Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb has been selected by the White House to lead a new Trump-era advisory council on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), and he says the US government is genuinely puzzled by some of what it has observed. The appointment matters because it signals a push towards greater official transparency on a subject long shrouded in government secrecy, and it places a prominent, credentialed scientist at the head of the effort.

According to Loeb, who serves as lead advisor to the new UAP Governance Board, some observed objects remain unidentified and could represent national security risks posed by adversarial nations. He argues for openness, explaining that the council intends to gather unclassified data to better understand these phenomena and potentially make significant scientific discoveries. The appointment reportedly took place the month before the article's publication, and coincides with a fresh release of government UFO files said to include military footage of a mysterious star-shaped object.