Scientific American reported on July 2 that a new UAP Science Advisory Council has formed around Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, with the stated aim of advising U.S. officials and the intelligence community on unidentified anomalous phenomena. The article says the group hopes to publish findings in peer-reviewed journals rather than keep its work only inside government channels.
The report describes the council as a hybrid of academic researchers and former officials. It says Loeb connected the effort to a visit from an Office of the Director of National Intelligence representative, and that the advisory structure is expected to report to officials connected to ODNI, AARO, the White House and the FBI. Some board members were not publicly named.
The article also includes skeptical responses. Scientific American quoted outside critics who warned that exotic explanations should not be treated as likely before ordinary hypotheses, data quality, sensor limits and human interpretation are tested. That caution is important because public UAP debate often moves faster than the evidence base.
For the archive, the story matters less as proof of any particular UAP explanation and more as a sign that scientific framing, peer review and government access are becoming central to the next phase of UAP discussion. The useful question is whether the council can make source data, assumptions and negative findings visible enough for independent review.