Washington — Private firms pouring billions into lunar infrastructure, cislunar operations and Mars missions should incorporate unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) into their risk models and engineering plans, according to one of the field’s leading academic voices, following the Trump administration’s release of new Pentagon UAP files.
Dr. Peter Skafish, co-founder and director of research at the Sol Foundation, said the latest declassifications — including never-before-public Apollo 17 astronaut transcripts describing flashing lights that lit up the lunar sky “like the Fourth of July” — represent more than historical curiosity. They point to non-human-origin technologies that could affect space weather forecasting, material science, biological containment protocols and long-term mission architecture.
“Anyone who’s investing in the space economy needs to understand we’re operating in an environment we don’t fully understand,” Skafish said on iHeart Media’s HELLO FUTURE with Kevin Cirilli. “This isn’t about little green men. It’s basic risk management for an expanding operational domain that now includes millions of objects in our solar system.”
New files raise fresh questions
The documents, released under presidential authority in the first major tranche from the Defense Department and intelligence community, include a mid-1980s Navy memo that appears to describe the retrieval and secure transport of a crashed UAP vehicle aboard a Navy ship. The object was reportedly stored below deck in a shielded environment, kept away from the ship’s main power grid due to radiation concerns. While officials have not confirmed the object’s origin, Skafish noted its inclusion in the release suggests authorities viewed it as significant.
The files also contain Apollo 17 crew discussions of unexplained bright objects and transient phenomena, findings that align with independent astronomical research by Sol Foundation advisory board member Dr. Beatrice Ville Royes. Her analysis of pre-Sputnik photographic plates revealed multiple transient objects in near-Earth orbit that cannot be explained as photographic errors or natural phenomena.
Skafish emphasized that these are not the most sensitive UAP records held by the U.S. government, but they mark the first time presidential-level action has forced multiple agencies to surface material on the topic.
Trusted voices still scarce
The Sol Foundation researcher said the bigger problem remains the absence of credible, non-sensational voices capable of guiding public and corporate understanding. “We don’t have enough trusted voices. We don’t have what I like to call a responsible narrator,” Skafish said.
For decades the subject was marginalized, allowing conspiracy-driven or click-optimized coverage to dominate. That vacuum, he argued, has left both policymakers and industry without the rigorous, cross-disciplinary analysis now required as commercial space activity scales rapidly.
Business implications extend beyond defense
Skafish outlined concrete areas where companies should prepare:
- Unknown space-native materials and their interaction with spacecraft systems
- Potential biological risks, including interplanetary microorganisms that could affect life-support systems or habitats
- Space weather and electromagnetic effects that may be more complex than current models assume
- Long-term upside in biotechnology, as research into extremophiles and novel biological mechanisms in solar system conditions could yield medical and resilience advances on Earth
He urged firms to move beyond treating the solar system as “empty vacuum” and instead adopt a whole-of-society approach that includes serious scientific study and transparent policy development.
HELLO FUTURE with Kevin Cirilli has quickly established itself as the go-to source for futurism in Washington, D.C. Distributed by Premiere Networks, home to Ryan Seacrest, The Breakfast Club, Glenn Beck, and other leading programming, the show delivers in-depth, policy-grade conversations on emerging technologies, space exploration and the forces shaping the next economy.
A defining issue of the century
Skafish described UAP as potentially “the 21st-century issue” — one that could ultimately dwarf climate change and even artificial intelligence in long-term strategic importance. He called for institutions to treat the topic with the same rigor applied to other frontier domains, warning that hype-and-dismissal cycles are no longer tenable as humanity expands beyond Earth.
The Sol Foundation is working to fill that gap through cross-disciplinary research involving anthropologists, astronomers, engineers and policy experts, with evidence-first analysis feeding into practical recommendations.
Kevin Cirilli, host of HELLO FUTURE and founder of meet the future (mtf.news; mtf.tv), has covered Washington policy for more than a decade, including as chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. His reporting has appeared in POLITICO, Yahoo Finance and other outlets.
As commercial space activity accelerates, the message from Tuesday’s conversation was clear: businesses that ignore the unknowns in our own solar system do so at their peril — and at the risk of missing the scientific and technological opportunities that come with confronting them directly.
