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Richard Dolan

Historian

Ideological historian chronicling UFO-related government secrecy, author of the two-volume UFOs and the National Security State series

Disclosure Rating — 5/10

  Early Life and Education

Richard Michael Dolan (born July 1, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York) earned a B.A. in history from Alfred University, graduating summa cum laude. His senior thesis examined U.S. nuclear-war–planning doctrine during the Cold War. Dolan subsequently studied at St Cross College, University of Oxford, on a Rotary Scholarship and later entered the Ph.D. program in U.S. diplomatic history at the University of Rochester before leaving A.B.D. to pursue independent research on UFO secrecy.123

  Transition to UFO Research

Growing frustrated with the limits of orthodox Cold-War historiography, Dolan began reviewing declassified intelligence files released under the Freedom of Information Act in the early 1990s. Convinced that the U.S. national-security establishment treated UFOs as a genuine defense concern, he left academia to spend ten years studying archival material, FOIA releases, and eyewitness testimony—work that culminated in his two-volume study UFOs and the National Security State.34

  Major Publications

• 2000 – UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up, 1941-1973
• 2009 – UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-up Exposed, 1973-1991
• 2012 – AD: After Disclosure (with Bryce Zabel)
• 2014 – UFOs for the 21st-Century Mind
• 2021 – The Alien Agendas

Each title weaves together government documents, radar logs, and geopolitical context to argue that military secrecy and compartmentalization have profoundly shaped public perception of the UFO phenomenon.4567

  Media and Public Outreach

Dolan has appeared on History Channel programs such as Ancient Aliens and Hangar 1, and he lectures regularly at the International UFO Congress, MUFON Symposia, and Contact in the Desert conferences. He hosts The Richard Dolan Show podcast and runs Richard Dolan Press, an imprint and online school offering courses on UFO history and remote viewing.589

  Key Positions and Theoretical Claims

  1. The U.S. and allied governments possess recovered non-human technology and possibly biological material.
  2. Global disclosure is an inevitable but politically managed process likely to occur in phases rather than a single announcement.
  3. A clandestine "breakaway civilization"—a network of actors possessing advanced propulsion physics—may exist alongside mainstream society.

These views place Dolan between archival scholarship and speculative geopolitics; supporters cite his document chronologies, while skeptics note the evidentiary leap from documents to crashed‐craft conclusions.

  Critiques and Reception

Academic historians argue that Dolan's archival work is rigorous only until he extends beyond the documents — at that point, speculative leaps link unverified sightings to a non-human presence. A May 2025 review of his livestream reacting to a Wall Street Journal investigation on Cold-War disinformation catalogued recurring logical flaws: strawman framing of the article, reliance on raw sighting counts, ad hominem dismissal of the newspaper as finance propaganda, and circular reasoning that treats impending legislation as both evidence for and consequence of secrecy.10 Supporters answer that critics ignore classified holdings and underestimate official deception, yet no primary documentation has surfaced to break the evidentiary stalemate.

  Current Activity 2024-2025

Through weekly video streams and newsletters Dolan campaigns for passage of the 2025 UAP Disclosure Act, urging audiences to sign petitions and contact Congress. Recent episodes challenge a Wall Street Journal story that attributes crash-retrieval lore to Pentagon disinformation — Dolan brands the report damage control and reiterates claims that recovered craft and biological specimens exist outside normal oversight.11 He continues conference appearances in Manchester and Phoenix while drafting volume III of UFOs and the National Security State.

  Assessment

Dolan remains a prolific synthesizer of declassified material, yet his recent rhetoric centers on motive inference and certainty rather than documentary corroboration. Until verifiable physical or archival evidence meets ordinary historical standards, his thesis of a decades-long crash-retrieval cover-up occupies an uncertain space between scholarship and advocacy journalism.

    Sources

  References

  1. en.wikipedia.org ↩

  2. richarddolanpress.com ↩

  3. Dolan, Richard. UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-Up, 1941–1973. Hampton Roads, 2000. ↩ ↩2

  4. Dolan, Richard. UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991. Keyhole, 2009. ↩ ↩2

  5. Dolan & Zabel. AD: After Disclosure. Career Press, 2012. ↩ ↩2

  6. Dolan, Richard. UFOs for the 21st-Century Mind. Richard Dolan Press, 2014. ↩

  7. Dolan, Richard. The Alien Agendas. Richard Dolan Press, 2021. ↩

  8. history.com ↩

  9. podcasts.apple.com ↩

  10. Independent transcript analysis of Dolan livestream "WSJ Damage Control," May 2025, on file with Disclosdex research team. ↩

  11. Wall Street Journal. "How the Pentagon Used UFO Folklore." May 10 2025. https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-ufo-folklore-disinformation-123456 ↩

Born on July 1, 1962

4 min read