Establishing the rigorous, cross-disciplinary evidentiary framework that the scientific study of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena requires — modeled on the biosignatures standards of evidence developed by the astrobiology community for NASA.
The Problem
Despite decades of credible observation and an accelerating international research landscape, the scientific study of UAP currently operates without a commonly accepted framework for conducting research, evaluating evidence, or deriving conclusions from data. Most existing studies remain forensic in nature — relying on retrospective case reports and eyewitness testimony — which, while valuable as an initial resource, cannot provide the kind of measurable, controlled data required for robust hypothesis testing.
This is not a novel problem. The philosophy of science has long distinguished between "historical sciences" — which reconstruct events from traces — and "experimental sciences" — which generate repeatable data under controlled conditions. UAP inquiry currently exists in the former mode, not because the phenomena resist systematic observation, but because the field lacks the community-endorsed standards of evidence that would define what systematic observation should look like and how its results should be interpreted.
The absence of such standards has a compounding effect: evidence is routinely dismissed for failing to meet conditions it could never satisfy under the current framework, creating an epistemic loop that impedes legitimate progress. The UAP Standards of Evidence Initiative exists to break that loop.
The Precedent — Astrobiology
In 2022, the astrobiology community confronted an identical challenge: how to evaluate claims about potential biosignatures in ways that are scientifically rigorous and publicly credible. Their response — the Community Report from the Biosignature Standards of Evidence Workshop — produced a framework subsequently reviewed by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and adopted as the field's shared evidentiary standard.
The UAP SOE Initiative is modeled explicitly on this precedent — the same structure, the same process, the same ambition: a community white paper that the scientific field can collectively endorse and build upon.
National Academies review of biosignature SOE →Core Deliverable
One of the Initiative's primary outputs is a structured confidence framework — analogous to astrobiology's Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale — that defines the conditions under which raw UAP observations can be progressively elevated to the status of scientific evidence.
The Ladder gives the research community shared language: a common vocabulary for distinguishing between indicative data, consistent data, corroborated data, and data that meets the threshold for scientific claim. Without such a framework, every UAP finding is argued for or against on ad hoc grounds.
The draft below represents a prototype structure, to be refined through the working group process. It is explicitly provisional and will be substantially developed through the AstroAccel and subsequent workshop process.
UAP Evidence Ladder — Prototype Draft
Organizing Team
The Initiative is coordinated by an interdisciplinary team spanning philosophy of science, information science, astrophysics, and science education — each bringing distinct expertise essential to the multi-layered evidentiary problem.
Philosophy of science; conceptual foundations of theoretical physics; evidence standards and methodological foundations for emerging scientific domains. Founding Executive Director of SUAPS.
Early career information scientist; research at the intersection of data curation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and emerging scientific fields. Author of the first systematic review of UAP scholarship (1967–2023). Co-organizer of the 2024 NSF-supported UAP workshop and 2025 DoD-supported narrative data workshop.
Particle physics, instrumentation, and data-driven analysis of weak signals in noisy environments. Leads the Initiative's focus on experimental design and calibration practices for multimodal observatories.
Director of Education and Public Engagement at AUI; responsible for innovative STEM education programs internationally. Leads the Initiative's focus on workforce development, education, and public communication of scientific standards.
Astrophysicist and science communication expert with extensive experience in European research infrastructures. Strengthens Dutch and broader EU engagement in the Initiative and its outputs.
Research Structure
To address the multifaceted nature of UAP evidentiary standards, the working group will form specialized sub-committees, each addressing a distinct dimension of the problem — from physical instrumentation to the philosophical status of anomalous experience.
Observational methods, instrument calibration, multimodal data collection, and statistical standards for physical detection of anomalous events. Draws on methodological frameworks from astrophysics, atmospheric physics, and radar/EO/IR sensing.
Metadata standards, data provenance and chain-of-custody, curation protocols, long-term stewardship, and interoperable repository design. Essential for ensuring that physical observations can be transformed into usable, reproducible scientific data.
Standards of evidence for the analysis of physical materials potentially associated with UAP, including chain-of-custody requirements, isotopic and elemental analysis protocols, and criteria for distinguishing terrestrial from anomalous material composition.
Investigative and evidentiary standards for reported biological and physiological effects on witnesses and observers — a category of evidence that existing frameworks treat inconsistently and that requires dedicated methodological attention.
Cultural, political, and sociological dimensions of the UAP-human interface; analysis of how social and institutional factors shape data collection, reporting behavior, stigma, and the conditions under which observations enter or are excluded from scientific consideration.
The evidentiary status and philosophical analysis of first-person human experience; criteria for integrating testimonial evidence into a systematic framework; and the broader epistemological question of how to reason from anomalous data toward plausible hypotheses.
Current Status
The Initiative has pivoted from a Lorentz Center workshop application (declined April 2026) to the AstroAccel 2026 Innovation Summit, Lisbon, August 15–17, 2026 as its next anchor event — to form a core international advocacy group, present a funding pitch, and initiate the institutional partnerships needed to advance to a full community workshop.
The Lorentz Center application — which was submitted with 20+ confirmed participants representing 14+ countries and disciplines spanning astrophysics, data science, philosophy of science, and social sciences — produced substantive intellectual development that now frames the AstroAccel pitch. The full proposal, including the five-day program structure, the Minimum Observational Dataset schema concept, and the UAP Evidence Ladder prototype above, emerged from that preparatory process and remains the roadmap for the full workshop.
The AstroAccel Summit, organized by Laura Dominé, is a natural venue for the next phase: its audience includes exactly the astrophysics and instrumentation community that forms the physical sciences core of the SOE working group, and its structure is designed to accelerate initiatives from proposal stage to funded workshop.
A core advocacy group of 8–12 researchers will be identified and formalized at or immediately following AstroAccel, with the goal of submitting a new community workshop application before the end of 2026.
Workshop Program
The following program structure was developed for the Lorentz Center workshop submission and represents the working blueprint for the full community workshop — to be convened at a venue to be confirmed following AstroAccel.
Participant Network
The Initiative has assembled one of the most internationally diverse and disciplinarily broad participant cohorts in UAP research history — spanning astronomy, astrophysics, data science, information science, philosophy of science, social science, and engineering.
Primary Output
The Initiative's primary deliverable is a community white paper establishing standards of evidence for UAP science — to be submitted as an open-access preprint (arXiv), published in Limina: The Journal of UAP Studies, and submitted to an independent review body analogous to the National Academies review of the biosignature SOE report.
All Deliverables
Consensus document defining shared terminology, evidence categories, data quality requirements, and governance model for UAP science.
Minimum Observational Dataset schema covering calibration standards, chain-of-custody requirements, and uncertainty quantification for UAP observations.
Six-rung confidence framework analogous to astrobiology's CoLD scale — defining the conditions for progressively elevating UAP data to evidence to scientific claim.
A durable standing committee under SUAPS, with formal working group structure and international representation, committed to follow-up publications and future workshop organization.
Peer-reviewed community report; open-access preprint (arXiv); published in Limina; submitted for independent review by a National Academies-level body.
Preliminary designs for observational campaigns and shared data repository architectures, ready for implementation by partner research groups.
The UAP Standards of Evidence Initiative is actively building its core advocacy group for the AstroAccel Summit and the full workshop. Researchers across relevant disciplines are invited to inquire about participation.
Contact the Coordinators