Inside Avi Loeb’s New UAP Council, Built From His Harvard Orbit

A week before the government released its latest tranche of declassified “UFO” files, a representative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence visited Harvard professor Abraham “Avi” Loeb at his home with an unusual request.

The government approaching scientists “doesn’t happen very frequently,” Loeb said in a Thursday interview with The Crimson.

But Loeb has spent years building a network of academics and researchers through his role as director of the Galileo Project at Harvard, which searches for extraterrestrial activity.

Now, that same network forms the backbone of the council advising the Trump administration on unidentified anomalous phenomena.

Of the council’s 18 publicly named members, 12 have ties to Harvard. Five faculty and staff are directly affiliated with the University, along with three postdoctoral researchers, and four are research affiliates with the Galileo Project, which is housed in Harvard’s Department of Astronomy.

The council is also still growing. Two additional members specializing in astrobiology, Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ravi Kopparapu, have been added but not publicly announced, Loeb confirmed to the Crimson. Haqq-Misra is an affiliate with the Galileo Project.

A third prospective member, former Christianity Today CEO Tim Dalrymple, is awaiting final approval, according to Loeb. Dalrymple, the president of the Templeton Foundation, received a doctorate in religious studies from Harvard.

Loeb, a professor of astronomy, announced the formation of the UAP Science Advisory Council in mid-June. Before going public, he brought the proposal to a Monday meeting of the Galileo Project attended by about seven or eight people, according to council member Devesh Nandal.

Loeb “broke the news” to the assembled scientists and solicited members for the council, Nandal said, though not everyone at the meeting ultimately joined.

Loeb told The Crimson that the White House gave him a “free hand” in selecting members and never vetoed a pick. He said he sought brilliant, young people without “baggage” and received more interest than the council could accommodate.

“I could have made a committee that is five times bigger,” he said.

The roster has shifted repeatedly. Over several weeks, the publicly announced council grew from five members to 18.

Loeb’s initial announcement named Galileo Project postdoc Regina Sarmiento, but her name disappeared days later. Loeb said she withdrew because of the short-term nature of the position.

“It was her choice,” he said. “I don’t force people.”

Liberty Vittert, an editor for the Harvard Data Science Review, was a late addition to the council after reaching out to Loeb by email following his announcement. Less than two weeks later, she was accepted.

Michael Shermer, a science historian and Galileo Project affiliate who has worked with Loeb for nearly five years, said Loeb chose council members based on his personal confidence in their work, not their Harvard connection.

“Only by association through the Galileo Project are people that Avi happens to know that are very good at what they do,” he said. “I don’t think there was any attempt to strike a balance between Harvard and non-Harvard. I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”

Loeb said he deliberately picked Shermer, the founder of Skeptic magazine, as the group’s in-house doubter so that any consensus would hold “beyond any reasonable doubt.”

”The council was formed through a gradual recruitment process, and members of the Galileo Project were informed after the initial cohort had already been established,” Loeb wrote in a statement.

Vitterti said she admired Loeb’s attempt to bring together a range of views on UAPs.

“Avi has done such a good job at bringing together people who sort of are on all sides of the spectrum of what they think is happening with UAPs,” she said.

The remaining members include academics from fields ranging from oceanography to philosophy — as well as billionaire Ben Lamm, whose company Colossal helps fund the Wyss Institute at Harvard. The council itself has no budget, and membership is voluntary and unpaid, Loeb said.

“There is no support we have — we don’t have a budget,” he said.

Advising the federal government is familiar territory for Loeb. He previously served on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and said the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office visited his home after taking office.

Loeb said government officials have approached him several times over the past five years, though he has never interacted with Trump himself.

“People come to me,” Loeb said. “It’s not something I initiated.”

Though the council’s website said it operates “in support of President Trump’s directive on UAP transparency,” Loeb said that his work has no political motive.

“I’m supporting the prosperity of the United States and the science I’m pursuing, and I’m not doing it on behalf of a political agenda,” he said. “I’m not interested in becoming a political person.”

The Council does not directly communicate with the White House or ODNI. Instead, communication is routed through Loeb and a parallel UAP Governing Board, whose membership is not public.

The board is intended to coordinate UAP investigations across federal agencies and assist with the “timely coordination of declassification of UAP-related information,” according to its charter.

Under Loeb’s direction, the council has asked the Pentagon to declassify 50 items but has yet to receive a response.

Despite Loeb’s insistence that the council will focus on publicly available data, Shermer said he hopes Loeb’s government connections will yield additional material.

“I’m hoping that Avi’s connections to insiders high up may get us some good materials,” he said, pointing to “documents, files, videos, photographs.”

The council’s deep ties to Harvard come as the University remains in the throes of a legal battle with the White House. Loeb said he did not inform Massachusetts Hall or University President Alan M. Garber ’76 before agreeing to serve.

“I’m not deeply involved in any of the disputes right now,” Loeb said. “I leave that to President Garber and his administration to deal with it.”

For Shermer, the council’s credibility stems in part from Loeb’s position at Harvard.

“Harvard professorship has really opened a lot of doors,” Shermer said. “If he was an astronomer at a small liberal arts college or a community college or something, that would not have the same effect.”

Loeb said he hopes that the council will strengthen the government’s relationship with science – and with Harvard.

“I hope it will promote science,” he said. “The status of science in society is not good right now, and I hope it will bring it to a better place.”

—Staff writer Theresa F. Bartelme can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at theresabartelme.15. Follow her on X @theresabartelme.

—Staff writer Risha Sinha can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at rishas.13.