 minutes; several others are identified as reads of 6 or 7 minutes. 

Sadly I have a suspicion about the Society for UAP Studies:  that its efforts may be mainly a kind of low-effort window-dressing affair involving mainly dabblers in the study of anomalous phenomena, who are mostly "phoning it in." Most of the people involved do not seem like people seriously interested in devoting long and diligent efforts to the study of anomalous phenomena. The research published by the society seems mainly like perfunctory "for show" efforts. Today's professors are notorious for their failure to decently study the paranormal and the anomalous and the inexplicable. What might you do if you were a typical professor or PhD failing to make any decent effort to study paranormal or anomalous phenomena? You might want to organize or join some society which mainly just "goes through the motions" or makes token, minimal efforts rather than doing the laborious work needed to seriously study the unexplained.  Then if someone criticized you for failing to study the unexplained and anomalous or paranormal, you might refer to yourself being on the Board of Advisors of the Society for UAP Studies, or on the Editorial Review Board of its journal, to try to make it seem like you were a serious scholar of the unexplained. 

Thus far the Society for UAP Studies has failed to live up to the very high standard of research diligence set by the principal researchers of the Society for Psychical Research founded in 1882, men such as Frederic Myers, Edmund Gurney and Richard Hodgson. To read about the work of these and other very diligent researchers of the paranormal, see my post "40+ Leading Researchers of the Paranormal." 

Postscript: The Society for UAP Studies recently made some very longwinded announcement of something called "AURA/Upward." It is announced on a page mentioning "institutional stewardship." There is a link to a very graphically slick page mentioning "epistemic stewardship," which sounds to me like "editorial control." Both pages seem to be filled with the kind of language that only a bureaucrat or  middle-manager would love. Basically the pages seem to be saying "we want to manage your anomaly research work."  I'm not sure why anyone would want to get entangled with the "red tape" of this society and its stewards or aspiring overlords.