Person
Kevin Knuth
Also known as Kevin H. Knuth, Knuth
- Professor of Physics, University at Albany (SUNY); former NASA Ames research scientist; editor-in-chief of the journal Entropy
Kevin Knuth is a professor of physics at the University at Albany (SUNY) and editor-in-chief of the journal Entropy, and a former NASA research scientist at Ames Research Center. He is the lead author of a 2019 peer-reviewed paper estimating the accelerations of the Nimitz Tic Tac and other craft, a member of the UAP Science Advisory Council and vice president of the UAPx sensor project.
His 2019 paper in Entropy, written with Robert Powell and Peter Reali of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, treats the reported motions of craft in the Nimitz, Japan Air Lines 1628 and Bethune encounters as data and estimates lower bounds on their accelerations, from about 70 g to more than 5,000 g. The largest figure rests on Kevin Day's account of the Princeton's radar, not on the radar data, which has never been released.
With the physicist Matthew Szydagis he runs UAPx, which monitors a site in Connecticut with cameras, and in 2026 was preparing to add radar and radio-frequency sensors. In interviews he says AARO had his paper before Sean Kirkpatrick's 2023 Senate testimony, offers a physical hypothesis for the Malmstrom missile shutdowns, and says he has spoken to scientists who worked on recovered craft; those are his claims, not findings of the paper.
Sources: the Entropy paper (2019); NewsNation Reality Check interview, September 2026; SCU conference talk description (2026)
Facts and claims
- claimed A professor of physics at the University at Albany (SUNY) and editor-in-chief of the journal Entropy (MDPI), he worked as a NASA research scientist at Ames Research Center designing AI algorithms for astrophysical data analysis, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers. Source: youtube.com (archived)
- documented With Robert Powell and Peter Reali he published a peer-reviewed estimate of the accelerations of the Nimitz Tic Tac and other craft in Entropy in 2019, finding lower bounds from almost 100 g to thousands of g with no sonic boom or heat; he determined the method, wrote the software and did the analysis. Source: doc-knuth-2019-entropy-flight-characteristics.pdf
- claimed He says UAPx met AARO about two months before Sean Kirkpatrick's April 2023 Senate testimony and that AARO had a copy of his paper, so Kirkpatrick either misled Congress or forgot it. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 24:39
- claimed He proposes that craft warping spacetime would disturb the missiles' navigation systems, which would explain the Malmstrom shutdowns as an accident. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 20:04
- claimed He says he has talked to scientists bound by NDAs who work on recovered craft, has learned a bit about the craft, and thinks it probably true that the U.S. has retrieved some. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 41:17
- claimed He says he holds sonar data from a New Zealand Navy frigate showing an object about 800 feet long that closed 2.5 km on the ship in 25 seconds underwater, and has spoken to someone who was aboard; he has not named the ship or the date. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 43:49
- claimed He says Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean told him that a red flashing light approached Skylab and left, and was photographed. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 33:43
- claimed A member of the UAP Science Advisory Council, he says members were told expressly that they would see only unclassified material, and that their request to visit places where craft are said to be held has so far been refused. — Kevin Knuth Source: Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 53:23
- claimed He says the paper's radar estimate used the figures Kevin Day obtained from reconstructions on the Aegis system, and that for the ATFLIR video they analysed the final segment, where the camera is not moving and the plane is not turning. — Kevin Knuth Source: Estimating the flight characteristics of the 2004 Nimitz encounter: SCU panel with Kevin Knuth, Robert Powell and Peter Reali (2021) at 16:35
- claimed In 2025 he said he had asked government officials how many craft operate around the Earth at any time, even to an order of magnitude, and was told "We don't know"; and that he was "not convinced that much is known about UFOs or UAPs at all by anybody". — Kevin Knuth Source: Kevin Knuth: The Scientific Study of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (SCU Conference, 2025) at 9:01
Connected files
Claims
- A huge craft of unknown origin paced Japan Airlines flight 1628 over Alaska in November 1986 (asserts)
- A UFO shut down nuclear missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base in March 1967 (asserts)
- The U.S. holds recovered craft of non-human origin and runs a secret program to reverse-engineer them (asserts)
- The 2004 Nimitz “Tic Tac” flew in ways no known aircraft can (asserts)
- UAP show a recurring interest in nuclear weapons sites, at times interfering with the weapons (asserts)
Documents
- AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1 (statement about)
- Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles (Knuth, Powell & Reali, Entropy, 2019) (authored) — Knuth determined the methodology, wrote the software and performed the analysis
Incidents
- Japan Airlines flight 1628 incident (statement about)
- Malmstrom AFB missile shutdown (statement about)
- USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” encounter (statement about)
- Roswell crash (statement about)
Organizations
- Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (members) — The 2019 Entropy paper lists SCU as his second affiliation
- UAPx (members) — Vice president; a co-author of its first field results
- UAP Science Advisory Council (member of) — Knuth says members were told they would see only unclassified material
People
- Sean Kirkpatrick (statement about)
Videos
- Estimating the flight characteristics of the 2004 Nimitz encounter: SCU panel with Kevin Knuth, Robert Powell and Peter Reali (2021) (appears in)
- Kevin Knuth: The Scientific Study of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (SCU Conference, 2025) (appears in)
- Physicist Kevin Knuth on the Tic Tac's accelerations: Ross Coulthart (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) (appears in)