Tensions in Bigelow's UFO disclosure-strategy

 Introduction

This post analyses the recent conversation between Mr Robert Bigelow and Mr George Knapp. Specifically, I will focus on the tensions in what I call Bigelow's UFO "disclosure-strategy". 

Source.

The talk between Knapp and Bigelow starts with the premise or idea that UFO disclosure is not so far away, compared to 30-40 years ago. The center of the talk is Bigelow's meeting with President Trump on January 6, 2026. In that meeting, Bigelow advised and encouraged the president to deliver the following confirmation regarding UFOs/UAP:

A non-human intelligence presence has been on Earth for a very long time, using spacecraft with performances completely beyond our capabilities and our known physics.

In the talk, Bigelow makes the sound claim that confirmation and disclosure are "welded together." That is, it would be very difficult and time-consuming to get to a worldwide disclosure without a presidential confirmation that some UFOs/UAP are of non-human origin and that "they" are here. 

I agree with Bigelow on this. For instance, I have previously addressed the necessity of a top down "ontological acknowledgement" here, and why an eventual transformational disclosure matters here.

But the main purpose of this post is to identify and reflect on some tensions in Bigelow's reasoning on how to get to a disclosure process. Because I think that the identified tensions are essential to solve in order to enable both confirmation and disclosure. You can think of the "tensions" as constraints or barriers for mainly reaching a worldwide disclosure.

The main theme I have identified in Bigelow's disclosure-strategy is trust. And my interpretation is that some of the major tensions in Bigelow's reasoning on how to embark on a disclosure process are:

• Trust between different human actors. In the text below, I will focus on two actors or groups: the so-called "gatekeepers" (a term used in the talk) and the U.S. government, especially the executive branch.

• Trust between humans and non-human intelligence (NHI).

So, on a more general level, the main theme could be social relationships, since any constructive relationship is built and maintained on mutual trust, respect, and so on. 

Initially, Bigelow's focus on trust and relationships surprised me positively. On the other hand, in what way could trust and relationships not be essential for a constructive disclosure process? So, I sympathise with Bigelow's focus on those themes as a necessary foundation for UFO/UAP disclosure. I say more about those themes in the section "Closing thoughts".

In the next section, I will focus on the tensions concerning the human side in Bigelow's reasoning about how to get to a disclosure process, i.e., the first point above about trust between different human actors or groups.

For the full context of what I discuss below, listen to the talk between George Knapp and Robert Bigelow in its entirety (click on the first link above).

Collective action dilemma as a barrier to UFO disclosure

This tension has structural similarities with a collective action dilemma. The main actors here are the government, the "gatekeepers" (both in the government and/or private contractors), and the citizens. Every actor or group has different rights, obligations, interests, credibility, etc., regarding the UFO issue and disclosure. 

Confirmation, transparency, or disclosure?

Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash

Introduction

A lot of positive things have happened to the UFO subject during the last ten years, compared to the status of the UFO subject before 2017. 

For example, we have had U.S. military and intelligence confirmation that some UFOs/UAP are real and unidentified, and, therefore, a national security issue, which has been both an enabler and a constraint in making the UFO subject credible. The public has also experienced U.S. Congressional hearings on different aspects of the UFO issue and institutional transparency. 

There has been some political and news- and social media movement in other countries as well regarding the UFO/UAP issue. (The link goes to a study on the "transparency effect" on r/UFO and r/UAP subreddits, but more relevant here is that the study note the "rich semantics associated with ‘disclosure’ and ‘transparency,’..." (p. 19, in the pdf-version)).

In short, the UFO phenomenon as a legitimate subject has made progress that was hard to imagine before 2017.

Nevertheless, let us pause and consider the current UFO-situation. What is happening, and how can we accurately describe it? Are we living in an era of confirmation, transparency, or disclosure? Or are we experiencing a mix of all three? (The question of psy-ops is complicated, so I will not address it here, but suffice to say is that the entirety of what started in 2017 is not a psy-op).

Personally, I am confused and thought I would write a blog post with the purpose of trying to clarify those three terms for myself.

What follows are my "definitions" of confirmation, transparency, and disclosure in relation to the UFO issue. You do not have to agree with my view. At the same time, I hope my distinctions can be of some use in clarifying the current state of the UFO subject and perhaps even the direction the UFO-situation is heading. 

Three terms that answer three different questions

Confirmation is a claim about the phenomenon itself: it asks, Is the phenomenon real? And what are unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)? Take note: we have official confirmation that we have detected UAP, but it is not officially confirmed if any are non-human intelligence. The confirmation most people are awaiting would determine if a UFO/UAP case involves non-human technology or intelligence, based on independently verifiable and replicable evidence.

When Disclosure seems Co-opted: Recognising deception in the current UFO disclosure battle

A follow-up to "The Barriers to Global UFO Disclosure: Power, Betrayal, and the Compounding Cost of Secrecy"

Background

On February 19, 2026, President Trump signed a directive instructing federal agencies to identify and release government records concerning UFOs/UAP, alien or extraterrestrial life, and related matters. Whatever one thinks of the current U.S. administration, the directive represented a meaningful political acknowledgement that the American public deserves access to information that has been withheld for decades.

Then came the implementation.

Whistleblowers — current and former government employees and contractors with direct knowledge of UFO-related programs — were told their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) would be waived. They could speak. But only through designated channels: AARO, ODNI, and PURSUE. Not to Congress directly. Not to the public. Back into the system or the "structure of UFO secrecy".

A UAP whistleblower named Matthew Brown published an article yesterday — July 24, 2026 — that I recommend reading in full. Titled "Catch and Kill," it documents in sobering detail why those three designated channels (mainly AARO and ODNI) are precisely the wrong ones to trust with sensitive whistleblower testimony. Brown's article is one of the most concretely argued pieces on the current UAP transparency effort I have read in some time. 

Hence, his article functions as a credible anchor for what I want to explore in this post. Because reading Brown's account through a particular framework (military deception principles) reveals something that I think should be named directly:

What is currently being presented as a top down UFO/UAP transparency effort resembles the fingerprints of a psychological operation and/or institutional deception.

I am not claiming that everyone officially involved in the current UFO disclosure battle is consciously running a psy-op or reproducing deception. Neither am I claiming that the presidential directive was issued in bad faith. 

What I am claiming is that the institutional structures in place — independent of the intentions behind them — are producing outcomes consistent with well-documented military deception principles and tactics. 

And I am claiming these outcomes are likely not random. It is what happens when institutions (e.g., political, military, intelligence, etc.) protecting decades of mismanagement of the UFO issue are put in charge of revealing, or whitewashing, the ethical and legal transgressions regarding UFO/UAP secrecy.

However, even though the outcomes are likely not accidental, it does not logically follow that the entire mismanagement of the UFO issue is because of deliberate deception, misdirection and/or concealment. 

Therefore, when you read the military deception tools below, keep in mind that the mismanagement of UFO transparency is most likely a complex mixture of incompetence, conformity, ideology, and deliberate (and sometimes rogue) decisions to use any means necessary to hinder disclosure (which from a bureaucratic and technocratic perspective would be catastrophic).

Principles of military deception and why they matter here

The US Army Field Manual FM 90-2, Battlefield Deception (1988), documents principles and tactics of military deception. These tools of military deception were developed from game theory, historical analysis, etc., and they were originally designed for use against foreign adversaries in military contexts. The principles and tactics I will focus on are: Magruder's Principle, Jones' Dilemma, and Cry-Wolf.

The barriers to global UFO disclosure: Power, betrayal and the compounding cost of secrecy

Introduction

The production and reproduction of the political-economic structure, the primary barrier to global UAP disclosure. Source.

In my previous post, I argued that a global UFO/UAP disclosure is necessary because the ontological acknowledgement of the phenomenon's reality belongs to all of humanity, and because our institutions have both the duty and, I believe, the capacity to deliver it wisely.

What I deliberately left out of that post were the harder questions. The ones I find genuinely difficult to think through without arriving at conclusions that are uncomfortable and, unfortunately, realistic.

This post is an attempt to go into that uncomfortable territory honestly. It is a more pessimistic, or realistic, text than my previous one. Realistic in the sense of looking clearly at the barriers to global UFO disclosure without softening them into something more manageable than they are.

What I explore and claim in this post is nothing original. Many UFO researchers, and armchair commentators like myself, have considered the barriers to an official UFO disclosure throughout UFO history. For example, Richard Dolan recently commented on the UAP briefing at Capitol Hill on June 9, featuring David Grusch, members of Congress, and several prominent figures involved in the disclosure effort.

What Mr Dolan says in his YouTube-video (duration: 12:34 min.) about the key issues for disclosure being "legislative power" (e.g., whistleblower protection) and "the system defending itself" apply to what I write below.

One crucial thing that was said at the UAP briefing on Capitol Hill came from Representative Eric Burlison. Mr Burlison said something to the effect that the disclosure effort is a "world-wide call to action" (Rep. Burlison appears between 4:00 min. and 10:20 min., and to the end of the video - duration 30 min. - by News Nation).

I agree with Representative Burlison that collaboration between nations is necessary to trigger a global UFO disclosure process. The problems of legislative power and "the system defending itself" can be generalised to the entire world order, or the transnational and transactional power structure, if you will. 

This post addresses the nature and scope of barriers to global UFO/UAP disclosure. The USA is courageously and persistently leading the disclosure effort. But because of the complex and entrenched power relations and dynamics on a global level, I worry the current effort by the USA will not drive a global disclosure process (i.e., the acknowledgement that we are not alone and the following meaning-making conversation).

Why global UFO disclosure is necessary

Introduction

There are two distinct challenges inherent to a global UFO/UAP disclosure:

• The ontological acknowledgement: That the UFO phenomenon is real and that some UFOs/UAP are not made by human hands. That is, we are not alone. Most of the world has not reached an ontological acknowledgement that some UFOs/UAP do not originate from Earth.

• The meaning-making (or existential) conversation: The implications of the ontological acknowledgement for humanity, civilisation, science, religion, and our self-understanding. At this level of the disclosure process, we go beyond "Are UFOs real?" and start reflecting on "Who is behind some UFOs/UAP?", "Why are They here?", and how should we relate to this new baseline reality?

The latest attempt at some kind of UFO/UAP transparency by the US government is encouraging and should be recognised. At the same time, the PURSUE-initiative has at least two problems for driving a UFO/UAP-conversation on a global level.

First, the war.gov/ufo website is US-centric, military, and the result of a US president who divides people rather than unites them (that is just a description of the current reality). Second, I worry the website's content will mostly interest people who are already curious about the UFO/UAP issue. 

The purpose of the website seems to be "citizen science". Which in itself is an honourable activity, but will most probably not lead to a global ontological acknowledgement of the reality of UFOs/UAP. I am aware, however, that it is too early to draw any certain conclusions about the effects of the data on people's perception of the UFO/UAP issue.

Why global disclosure is necessary

Most of the world’s nations are still far behind the USA regarding political engagement and media coverage of the UFO/UAP topic. It is encouraging that the war.gov/ufo website has had over one billion views since the launch on 8 May. Nevertheless, I believe we will soon discover that the world needs courageous institutions and authorities who take the bull by the horns and make the ontological acknowledgement to the world.