What is Declassify UAP?
Declassify UAP LLC is an American organization based in Baltimore, Maryland that was founded by, exclusively funded through launch, and created by me: Nick Gold. Website development, web design, and graphic design work has been and continues to be provided under contract by Friend to the Cause Michael Ressl.
The organization’s founding principle is that the people, broadly, need to have a voice in the complex and potentially fragile process that is commonly (and loosely) referred to as government UAP or UFO “disclosure.”
Specifically, a cohesive voice that is actively engaged with the government, by means of our elected representatives, throughout that process. A voice that is clearly articulating the public’s interests and wants when it comes to the declassification of the US government’s secret information on UAP/UFOs, that it has collected for at least 75 years.
I began moving forward with putting all of my time and energy into this project at the very beginning of 2023, upon the conclusion of a contracting engagement I’d been working on through the end of ‘22. Declassify UAP remains my full-time focus. The goal is for this to be possible until the work is done, depending of course on successfully meeting the organization’s goals.
Reasoning
We have seen an exceptional amount of movement in Washington regarding UAP over the past several years, continuing up through the launch of this website. Content creation for the site occurred in the context of a prominent and bipartisan group of US Senators submitting the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023 (a proposed amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act), as well as a House UAP hearing and imminent annual report from AARO, the DoD’s dedicated UAP office. A preliminary NASA report on UAP studies is also due shortly.
Yet amidst all this apparent progress, we also see evidence that there is resistance, potentially significant, to government UAP transparency efforts. Submitting and even passing a bill does not equate to the actual release of information, most of which is ultimately in the DoD and Executive Branch’s hands and is still classified Top Secret.
This process will almost certainly not be easy nor immediate, and it will require our elected officials be given ample, sustained, even overwhelming political capital to work with by one group and one group alone: the general voting public.
Thus, the raison d’être for Declassify UAP: To serve as at least one mechanism for providing the US voting public an easy way to engage with their elected officials around this topic, and make their support for declassifying government UAP information abundantly clear. Indeed, to help transform UAP and associated declassification efforts from being a topic of interest, into a political issue.
Stance & Scope
I believe that it’s important for Declassify UAP to maintain as neutral a stance as possible on questions relating to the ultimate nature and origin of UAP (especially those of a “particularly anomalous” nature).
This organization makes no claim to holding privileged information on the topic of UAP of any sort, and operates under only a few general presumptions:
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- UAP are real, as this has now been validated by various US Government officials from the DoD and Intelligence Community, civilian agencies like NASA, and our elected representatives, and is made clear in the government’s publicly-released UAP reports and presentations from the past few years;
- Information about UAP released in official government reports and during Congressional hearings and other official events, by sitting officials speaking on-the-record, is generally accurate (this does not include an inherent presumption of accuracy regarding whistleblower allegations);
- Obfuscation of UAP by officials predominantly occurs by means of deliberate omissions, chosen emphases, and over-classification, especially in more recent times.
The larger and more diverse a set of voices Declassify UAP represents, the more likely it will be for the organization to help make progress. This movement has room for believers and skeptics, laborers and professionals, scientists and the spiritually-inclined, young and old, of any background or belief system. If you believe in the principles of the organization and support its Declassification Target goals, please add your voice to the chorus that is loudly proclaiming to the US Government: Declassify UAP!
Additionally, Declassify UAP operates from a strongly nonpartisan/bipartisan perspective as it relates to government UAP transparency and declassification efforts. Thankfully, UAP has been approached in a largely bipartisan fashion in Washington so far, and this organization will do what it can to reinforce a bipartisan approach to the UAP issue as it continues to play out on Capitol Hill and beyond. Perhaps it can serve as a model for how we can come together to take on other big issues that affect us all.
Please note that Declassify UAP is focused on government UAP declassification efforts in the United States, where the organization is based. All of the constituent engagement tools the website offers in the Action Center are limited to Americans of voting age, as this is the scope of the organization’s current efforts.
Information presented on the website is of course available to everyone around the world, and it is my hope that Declassify UAP can serve as a useful model for global UAP transparency efforts, and maybe other types of productive campaigns as well.
Why an LLC?
For the past couple of years, I’ve been pondering why certain types of organizations that exist for lots of topics and issues people care about, are largely or even entirely nonexistent when it comes to UAP. Think tanks, nonprofits, grassroots organizations, organized lobbying efforts representing the public’s interests, etc.
These types of groups exist to represent many perspectives surrounding every other issue people tend to care about – so why not when it comes to UAP? Outside a handful of organizations such as the SCU and ASA, very few nonprofits or other policy groups exist that are focused on UAP. Of particular concern: the lack of groups specifically dedicated to fostering a grassroots, politically-engaged citizens’ UAP transparency movement.
I did a lot of research, and had many conversations with confidants who care about UAP transparency, and something became clear to me: Perhaps because UAP represents such a major potential paradigm shift in itself, the notion that it can and should be tackled like other issues we bring to the attention of our elected officials is also a bit of a paradigm shift.
I realized that my inclination was to be involved in pushing for government UAP declassification efforts, representing the perspective and interests of the general public. Because the UAP issue had now crossed into the political domain, the door had been opened to engage around it in the way other organizations engage with political representatives around a variety of causes.
This meant:
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- Organizing a grassroots movement dedicated to government UAP declassification, and giving it an identity;
- Offering the American public easy to use tools to engage with their elected officials around the issue;
- Building a platform to keep the public informed, by providing timely updates and calls-to-action concerning government UAP transparency efforts, legislative news, Congressional hearings, official reports, etc.;
- Coupling the broad-based approach with direct lobbying efforts that represent this combined voice.
Because so much of what I wanted to be involved with vis-a-vis UAP related to grassroots and direct lobbying activity, often around specific legislation and policy, I learned that the organization would need to register as an official Federal lobbyist.
Federal lobbyists that spend more than a small percentage of their time and resources advocating to elected officials around matters of legislation are inherently disqualified from 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. As a result, donations given to the organization could not under any circumstances be tax-deductible for donors.
A 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization,” which many lobbying groups are set up as (and many 501(c)(3) nonprofits maintain, specifically for their government lobbying efforts), was an option. But in order to operate as a 501(c)(4), a status that would exempt the organization from paying income and sales tax, all the requirements of a full corporation – a multi-member board, corporate bylaws, shares, regular meetings, votes, etc. – would be in place. And to be clear: donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are not tax deductible for donors.
I was motivated to get something up and running as quickly as possible, for the operations of the effort to be totally streamlined, and for the organization to be absolutely independent.
In early June of 2023, a good friend suggested I should consider taking a DIY approach, and just go for it. It was then and there I had a lightbulb moment and realized this thing, which would within days be called Declassify UAP, could simply operate as a single-member LLC.
No board member requirements, no rigorous operating procedures, and the ability to be totally streamlined and nimble. It was an easy choice to set the organization up as an LLC given those benefits, especially because at the end of the day, I just don’t mind paying income and sales tax.
A major benefit to setting Declassify UAP up as an LLC is that within the limits of the law, I can manage the organization however I please. This includes making the decision to operate in an extremely transparent fashion, meaning:
Being totally open about who runs it;
Clearly articulating the organization’s overall goals and specific Declassification Targets;
Offering a straightforward pledge that stipulates how the organization will operate.
It would seem to make sense for an organization that’s dedicated to transparency to itself operate in a transparent fashion.