[Commlist] CfP American Behavioral Scientist Special Issue "Unsettling the UAP/UFO Technocracy: Disclosure, Conspiracies, and Deep State Imaginaries"

CfP American Behavioral Scientist Special Issue "Unsettling the UAP/UFO 
Technocracy: Disclosure, Conspiracies, and Deep State Imaginaries"

Guest Editors: Marco Bastos (University College Dublin & City St 
George’s, University of London) & Marisa Duarte (Arizona State University)

Critical study of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) has entered a 
new era. The 1950s-era fascination with little green men and stealth 
aviation that historically shaped UFO lore (Eghigian, 2024) has given 
way to a more institutionally grounded discourse, driven by the 
2017-2025 congressional testimonies of pilots and private security 
contractors attesting to the existence of multi-million dollar programs 
to investigate UAP (Baio, 2023). Government hearings, whistleblower 
testimonies, and the release of official reports generate a shifting 
information landscape in which secrecy, disclosure, speculation, and 
institutional authority interact in complex ways (Anton & Vugrin, 2022; 
Yingling & Yingling, 2024), reinvigorating scientific and government 
consideration of these phenomena (Guthrie, 2025; Oxnevad, 2021). Online 
communities have since emerged as central arenas for interpreting these 
developments, negotiating trust, and evaluating the credibility of 
institutions and evidence (Bastos & Duarte, 2025).

This is further shaped by the Trump administration’s release of 
allegedly declassified UAP documents in 2026, coming one year after the 
federal defunding of disinformation research and the closure of 
government agencies designed to deter adversarial influence campaigns. 
On social media, influencers and media personalities increasingly blend 
UAP speculation with the extreme ideologies of powerful figures linked 
to Palantir and the expanding surveillance state (Lipińska et al., 2025; 
Stise et al., 2024; Durán 2026). Political representatives, meanwhile, 
have drawn on civilian and military sightings of unclaimed drone 
campaigns and aerial phenomena to advance both securitization efforts 
around unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and calls for greater transparency 
in defense spending and procurement.

These developments have attracted sustained critical attention. 
Scientists and cultural critics alike identify colonialist dynamics in 
the privatization of space governance and exploration, including in 
contemporary ideological treatments of UFO/UAP (Kite, 2021; Lechuga, 
2023; Salazar & Gorman, 2023). Internet and surveillance studies 
scholars identify powerful consolidations between technology companies 
and military-intelligence agencies—consolidations that in some ways echo 
the enduring concerns of ufologists and experiencers (Iliadis & Acker, 
2022; Taskale, 2026). In such an environment, speculation, strategic 
ambiguity, and the pragmatics of secrecy become instruments of 
propaganda, persuasion, and belief formation mobilized by grifters, 
conspiracists, influence actors, religious zealots, and government power 
players alike (Hallsby, 2026; Krame et al 2024).

In this context, UFO and UAP—long dismissed as the preserve of 
conspiracy thinking—become the subject of confirmed institutional 
conspiracy in the form of classified programs, coordinated secrecy, and 
deliberate disinformation. As such, UAP sustains a wide-ranging academic 
inquiry spanning government classification procedures, whistleblower 
protections, media narratives, influence campaigns, technocratic systems 
of belief, the role of gnosis in technoscientific research, and 
infrastructures and frameworks to sustain scientific investigators 
pushing the boundaries of their methodological and epistemological 
toolkits (Agrama, 2021; Andresen, 2023; Kripal, 2024; Knuth et al., 
2025; Lomas et al., 2025; Schwarz & Seidl, 2023).

UAPs also display tangible connections with the military-industrial 
complex and the emerging military-digital complex—defined by the 
militarization of cyber operations conducted through social engineering, 
disinformation, cyberattacks, artificial intelligence, and fully 
autonomous systems (Durán, 2026). In this context, disclosure itself can 
be weaponized to galvanize anti-establishment sentiment. Government 
transparency regarding UAP is therefore a politically mediated practice 
shaped by national security concerns, classification regimes, and 
institutional power (Creeber, 2025). Similarly, while disclosure evolved 
as a grassroots political movement, it remains vulnerable to 
transparency theater and repurposing in the service of partisan conflict.

Disclosure has also become a point of contention in the wake of the 
heavily redacted Epstein files and the ongoing expectation of meaningful 
UAP declassification. In this context, online communities such as 
forums, subreddits, and social networks operate as sites where evidence 
is debated, claims are verified or contested, and cultural meanings 
around anomalous phenomena are constructed. Such communities have also 
assembled historical evidence suggesting that disinformation campaigns 
have been deliberately deployed by state actors to obscure classified 
aerospace technologies and manipulate public narratives. Understanding 
how such campaigns intersect with contemporary misinformation ecosystems 
remains an important and underexplored challenge for the field 
(Stahlman, 2024).

This Special Issue of American Behavioral Scientist seeks to expand an 
emerging research agenda at the intersection of communication studies, 
media sociology, cultural studies, science communication, and 
information studies, with particular attention to how UAP/UFO discourse 
circulates across sociotechnical systems. We invite submissions that 
analyze how disclosure practices, secrecy regimes, and disinformation 
campaigns intersect with digital media infrastructures and public 
knowledge production. Scholars from communication studies, cultural 
studies, information science, sociology, political communication, 
science and technology studies (STS), media studies, international 
relations, and computational social science are encouraged to contribute.

Submissions may examine how disclosure events reconfigure public 
discourse, reshape institutional trust, and influence the circulation of 
narratives online. We particularly welcome work that approaches digital 
platforms as infrastructures of epistemic negotiation, or that engages 
the political economy of information surrounding UAP. Methodological 
approaches may include cultural studies, computational social science, 
discourse analysis, digital ethnography, archival research, and beyond. 
We especially encourage submissions that engage critically with these 
themes from transnational and transdisciplinary perspectives, and invite 
manuscripts addressing any aspects of these complex social, 
technological, cultural, and religious phenomena from any global 
location, including but not limited to:

UAP discourse and the Silicon Valley technocracy
Disclosure, transparency movements, and whistleblower protections
Government secrecy, classification regimes, and secret military programs
Community archives, FOIA requests, and government surveillance of 
civilian researchers
Decolonial approaches to UAP and UFO studies
Golden Dome, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and missile defense 
infrastructures
Palantir, private security contractors, and the expansion of 
surveillance systems
Space governance, securitization, and privatized space intelligence
The Deep State, the Network State, and technocratic governance
Religious and spiritual frameworks for UAP, including Christian nationalism
Conspiracy thinking, skepticism, and cultures of debunking
Media and cultural studies approaches to UAP and UFO phenomena
Disinformation campaigns, psychological operations, and influence operations
Corruption, criminal conspiracy, and covert operations
Methodologies for investigating anomalous and edge phenomena

Timeline
Deadline for paper submission: November 30, 2026
Feedback on paper submissions: March 31, 2027
Expected Special Issue publication: Summer 2027

Initial submissions are format-free and should be sent directly to the 
Special Issue Editors Marco Bastos ((marco.bastos /at/ ucd.ie) 
<mailto:(marco.bastos /at/ ucd.ie)>) and Marisa Duarte ((marisa.duarte /at/ asu.edu) 
<mailto:(marisa.duarte /at/ asu.edu)>). Contributions will be double-blind 
peer-reviewed and should be under 8,000 words (including tables, 
figures, and references). Final submission of accepted manuscripts will 
be through Manuscript Central. No payment from the authors will be 
required to publish or participate in this call.

References

Agrama, H. A. (2021) “Secularity, Synchronicity, and Uncanny Science: 
Considerations and Challenges,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 
56, 2, 395-415.
Andresen, J. (2023) Extraterrestrial Ethics. Ethics International Press Ltd.
Anton, A., & Vugrin, F. (2022). “UFOs exist and everyone needs to adjust 
to that fact.” (Dis) information campaigns on the UFO phenomenon,” 
Journal of Anomalistics, 22(1), 18–35.
Baio, A. (2023). UFO ‘whistleblower’ says government has ‘intact’ 
non-human craft. The Independent.
Bastos, M. & Duarte, M. (2025) “Between Disclosure and Conspiracy: The 
Transparency Effect on r/UFO and r/UAP Subreddits,” Information, 
Communication and Society, 1-23. DOI:10.1080/1369118x.2026.2645882
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>
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