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The Sol Foundation

Policy

The Sol Foundation convenes academics, officials and researchers around UAP disclosure, science, policy, and governance.

The Sol Foundation publicly operates as a UAP policy think tank, while California filing data describes its legal entity as a nonprofit public benefit corporation.12

Sol publicly launched in Palo Alto on 15 August 2023 to research the philosophical, policy, and scientific implications of UAP.2

Sol describes its origin as beginning in 2022, after Congress received a pivotal UAP intelligence report and as its founders concluded that government, academia, private industry, religious communities, and other civil institutions would need dedicated preparation for greater public awareness of UAP.3

The launch announcement identified Dr. Garry Nolan of Stanford University School of Medicine and sociocultural anthropologist Dr. Peter Skafish as the Foundation's lead figures, with former Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III named as legal counsel.2

A later Sol publication described the organization as cofounded by Nolan, Skafish, and AI entrepreneur Jonathan Berte, while Sol's 2024 symposium page listed Nolan, Skafish, and Berte as board organizers.45

  Mission and Program

Sol frames its work around three lines: scientific and philosophical research, government and social policy, and public education.3

Its public mission is to advance wider understanding of UAP, encourage government transparency, foster collaborative academic review, and produce methodical analysis and policy recommendations for governments.2

Its research page lists active or planned work on UAP materials, aerospace observations, possible physics and energy requirements, social and humanities studies of disclosure, AI-enabled study of government secrecy, executive and legislative disclosure pathways, international cooperation, human security, and a national science plan.6

Sol's own language sometimes treats nonhuman provenance as a working possibility, so its strongest public-facing contribution is policy planning under uncertainty rather than independent proof of what UAP are.37

  Symposia

Sol's first major public convening was the Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy, a Stanford School of Medicine-sponsored symposium announced for November 2023 with Nolan and Skafish as organizers.8

That conference framed UAP as a problem for natural science, humanities, social science, government response, classified-program oversight, commercialization, disclosure, and public discourse.8

The listed 2023 speakers included Jonathan Berte, Eric Davis, Timothy Gallaudet, Avi Loeb, Leslie Kean, Kevin Knuth, Larry Maguire, Charles McCullough III, Christopher Mellon, Karl Nell, Diana Walsh Pasulka, Hal Puthoff, Paul Thigpen, Iya Whiteley, Beatriz Villarroel, and Jacques Vallee.8

Sol's second annual symposium was scheduled for 22-23 November 2024 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, with sessions on UAP and government, philosophical investigation, science, technology, and investment.4

The 2024 program included aviation safety, whole-of-government policy, executive branch secrecy, international cooperation, Galileo Project results, civilian astronomy, physics, UAP-related technology, investment, and AI-assisted disclosure topics.4

  Publications and Policy Work

Sol's white papers show a policy-first program that treats UAP as a governance, safety, national-security, social, and scientific planning problem.79105

UAP in Crowded Skies explicitly says it does not quantitatively establish UAP existence or support a specific theory, then argues that governments can still reduce risk by treating UAP as a "black box" that produces public-safety and national-security effects.7

A UK-focused white paper recommends briefings to Cabinet and Parliament, a whole-of-government UAP risk assessment, social research, initial public engagement, and analysis of a do-nothing scenario.9

The Prospect of Executive Branch Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Secrecy argues that congressional interest in UAP secrecy deserves oversight attention because alleged extreme classification, if real, would impair legislative-branch responsibilities and would require legal and declassification remedies.10

Investment in UAP Technology and Ventures argues that researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, government programs, and private capital could form a long-term UAP innovation ecosystem, while acknowledging stigma, science risk, national-security concerns, and patent or classification constraints.5

  Conservative Assessment

Sol is best understood as an agenda-setting UAP research and policy institution: it convenes credentialed academics, former officials, investors, and civil-society voices; publishes concrete policy proposals; and pushes disclosure into settings where scholarship and governance can engage it.2684

Its evidentiary posture should be read carefully because some Sol materials adopt premises about UAP reality or nonhuman provenance that remain publicly unresolved, while at least one Sol paper explicitly limits itself to policy analysis without establishing what UAP are.37

For Disclosdex, the Foundation's significance is not that it settles the UAP question, but that it reflects the shift from fringe discussion toward institutional planning, disclosure policy, and research infrastructure.2368

  References

  References

  1. BizProfile - "The Sol Foundation For Advanced Scientific And Policy Research" https://www.bizprofile.net/ca/menlo-park/the-sol-foundation-for ↩

  2. The Sol Foundation - "Sol Foundation Launches to Research Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" https://thesolfoundation.org/launch-announcement/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. The Sol Foundation - "About" https://thesolfoundation.org/about-2/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. The Sol Foundation - "Sol's 2024 Symposium" https://thesolfoundation.org/events/sols-2024-symposium/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Rizwan Virk - "Investment in UAP Technology and Ventures: Opportunities, Challenges, and a Way Forward" https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Virk-Investment-in-UAP-Technology-and-Ventures.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. The Sol Foundation - "Research and Insight for the 21st Century" https://thesolfoundation.org/research/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. The Sol Foundation - "UAP in Crowded Skies: Atmospheric and Orbital Threat Reduction in an Age of Geopolitical Uncertainty" https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sol_WhitePaper_Vol1N2.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. The Sol Foundation - "The Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy" https://thesolfoundation.org/events/the-inaugural-annual-conference-of-the-sol-foundation/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  9. The Sol Foundation - "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Policy Implications for the Government of the United Kingdom" https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Sol_WhitePaper_Vol1N3.pdf ↩ ↩2

  10. Peter Skafish - "The Prospect of Executive Branch Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Secrecy: The Harm to Congress and Potential Remedies" https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Sol_WhitePaper_Vol1N6.pdf ↩ ↩2

Published on August 15, 2023

5 min read