The disclosure movement is a social movement that argues in favor of various conspiracy theories which allege that governments generally, or the United States government specifically, have secret information regarding UFOs and "non-human intelligence" – variously described as space aliens; "interdimensional" beings; beings originating on Earth or native to the atmosphere; demons; and even time travelers. The movement advocates for the supposed information to be declassified for purposes of human, social, and scientific advancement. The disclosure movement prophesizes a future event or process called "disclosure" that will mark the date upon which such declassification occurs.
Adherents of the disclosure movement have variously predicted that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or Pope Leo XIV are on the verge of initiating disclosure. The movement has been occasionally framed by observers as comparable to a system of religious belief. Some notable disclosure advocates are David Wilcock, Steven Greer, and Christopher Mellon.
Beliefs The disclosure movement is a loose-knit movement whose adherents generally believe governments control secret information regarding UFOs and space aliens, and who advocate for its public release for commercial, spiritual, humanitarian, or scientific reasons. "Disclosure" is the climactic event towards which those in the disclosure movement aspire and, according to journalist Anna Merlan, is believed by them to be "the time when the world’s governments will finally reveal everything they know about UFOs, extraterrestrials, and alien technology". Those associated with the disclosure movement have variously predicted U.S. presidents Obama, Clinton, and Trump would initiate disclosure during their presidencies. Following the enthronement of Pope Leo XIV, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor Kody W. Cooper noted that some speculated he would be "the disclosure pope" and would "reveal the Vatican's UFO 'secrets.
According to journalist Alex Seitz-Wald, "the movement has long believed the government is covering up the greatest secret in history". Advocate Stephen Greer has claimed, "aliens are here to help us and the military-industrial complex is hyping their danger and creating the U.S. Space Force to prepare for interplanetary war", and films such as Independence Day are indicative of "a false narrative created by covert groups striving to generate fear of ETs". On the internet forum AboveTopSecret, described as "a hub of ufology and conspiracy theories", adherents have debated whether government efforts to make files of UFO reports more accessible represent "the beginning of the end of the alleged cover-up or its revival". UFO lobbyist Stephen Bassett lauded the new efforts as part of a strategy by former insiders "to finally force the government to reveal that it has had contact with aliens for decades". Regarding potential revelations of extraterrestrial contact and alien technology, disclosure advocate Christopher Mellon said, "This is the biggest discovery in human history". While testifying before Congress, disclosure media figure Luis Elizondo accused the government of a cover-up, saying, "You have information being locked away that can change the trajectory of [our] species".
Within the context of UFO disclosure and transparency advocacy, the term "non-human intelligence" has been used to refer to entities claimed to be responsible for UFOs; however, beliefs vary regarding how the term is defined.Yingling, M.E., Yingling, C.W. Academic freedom and the unknown: credibility, criticism, and inquiry among the professoriate. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11, 987 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03351-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03351-4 The extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis proposes that some UFOs are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by intelligent extraterrestrial organisms from other planets, or probes designed by extraterrestrials. Disclosure advocate Leslie Kean has proposed that UFOs might be of interdimensional origin. The cryptoterrestrial hypothesis proposes that reports of flying saucers or UFOs are evidence of a hidden, Earth-based, technologically advanced civilization, or unknown animal life forms. The time-traveler hypothesis proposes that UFOs are evidence of humans traveling from the future using advanced technology. Christian fundamentalists and others have claimed that UFOs are evidence of a satanic influence, or are themselves demons.
Mark Pilkington has written about the paradoxical beliefs of disclosure, noting that "Disclosure's advocates claim that what they want is truth, but what they actually want is to have their existing beliefs about UFOs and extraterrestrials confirmed by a government they already distrust on the issue." Hari Kunzru writes that adherents' belief that beneficial societal changes will result from the sudden revelation of hidden knowledge shows the disclosure movement has a spiritual dimension: "The idea of fighting against secretive bureaucratic evil to bring about a transcendent moment of collective cooperation is a sort of secularized Gnosticism, and it has continued to reappear, in one form or another, since the first sightings in the late Forties." Merlan explains that disclosure advocates use "the language of end-times preachers who describe a coming climactic battle, a grand revelation, a final decisive moment when humanity will be divided into the drowned and the saved".
History
While the roots of the disclosure movement can be traced to the 1940s and the work of Raymond A. Palmer and Richard Shaver, disclosure is distinct from earlier conspiracy theories that posit government secrecy about UFOs in that it simultaneously advocates for the end of such secrecy as a means for human civilization to capitalize on purported valuable alien technology. As early as 1952, the US Air Force had acknowledged reports from "credible observers of relatively incredible things", but cautioned that "there has been no pattern that reveals anything remotely like purpose or remotely like consistency that we can in any way associate with any menace to the United States".
In 1955, The Flying Saucer Conspiracy by Donald Keyhoe argued for an end to a supposed cover-up. By 1963, Keyhoe, citing conversations with members of Congress, called for "full disclosure of UFO facts" and publicly predicted "some action in a few months", though no major announcement occurred in the ensuing months. In 1977, the US News and World Report published a claim that 'unsettling disclosures' about UFOs would be announced by the CIA before the end of the year; none emerged.
Origins
Steven Greer, who claims to have seen a flying saucer as a child, is widely regarded as a prime influence of the disclosure movement, having popularized the term "disclosure" to refer to advocacy for the end of this perceived cover-up in the early 1990s, and Greer himself identifies as the founder of "the worldwide disclosure movement". In 1993, he established The Disclosure Project which, according to Religion Dispatches, "encourages the government to disclose the reality of UFOs, as well as advanced technologies like alternative energy that could save the planet". Some persons affiliated with Greer's initiatives practice his "CE-5" protocol which attempts to directly commune with space aliens via meditation as a means of compelling disclosure, and Greer commercially markets "Ambassador to the Universe" trainings to teach CE-5.
2010 – 2016 On September 27, 2010, Robert Salas appeared at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., along with other UFO speakers, where he told a tale of the Malmstrom UFO incident, where a UFO report was allegedly linked to nuclear missiles going off-line. In 2011, George Knapp reported that "the UFO crowd" hoped that Obama would be "the disclosure president" but got "on to something else" after Obama – responding to a 2011 We the People petition – affirmed there was nothing to disclose. Even after Obama's statement, some in the disclosure movement, such as advocate Stephen Bassett, continued to assert he would be "the disclosure president".
In 2013, Bassett organized a publicity event called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure in which purported UFO witnesses provided testimony to six former members of the United States Congress with Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick presiding over the meeting. Each of the six former members of Congress was paid $20,000, plus expenses, to attend. During the hearing, Paul Hellyer alleged that two space aliens were coaching U.S. government officials about clean energy and that this was being suppressed by the petroleum industry. According to the New York Daily News, the event was attended by about 100 members of the public, including Louis Farrakhan, Hollow Earth advocates, and people dressed in space alien costumes. Members of the public could also stream the event online for four dollars.
In 2015, Clinton aide John Podesta posted a statement saying "my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files", adding the hashtag "#thetruthisstilloutthere". The following year when Podesta's emails were published by Wikileaks, the contents were noted for their discussion of UFOs. Podesta's UFO comments were a factor in leading some in the disclosure movement to believe that Hillary Clinton would spearhead disclosure. After her loss, the TV show Ancient Aliens speculated that the CIA had interfered in the election in order to foil disclosure. In October 2017, the company To The Stars Inc. was founded by Tom DeLonge (guitarist of Blink-182), parapsychologist Harold E. Puthoff, and author Jim Semivan. Personnel included disclosure advocates Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo. In December of that year, the company provided the first of what became known as the "Pentagon UFO videos" to the press.
2017 – 2021
Enthusiasm for disclosure accelerated on December 16, 2017 when the New York Times published a story with the sensational headline "Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program" that reported on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and popularized speculations that the government might soon reveal "what it knows about UFOs". The same Times story included the first of a series of videos of UFOs filmed by US Navy pilots and claimed by advocates to depict vehicles representing "extraordinary technology". The videos further spurred interest in claims of secret government UFO files and extraterrestrial encounters. Disclosure advocates Harry Reid, Luis Elizondo, and Tom DeLonge expressed their hope that the release of the videos was only the beginning of further revelations to come. In 2019, Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves founded the group Americans for Safe Aerospace to "advocate for more disclosure by the military and other government agencies".
During 2021, personalities ranging from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to former President Obama shared their thoughts about UFOs, with Obama saying that footage and records of unidentified objects exist, but dismissing claims of extraterrestrial encounters. In covering Obama's comments, CNN noted "Believing UFOs are real does not require believing in aliens; UFOs are simply unidentified flying objects. There is no assumption they contain other life forms." In April, Harry Reid published a letter attesting that Elizondo held a leadership role in the AATIP program. In August, news magazine 60 Minutes aired an in-depth report on UAP claims.
Since 2022