UAP: Decoding the Phenomenon. A three-part series exploring a new framework for the UAP phenomenon - Part 1: Dead Ends
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) have been with us for as long as humans have looked at the sky. They appear in folklore, religion, military reports, and now congressional hearings. For decades, the debate has circled the same familiar explanations: extraterrestrials, interdimensional travelers, secret military projects, psychological projections, or time travelers. Each theory explains some aspects but fails spectacularly at others. ALL of these theories rely on assumptions and hand-waving.
This series begins from a simple question: What if the problem isn’t the data, but the framework?
In my forthcoming book, It From Us - An Information-First Framework and the Purpose of Consciousness, I provide evidence that reality is fundamentally not matter, particle, wave, force or mind. It is information. Over these three essays, I’ll explore how an information-first view of reality — where information, not matter, is the bedrock of existence — completely reshapes the UAP discussion:
Part 1: Why Every Major UAP Theory Fails. We’ll lay out the leading explanations, their strengths, and why each ultimately collapses under a matter-first worldview. This will set the stage for a major shift in perspective.
Part 2: Information-First Across Science and Culture. We’ll trace how biology, physics, and philosophy all point toward coherence and persistence as fundamental properties — and how this provides a coherent framework for UAP without exotic loopholes.
Part 3: Not Spaceships. We’ll explore how UAP may represent not vehicles but something else. We’ll discuss how quantum computing hints at the first steps toward such capabilities, and what this means for “who” or “what” UAP might be.
This isn’t just another theory about “what they are.” It’s a reframing of the question itself. If information, not matter, is primary, then UAP stop looking like impossibility-by-physics and start looking like inevitability-by-information.
Why every major UAP theory fails
Walk into any conversation about UFOs — or, as we now call them, UAP — and you’ll quickly find yourself in a crowded room of theories. Some sound familiar, others fringe, a few sound downright outlandish. They’re extraterrestrial visitors. They’re interdimensional travelers. “They’ve been here all along.” They’re time-travelers. They’re psychological apparitions. They’re a secret military project. They’re a psy-op (the good old CIA to the rescue!)
For decades, we’ve cycled through these explanations. Each one does answer some questions, but none of them answer all of them. Each one bridges certain gaps but creates at least as many new ones.
Before we can suggest a better way forward, we need to lay these theories on the table — not to dismiss them, but to see clearly where they fall short. Only then does a new framework start to make sense.
The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH)
This is the most popular and intuitive explanation: UAP are spacecraft from other star systems. It has a certain elegance — aliens visiting Earth is science fiction made real. Beings, essentially like us, either friend or foe, come hither to help, conquer or observe.
But ETH faces brutal physics. The distances are astronomical - literally. The closest star system, Proxima Centauri, is around 4.2 light years away. With our fastest probes, that’s a journey of 75,000 years. Even if a civilization mastered near-light-speed travel, time dilation, shielding against cosmic radiation, and energy requirements make the task absurdly difficult. And rarely does anyone bother to mention food storage for a journey like that. After all, they are basically just like us and we get hungry.
Then there’s the other logistics. Why would they visit so often, so randomly, yet leave little or no clear evidence? Why the secrecy? If they can cross the stars, why toy with Navy pilots? Why steal cows?
The ETH explains “nuts and bolts” craft-like appearances but collapses under energy and motive.
The Interdimensional Hypothesis (IDH)
Some suggest UAP don’t come from distant stars but from parallel dimensions, slipping into our reality and hopping back over to theirs at will. This neatly sidesteps interstellar distances, and it could account for odd behaviors: vanishing instantly, defying known physics. Plus it gets help from some of the theoretical patchwork a matter-first ontology requires of our best minds in order to hold it together. Every physicist working in string theory secretly prefers this explanation.
But the IDH replaces one impossible with another. “Dimensions” in physics are mathematical frameworks, not adjacent realms to commute through. No evidence exists that interdimensional gateways pop open over San Diego or Skinwalker Ranch. And if they did, how and why would a craft exploit them?
The IDH is imaginative but unfalsifiable. It answers “where from” with “somewhere else” and leaves us no closer to understanding anything at all about UAP.
The Ultra-Terrestrial Hypothesis (UTH)
Another idea: UAP are not aliens at all but beings who’ve always been here. Ancient civilizations, hidden species, underground or underwater intelligences. This theory appeals to mythology, folklore, and the sense that “they” have been with us for millennia. Very romantic. Not terribly scientific.
And it seriously falters on evidence. If an advanced civilization has shared Earth all this time, where is their infrastructure? Why no clear archaeological traces, supply chains, waste? “Hidden for millennia” requires as much invention as “traveling across the galaxy.” Again, what do they eat?
The UTH explains folklore but struggles with logistics.
The Time Traveler Hypothesis
What if UAP are us — from the future? This one was my personal favorite for a while. Advanced humans returning to study or guide us - like quantum archaeologists. This would explain their human-like concern with our weapons, our environment, our development. Also it explains their bipedalism and seeming similarity to our body types - if we assume that reports of witnessed beings are reliable.
But this theory collapses under paradox. If they’re us, why the secrecy? Why not intervene more clearly? And if time travel were possible, wouldn’t the historical record show its fingerprints everywhere, not only in blurry Navy footage? And, again, what do they want with the darn cows?
The time traveler story is compelling, but it assumes an even more radical physics we don’t possess, and it leaves unanswered the question: why now?
The Psychological/Sociological Hypothesis
Many scientists and skeptics insist UAP are hallucinations, illusions, or cultural artifacts. People misperceive Venus, military flares, or weather balloons. The mind fills in blanks. Folklore amplifies. We see what we expect to see based on our programming.
This works in some cases, but not all. Radar returns. Multiple pilot sightings. Physical traces. A purely psychological model dismisses too much evidence. Worse, it doesn’t explain why so many cultures independently describe phenomena with overlapping details.
Yes, humans misperceive. We’re amazing at it in fact. But dismissing all UAP as illusions is like explaining away an iceberg by focusing on the tip.
The Secret Project Hypothesis
Finally, the popular fallback: UAP are advanced human technology — drones, stealth platforms, plasma weapons — kept secret by governments. This is the favorite of every intelligence agency we know of… and a few that we don’t know of.
This theory has some fairly solid precedence. Military history is full of secret craft revealed decades later. But it fails at the extremes. Tic-Tac accelerations beyond Mach 20, instantaneous stops, seamless transmedium travel — these defy not just public tech but basic material science - not to mention known physics. The stresses would pulverize any known craft, its inhabitants and the surrounding atmosphere.
Yes, governments conceal. But attributing all UAP to secret projects stretches plausibility.
What These Theories Have in Common
Despite their differences, all these theories share one assumption: they treat UAP as things in a matter-first universe.
If aliens, they are ships.
If interdimensional, they are still craft moving between realms. Basically ships.
If ultra-terrestrial, they are hidden physical civilizations. Traveling by ship.
If time travelers, they are material machines moving through spacetime. Like ships.
If psychological, they are projections of physical brains. Projections of ships.
If secret projects, they are physical hardware. Ships.
In every case, the framework is matter-first. UAP must be material objects moving from point A to point B. That is after all how travel is done. When we examine them closely, every single theory completely collapses under that weight.
A Glimpse Beyond Matter-First
Here’s the next question: what if the problem is not the data, but the framework?
Physicist Carlo Rovelli said, “The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events.” In other words, what we call matter might not be the base layer of reality. Information may be the fundamental framework upon which our reality and the universe resides.
If information is fundamental, then the rules change. UAP don’t need propulsion because they aren’t ships. They don’t need to cross interstellar distances because they aren’t traveling in space-time at all. They aren’t subject to g-forces or material stress because they aren’t “craft” in the traditional sense.
In this view, UAP may not be craft or ships. No hulls. No wings. No jets.
Then what are they?
Every theory we’ve inherited tries to solve UAP with more matter. More planets, more dimensions, more hidden bases, more secret machines. Each piles assumptions on assumptions. The story mirrors many aspects of our historic scientific approach to matter-first physics.
But if reality is information-first, then UAP may not be anything like what we consider to be mechanisms of travel.
In Part 2, we’ll step back and look at what an information-first framework means — across physics, biology, philosophy, and culture — and why it suddenly makes UAP make sense without the impossible dependencies of other theories.