The issues
38 analyses in eight parts
Each analysis is dated October 2026, cites its sources and links to the sample documents written for it. The analyses rest on stated working assumptions.
A Foundations
How courts handle secret matters, what secret executive law can and cannot do, what Congress has enacted, and whether anyone must disclose.
Secrecy in court
How the state secrets privilege, the Totten bar, protective orders and cleared counsel decide whether a UAP or NHI case can be heard, with the 2022-2026 cases that moved the law in both directions.
Secret executive law
What classified orders, directives and OLC opinions can authorize, why a secret directive cannot license what a statute forbids, and how to request the directives themselves.
UAP statutes
The enacted framework (AARO, the protected disclosure channel, the Records Collection, funding limits) and the pending House and Senate disclosure acts, with what a court can actually enforce.
Duty to disclose
Whether any constitutional, statutory or treaty duty requires the government to reveal that NHI exist. No court is likely to order it; narrower duties do exist.
Research and science
Classification, export controls, research-security rules and academic freedom for scientists studying UAP, including what to do with unsolicited information.
B Records and disclosure
Getting records, designing a truth commission, and publishing what you learn.
Getting records
FOIA, mandatory declassification review, the UAP Records Collection and state public-records laws, with the search and Glomar rulings that decide UAP requests.
Truth commission
How a UAP truth commission could compel testimony, grant immunity and still hold the gravest conduct to account, using South Africa, Northern Ireland and U.S. models.
Publishing secrets
Prepublication review for former officials, prior restraint, and Espionage Act exposure for publishers, with the released DoD review files on UAP authors.
C Insiders and whistleblowers
Protected channels, criminal exposure, and representing clients who hold clearances.
Whistleblower protection
Which channels protect a UAP whistleblower (AARO, PURSUE, inspectors general, Congress), the reprisal remedies by type of employee, and clearance risk.
Disclosers' criminal risk
Espionage Act and related exposure for insiders who disclose, why the press is the riskiest channel, and how the AARO channel changes the analysis.
Cleared clients
Representing clients whose most important facts are classified: clearances, protective orders, ethics, and what the Justice Department says uncleared counsel may hear.
Security clearance practice
How clearance cases for UAP witnesses, experiencers and researchers are decided: DOHA and agency procedures, the SF-86 mental health questions, candor, outside activities, and reprisal.
D Government conduct and liability
Oversight of unacknowledged programs, contractor fraud, crimes of concealment, aviation safety, injuries, and withheld technology.
Congressional oversight
Reporting duties for special access programs, appropriations conditions and funding limits, and how Congress can enforce them against unacknowledged UAP programs.
Contracts and fraud
Contractor custody of recovered material, the UAP limit on research cost recovery, mandatory disclosure, and False Claims Act exposure in classified programs.
Crimes of concealment
False statements to Congress, obstruction, records offenses, retaliation and conspiracy, the limitations periods, and what officials have actually told Congress.
Aviation safety
Whether the government must warn civil aviation of UAP its sensors detect, FTCA liability for failing to, and the current FAA and military reporting rules.
Injuries and benefits
Tort claims, workers' compensation, veterans' benefits and the HAVANA Act model for people injured in UAP encounters or UAP programs.
Withheld technology
Whether any law can compel release of withheld energy or medical technology. Under current U.S. law no court can; the analysis covers what a statute could do.
Pilots and aircrew
Where a pilot's UAP report goes, AIR21 protection against airline retaliation, FAA investigations and ASRS immunity, medical certification risk, military aircrew, and loss-of-license insurance.
E Material, property and technology
Takings, patents, found material, securities, insurance and contracts.
Takings
Eminent domain over privately held material, just compensation for unique objects, contractor title, and the statutes that could reach personal property.
Secrecy orders and patents
Invention secrecy orders, compensation claims, government use under 28 U.S.C. ยง1498, and trade secrets in UAP-derived technology.
Found material
Who owns debris found on private, public or tribal land, under finders law, meteorite precedent, ARPA and NAGPRA, and how to document provenance.
Securities and markets
Contractor disclosure duties, the SEC rules on classified information in filings, insider trading around a disclosure, and event contracts.
Insurance and contracts
Force majeure, war and hostile-acts exclusions, and coverage after official confirmation of UAP activity, with clauses to draft now.
Patenting NHI technology
Whether a person or company may patent NHI technology as its own invention. Copying is not inventing, an NHI cannot be named, and human improvements can be patented.
F NHI, contact and international law
The legal status of NHI, alleged downings, communication, self-disclosure, conflicts among NHI groups, and space law.
Status of NHI
Personhood, constitutional persons, immigration law and the laws of war applied to non-human intelligence, and how new law should be made.
Downing and detention
The law that would apply to deliberately downing a craft and detaining or killing its occupants: use-of-force authority, war crimes, torture, and civil accountability.
Communicating with NHI
The First Amendment right to speak to and hear from NHI, and the narrow export-control and transmitter rules the government could constitutionally impose.
Disinformation and force
Whether ridicule campaigns, pressure on media and threats of force against craft are lawful, and the remedies for people targeted by official statements.
Conflicts among NHI
Recognition, war powers, the Neutrality Act, reporting of arrangements to Congress, and technology transfer if NHI groups are in conflict.
Space and contact law
The Outer Space Treaty and related treaties, planetary protection, post-detection protocols, and foreign governments' UAP programs.
Safe-harbor zones for contact
How a private host could create a protected place for humans and NHI to meet: what a private guarantee can and cannot do, state and federal statutes, and avoiding the appearance of diplomacy or governmental authority.
G Publishing on this subject
Defamation risk and the rules for legal websites, applied to a site like this one.
Defamation risk
Publishing UAP allegations about named officials and contractors, for journalists, researchers and lawyer-commentators: actual malice, the fair report privilege, opinion, platform rules, and anti-SLAPP protection.
Legal websites and ethics
Running a UAP practice or legal-information site: lawyer advertising and prospective clients for lawyer-run sites, and the information-advice line for publishers that are not law firms.
H Abduction and experiencers
Abduction by NHI, accounts of abduction by government personnel, surveillance of UFO groups, and UFO reports treated as mental illness.
Abduction by NHI
If NHI take and injure people: criminal law with no reachable defendant, the government's duty to protect, the Invasion Clause, crime victim compensation, and how to prove an abduction.
MILAB claims
If people are taken, held or tested by military, intelligence or contractor personnel: the MKULTRA, Edgewood and rendition precedents, human-subjects law, FTCA and contractor claims, and the proof these cases need.
Surveillance of UFO groups
Government watching, infiltration and disruption of UFO groups, researchers and experiencers, measured against COINTELPRO, CHAOS, Army surveillance and campus cases, with the Privacy Act remedy.
UFO reports and mental illness
How courts and evaluators have treated UFO and abduction reports as evidence of mental illness, and how witness credibility, competency, commitment, custody and records should be handled now.