IC Technology — 2026-06-20

ODNI FBI and DoD Establish Interagency UAP Governance Board as Harvard-Led Science Advisory Council Assembles

BLUFStanding up an interagency board with EO 13526 declassification authority gives this UAP effort structural teeth prior bodies lacked, though the council's unclassified mandate will likely cap its analytical value by December 2027.

ODNI, the FBI, and DOD established a new interagency UAP Governance Board this week, an ODNI official confirmed to DefenseScoop and Liberation Times 12. The board's charter tasks it with coordinating UAP investigations and assisting with timely declassification of UAP records under Executive Order 13526 2. Harvard physicist Avi Loeb announced he was tasked by the White House, AARO, ODNI, and the FBI to chair a UAP Science Advisory Council reporting to the board 23. The council, operating exclusively from unclassified data, comprises fourteen researchers spanning astrophysics, molecular biology, oceanography, AI, and psychology, including Stanford pathologist Garry Nolan and Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer 14.

Analysis
The board's EO 13526 charter distinguishes this from prior UAP coordination efforts: it confers real declassification leverage on an ODNI-FBI-DoD structure rather than purely advisory standing. The council will likely produce a formal written report within 18 months, though its restriction to unclassified data structurally subordinates external scientific judgment to whatever classified agencies choose to surface, positioning the council as a public legitimacy mechanism as much as an analytical body. Moderate confidence reflects convergence traceable to a single ODNI official and the council principals themselves, with no independent reporting on the board's internal deliberations. A report by December 2027 gives congressional UAP oversight caucuses credentialed cover to push additional declassification mandates and AARO expansion funding. Absent that output, the board's institutional weight goes untested.
4 sources
  1. New science advisory council forms to help US government resolve the UAP mystery - DefenseScoop
  2. U.S. Government Establishes New Interagency UAP Governance Board to Coordinate Investigations and Declassification - Liberation Times
  3. A UAP Science Advisory Council to the U.S. Government: Keeping Our Eyes on the Orbs, Not the Audience! - Medium / Avi Loeb
  4. Michael Shermer Named to White House UAP Science Advisory Council - Skeptic Magazine

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UNCLASSIFIED // OPEN SOURCE