The UAP Governance Board - run by ODNI, FBI, and the Department of War - convened for the first time on June 15, but Avi Loeb's independent science team confirmed they hold no security clearance and no access to any classified UAP evidence.
The United States government’s newly established UAP Governance Board held its inaugural meeting on June 15, 2026 - but the independent scientists brought in to advise it have confirmed they hold no security clearance and no access to the classified evidence the board controls.
The board, established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Department of War, is the formal interagency structure now coordinating how UAP cases are investigated, how files move between agencies, and which materials are released through PURSUE, the government’s rolling declassification platform. Liberation Times, citing an ODNI official, reported the board’s creation and first meeting on June 16.
According to Liberation Times, the UAP Governance Board’s charter requires it to address national security threats posed by UAP, optimize interagency processes in direct support of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and facilitate timely declassification consistent with Executive Order 13526. The board brings together representatives from military, law enforcement, the Intelligence Community, and other civilian agencies at a single coordination point.
The board sits above the agencies that handle individual sightings and controls the timing and scope of material that reaches the public through PURSUE - the platform launched May 8, 2026, through which the War Department has published three tranches of declassified UAP records following President Trump’s February directive. According to Above the Norm News, those releases have logged more than 1.7 billion hits worldwide.
The board is supported by several advisory groups, including one drawing on scientific expertise from outside government.
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb chairs the UAP Science Advisory Council, one of the advisory groups supporting the governance board. The Disclosure Foundation reported that Loeb was asked by the White House, AARO, ODNI, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community to “lead and assemble a team of scientists and experts” to constitute the council.
On June 16, 2026 - the day after the board’s inaugural meeting - Loeb confirmed a significant constraint on that role. Speaking by phone to journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the news outlet Public, Loeb said his team “holds no access to any classified information and no legal authority whatsoever,” according to Above the Norm News. His five scientists can argue for improved sensor designs and review materials the government chooses to share with them - and nothing beyond that. Loeb added that he would support other outside boards operating “on identical terms.”
The practical scope of the advisory council’s mandate is therefore defined in large part by what it is not permitted to examine.
The arrangement mirrors a tension familiar from earlier government UAP advisory efforts. In Congressional hearings since 2023 and in independent research, scientists and transparency advocates have consistently argued that credible scientific evaluation of anomalous phenomena requires access to primary evidence - not only to sanitised summaries or unclassified reports. Whether the scientists’ lack of access reflects deliberate policy, standard security practice for external advisers, or a transitional arrangement pending clearances is not established by current reporting. Neither ODNI, the FBI, nor the Department of War has provided a public explanation for the restriction, according to available reporting.
The UAP Governance Board is the most senior interagency body established under the PURSUE program to date. Its effect on the pace and scope of future declassification releases - three tranches between May 8 and June 12, 2026, with the War Department indicating more will follow - will become clearer as the program continues.
What the reporting establishes: a formal governance board now exists, with defined authority over UAP investigation coordination and declassification timing; it held its first meeting on June 15; and the scientists advising it have no access to classified evidence, confirmed by the lead science adviser himself.
What is not established: whether that access will change, what specific classified material the board itself can see, and whether the Science Advisory Council’s recommendations will influence which documents are released. The AARO report included in the third PURSUE release, signed by AARO Director Dr. Jon Kosloski and dated June 5, 2026, noted that 40 percent of reported UAP cases “lack a reasonable explanation and remain unresolved.” Whether the governance board’s formation changes how those unresolved cases are handled remains to be seen.
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