Daniel Lavelle went “alien-chasing” in the US and wrote a book about it. The late Nick Pope called it a “hugely entertaining, gonzo-style examination of UFOs, ufology and ufologists”. In his Guardian article (The Pentagon released its UFO videos – so I went to the US to chase aliens. This is what I found, 22 April), Lavelle concludes: “Of course, there isn’t a shred of evidence that aliens have visited our planet – and it’s highly unlikely that there ever will be”.
After that, he trots out the old story about interstellar distances and propulsion technology – as if the extraterrestrial hypothesis were the only play in town.
While I have some degree of sympathy for his views on the disclosure circus in the US and the fact that the talking heads there always seem to be the same people with the same rather vague statements lacking solid first-hand rather than hearsay evidence, I cannot but wonder whether a look at serious research and real-life policy developments across the world might have led to a different view.
One year ago, a symposium on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti) and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) research at Durham Law School – a top-50 institution in the QS World University Rankings by subject of 2026 – brought together researchers from several countries and led to the adoption of the Declaration on Seti and UAP Research, now available in 21 languages and endorsed by over 460 people from all walks of life across the globe.
Politics and academia take the subject very seriously now. Maybe the time for gonzo-style approaches should be over. If the story about non-human intelligence on Earth is real, it is no laughing matter.
Prof Michael Bohlander
Chair in global law and Seti policy, Durham Law School
Your article on unidentified anomalous phenomena presents a dreadfully narrow view of a subject that has moved far beyond “reflections” and “misidentifications”. By framing the phenomenon through a blatantly sceptical lens, Danielle Lavelle ignores significant public records and high-level testimony that define the modern debate.
The claim that Luis Elizondo had no official role in the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) is directly contradicted by a 2021 letter from the late senator Harry Reid, who confirmed Elizondo’s leadership as a “matter of record”. Disregarding this suggests a reliance on a documented Pentagon disinformation campaign rather than the testimony of the senator who actually secured AATIP’s funding.
Equally concerning is the omission of national security data cited by officials like Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who has publicly noted repeated instances of unidentified craft operating over restricted nuclear facilities. To suggest experienced navy pilots like the commander and top gun graduate David Fravor or Ryan Graves – trained observers using multi-sensor data – were merely chasing reflections is an insult to their professional expertise and the radar-visual confirmation that accompanied these events.
As someone who has personally witnessed and recorded objects displaying physics defying flight characteristics, I find this cherrypicking of facts deeply offensive. The Guardian should strive for a balanced and not a biased sceptical account of what is now a formal matter of congressional and international concern.
Name and address supplied
Daniel Lavelle’s dismissal of unidentified anomalous phenomena evidence as “nonsense” suggests a selective research process that prioritises social scepticism over technical data. While Lavelle focuses on “little green men”, the scientific and military communities are focused on physics.
Lavelle asserts there isn’t a “shred of evidence”, yet he fails to address the work of Dr Garry Nolan at Stanford. Dr Nolan’s analysis of recovered materials – specifically magnesium-bismuth layers with anomalous isotopic ratios – offers a material challenge to the “weather balloon” narrative. Furthermore, the “trans-medium” capabilities documented by the US navy – objects entering the water at high speeds without splash marks – remain unexplained by current aerospace technology.
To suggest that figures like the late Senator Harry Reid or seasoned naval pilots are simply “confused” ignores the multi-sensor data (radar, forward-looking infrared and visual) that corroborated these encounters. Beyond the science, Lavelle’s dismissive tone ignores a significant constitutional crisis. The continued lack of transparency surrounding these programmes is a disservice to democracy. When the national security state operates without oversight, hiding information from the public and Congress, it undermines the very foundations of an informed electorate.
Peter Sherman
San Francisco, California, US
