Science, Stigma, and the Search for Truth
Researchers investigating UAP-related phenomena face institutional resistance even as new data strengthens their case.
One of the most intriguing discoveries in the scientific study of unidentified anomalous phenomena was published by Nature in late 2025. By studying astronomical plate photography, Drs Beatriz Villarroel and Stephen Bruehl showed that “Findings suggest associations beyond chance between occurrence of transients and both nuclear testing and UAP reports.”
Transients, which are sources of light in the sky whose brightness varies rapidly, have long been described by many UAP witnesses. However, their elusiveness makes them difficult to study, particularly in the present day. Aircraft, drones, satellites, helicopters and even the moon when partially obscured by cloud cover can often be misidentified as UAPs.
To prevent such artefacts in their data, Villarroel and Bruehl used data from a time before satellites and drones were used, and when there was much less aerial traffic. However, for a paper to be accepted as part of the scientific consensus, it must be confirmed by other teams and accepted by the scientific community studying related fields.
Recently, three papers have been published confirming Villarroel and Bruehl’s findings by Bian Doherty, Ivo Busko, and Kevin Cann. However, one paper has been released questioning their results by Watters, Dominé, Little, Pratt and Knuth. Villarroel responded to the latter with an article co-authored with Streblyanska, Bruehl and Geier, which pointed out methodological errors in the critique.
Sentinel News had the opportunity to speak with Dr Villarroel about her team’s publication and its reception within the scientific community.
Sentinel News : As reported by Sentinel News, you recently published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal regarding the possible detection of reflective objects in space prior to the Space Age, which was correlated with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) sightings and nuclear tests. However, this paper was initially rejected on Arxiv. How is that possible?
Dr. Beatriz Villarroel : We published indeed two papers, one in Scientific Reports and one in PASP. There is a big stigma in the scientific community against the topic.
SN : What response did you receive from the scientific community regarding your findings?
BV: I’ve received very mixed reactions. Some are very interested and have started looking into the problem. Others still try to say ”Plate defects!”, but then you ask them ”would you please like to explain why the ’plate defects’ are avoiding the Earth’s shadow?” and they won’t reply.
SN : As the manager of VASCO, could you explain what the project involves and how your paper fits into it?
BV : The project has had a “life”. It was originally designed to look for stars that vanish, not transients. We never found a star that vanished... but we did find thousands and thousands of light sources only visible on one single photo. Then we started observing signs that these transients might be flashes from highly reflective surfaces in the near-Earth space. That is when it got interesting.
SN : Do you plan to publish any more papers on the data you unearthed?
BV : Absolutely. There is a lot to discover in that data. But also in other data from other telescopes, which is something our team also is looking into.
SN : Three papers have been released, confirming different aspects of your work. Could you explain how each one supported your own research?
BV : The Doherty paper uses our sample of 107,000 and replicates the transient-nuke connection as well as the deficit in the Earth’s shadow. Doherty has also discovered that the transient-nuke correlation gets stronger when looking only at the sunlit transients. His transient-nuke analysis is further corroborated by Dr. Janne Sinkkoinens analysis.
The Cann paper finds an anticorrelation between the transient detections and geomagnetic storm activity. There are multiple ways of looking at that anticorrelation, but it’s very interesting and provides further evidence that the phenomenon is real, physical and ties the phenomenon to regions near the Van Allen belts.
Ivo Busko has used Hamburg plate collection to search for transients with a different method -- but arrives at finding the same type of objects, with similar shapes and profiles indicative of being very short flashes. This supports that the transients are real and recorded everywhere in the sky, all over the planet, and are not some “local issue” of Mount Palomar.
SN : Another paper critiqued your sample selection, claiming that your detection could be due to plate artefacts. You published a rebuttal highlighting errors in the analysis. Could you talk us through whether that paper fits the usual back-and-forth between different scientific teams?
BV : While plate defects certainly exist in the data and may indeed concentrate towards the edges of the plates -- as we ourselves discuss in the PASP paper! -- there is no physical mechanism for producing a deficit of emulsion defects specifically within the Earth’s shadow. Random noise on photographic plates have no reason to follow the time-dependent Earth-Sun geometry, or to systematically avoid a well-defined region like the Earth’s shadow. That is the key physical point.
The mentioned critique treats the presence of noise as grounds to dismiss a statistical signal altogether, throwing out the baby with the bath water. It uses same logics to motivate the use of a 20 times smaller sample, which is too small to observe any significant statistical signal, and was created for a different purpose.
Despite all this, my team has performed additional analyses specifically testing whether plate defects create the observed signal. These results will be presented in an upcoming work.
SN : What are your plans for future research?
BV : We want to understand the properties and locations of the objects, and turn the ExoProbe telescope in that direction and see if we can confirm their nature directly. The goal of ExoProbe is to use a network of telescopes to identify and examine such objects in the sky today, and also to carefully study them.
Nothing beats direct detection -- and imagine if we could get a spectrum?
SN : In your opinion, what are the three main obstacles to astronomical UAP research today?
Much data is filtered by the military under the context of national security. Take the Vera Rubin-telescope, for example, where all raw data is filtered by the three letter agencies before astronomers get to analyze it, see The Atlantic.
Enormous stigma permitting opponents to use “any method” to shut down uncomfortable results, including public attacks and slander. The stigma can damage lives, careers of anyone who believes in open discourse.
I’ve noticed certain paternalistic attitudes from some men in this field (but thankfully, almost all of the men I’ve met and work with are just the opposite and genuinely supportive and excited about the science we do together!). Nevertheless, this issue can become a serious barrier for collaboration and friendships. A typical scenario is that a guy friend/collaborator is extremely helpful while one follows his advice or lets him lead. But what happens the day one says “no”, or puts a boundary, and follows one’s own direction? Or if she refuses to let herself be silenced for somebody else’s comfort? Or worse, if she breaks up the friendship or collaboration? The social consequences might be very harsh, especially if the guy feels rejected and decides to retaliate. This might include social influence campaigns and attempts to attack her credibility. Let’s try to create an inclusive work environment where we treasure individuality and freedom of our friends and collaborators.