From Epistemologies of Crisis to Coordination: The UAP "Threat"

A newly released video dated Oct. 30, 2024, shows a Hellfire missile strike an unidentified glowing orb and bounce off of it. Afterwards, the missile appears to continue on its path. This, of course, is presented at a House oversight hearing as evidence of the apparent national security threat that UFOs, rebranded as UAP, pose towards the security of the United States. 

The idea that UAP pose a national security threat that demands urgent attention is a striking representation of what Indigenous scholar and philosopher Kyle Whyte has called crisis epistemologies, a logic emergent from colonialism that comes to know the world through perceived or genuine crises that demand immediate responses. According to dominant narratives, UAP are both new and urgent. The reasoning goes something like this: There are technological objects in the sky and we don’t know what they are. The capabilities of these objects suggest they considerably dwarf the abilities of human technology. Given that our technological capacities are inferior, we are vulnerable to this advanced technological threat. Hence there is an urgent crisis that should be disclosed to humanity as we must immediately act to prepare for it. Epistemic harms suffered by experiencers, who often have very different interpretations of UAP motive and intent yet have their perspectives ignored, as well as firing hellfire missiles at unidentified aerial objects, are considered justified because our attention must be focused on the imminent UAP threat. 

Crisis epistemologies react to seeing the world in a state of imminent threat that must be responded to. “Epistemologies of crisis involve knowing the world such that a certain present is experienced as new" (Whyte, p. 53). Whyte argues that perpetrators of colonialism often frame their actions as defensible in order to prevent or respond to a perceived or actual crisis. Because a crisis is perceived as imminent, it is argued to be justifiable to suspend concerns of ethics and justice. Whyte argues that climate change is only the most recent example of this phenomenon. Because climate change is perceived as an imminent threat to human welfare, mitigating climate change is seen as a justifiable reason to harm or disrespect Indigenous peoples– whether denigrating their knowledge systems or putting wind power projects on their sacred lands.

Crisis epistemologies contain a presentist narrative structure– that is to say, “time is put together (arranged) to favor a certain conception of the present as a means of achieving power or protecting privilege" (Whyte, p. 52). Part of this presentist structure, or privileging of the present means that the crisis is interpreted as both unprecedented and urgent. Unprecedented, because it is assumed there are no similar situations that have happened in the past from which we may draw wisdom or experience. Urgent, because they must be responded to quickly, and thus harms to human and non-human life are seen as unfortunate but necessary, in order to respond to the current crisis. 

The dominant threat narratives surrounding UAP emerge organically from crisis epistemologies. UAP are seen as completely novel, completely unknown, and presenting an imminent threat to our current way of life, so that the United States must immediately act to both disclose the threat and defend against it. There is no time to consider the ethical orientation we are bringing to such a framing, or how the assumptions we are making may be exacerbating the perceived threat or foreclosing other possibilities for interpretation. Nor is it considered that situations and wisdom from the past may be able to inform what is unfolding. Tribal elders from Indigenous communities that report histories of contact with non-human beings from the sky are not called upon to share their wisdom, nor are experiencers who report direct contact with the intelligences who are allegedly reported to pilot or control the UAP. 

It is possible, however, that UAP and their alleged occupants are neither new nor urgent. They may represent non-human others who have been here interacting with human beings for a long time. In Passport to the Cosmos, for example, John Mack documents the experiences of Bernardo Peixoto, a shaman born into the Uru-e Wau-Wau, a small Indigenous tribe in Northern Brazil. Uru-e Wau Wau literally means “people from the stars” and their origin story tells of “a huskerah, something from the sky that makes no sound and was not a bird, landed in the Amazon basin and makuras, small glowing beings with large eyes who came from the sky, taught the Uru-e Wau-Wau how to plant seeds and grow corn." Peixoto describes these vehicles and their occupants as the Great Spirit taking physical form, and are considered “people with so much knowledge that they cannot be from Earth" (Mack1999, p. 169). For many cultures, UFOs are not believed to be piloted by alien others, but rather by one of many advanced intelligent non-human entities with whom we share the universe.

Our ways of being and knowing are so heavily framed by threat and crisis that it can be difficult to see the other possibilities for knowing the world that we have relegated to the margins. Epistemologies of coordination, in contrast, “emphasize coming to know the world through kin relationships" (Whyte, p. 58). The Indigenous people of North America, such as the Ojibwe or Nez Perce, come to know the world through the articulation of moral bonds that entail mutual responsibilities. Examples of kinship relationships are “care, consent, and reciprocity, among others" (Whyte, p. 58).

Epistemologies of coordination understand that reality constantly changes and networks of coordination that pay close attention to relationships are key to navigating these changes. In a constantly moving and changing world, kinship relationships between human and non-human parties are what allow us to keep concerns of ethics and justice intact, and to learn from the past, not privileging the present at the only moment that matters. For example, Whyte draws on Ben Colombi’s documentation of how the Nez Perce people demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptivity, emphasizing that it is kinship relationships, including leadership traditions, that were able to sustain coordinated responses to colonial harms. “A world or situation that has members with active kinship relationships of care, consent, and reciprocity is one where the members have the capacity to respond in coordinated ways to change that are supportive of their mutual well-being, whether the members humans, animals, and diverse others" (Whyte, 59).

Epistemologies of coordination are not presentist. They do not privilege the present moment or seek to conserve it. They understand that kinship extends across time and cannot be created urgently.  Nor do they hesitate to draw on wisdom from the past in order to articulate and create a more just future. "[F]or many Indigenous peoples, the current state of affairs is one that people are trying to move beyond given how it has been shaped negatively by oppression. This means that what appears as an acceptance of an inevitable end is more akin to a deep motivation to create a better world," (Whyte, 61). The status quo and present moment are not seen as worth suspending the concerns of ethics and justice in order to preserve them– instead, it is understood that sometimes systems must be allowed to collapse to enable the emergence of something better– systems that honor kinship bonds. 

I have publicly advocated for a more robust inclusion of experiencer testimony in the public conversation on UAP, starting with a phenomenological bracketing that suspends cultural and scientific assumptions about what can and cannot occur in our world. Additionally, I have called attention to the fact that experiencers who report encountering the alleged occupants of the craft (not just the technological objects) often emerge from their encounters with a transformed ethical orientation, rooted in deep respect and care for human and non-human life. Experiencers report an expanded circle of moral patiency that extends to all human beings, especially the most marginalized, as well as concern for non-human animals, plants, and the Earth itself. Moreover they emphasize ways of relating that are tolerant of radical Otherness, respect the self-determination of other beings, are rooted in transparency and interconnectivity, and nurture all dimensions of the (human or non-human) person. Ethics and justice are of utmost concern and cannot be set aside for the sake of solving any immediate perceived or genuine crisis. Experiencers do not view our systems and institutions as worth preserving if they are not serving the benefit and evolution of humankind as well as non-human life. Cultivating reciprocal, conscious relations with human and non-human beings across time becomes of paramount importance (See Mack 1994 and 1999, Ring 1992, and Engels 2023). Thus, experiencers emerge from their contact experiences with a way of coming to know the world that comes into close proximity with the coordination epistemologies of Indigenous peoples. 

What realities and possibilities could we collectively be opened up to if we begin with a foundation of coordination rather than crisis? How might UAP represent not a national security threat to be urgently defended against, but an invitation to come to know the world differently, to bring a different ethical orientation to our relations with each other and to non-human life? What possibilities organically emerge for us as a species when we take kinship and relationality as our starting points? And how can ancient wisdom from cultures who long report contact with advanced, intelligent non-human beings inform a more holistic, reflective response, in which we see UAP not as technological threats to be shot down, but as catalysts for exposing the cracks in our current ways of knowing, being, and relating?

References:

Clarke, Ardy Sixkiller. Encounters with Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians. Anomalist Books, 2012.

Colombi,Ben. “Salmon and the adaptive capacity of Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) culture to cope with change.”  The American Indian Quarterly 36 (2012): 75-97.

Engels, Kimberly S. “Reviving Philosophical Discussion of Close Encounters through the Strieber Letters: Understanding Close Encounters as Subversive and Transformative Experiences.” Philosophy & Theology 35, no. 1-2 (2023): 229-253.

Engels, Kimberly. "Contact and Multidimensional Ethics." Rice University Archives of the Impossible Conference talk. April 4, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lryyJRcP9M

Mack, John E. Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. New York: Scribner, 1994.

Mack, John E. Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters. White Crow Books, 1999.

Ring, Kenneth. The Omega Project: Near Death Experiences, UFO Encounters, and Mind At Large. William and Morrow Company, 1992.

 Whyte, Kyle. “Against Crisis Epistemology." Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies, eds. Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Chris Andersen, and Steve Larkin. Routledge, 2021, 52-64