Person
Michael Gold
- Former NASA Associate Administrator; member of NASA’s UAP independent study team
Michael Gold is a former NASA associate administrator. He served on the independent study team NASA convened on unidentified anomalous phenomena, which reported in September 2023. He has become the main advocate inside the space-science establishment for treating UAP as a normal scientific problem.
Testifying at the House Oversight hearing of 13 November 2024, alongside Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo and Michael Shellenberger, he said that members of NASA's study team, especially academics, were "mocked and even threatened" just for taking part. He argued that science is the best tool for the problem and pressed for NASA's confidential Aviation Safety Reporting System to collect pilot reports. He was the most cautious of the four witnesses. Probably the vast majority of UAP are drones, experimental aircraft or weather, he said, and he does not know what the rest are, though he agreed that part of the government is concealing evidence.
At the May 2025 congressional briefing he turned to NASA's own archives, showing lunar horizon glow images and unidentified objects in Apollo 17 photographs, and called for an AI review of the records. He told the briefing that the FAA could not say how many pilot reports it held. He appears in The Age of Disclosure (2025).
Sources: November 13, 2024 hearing (transcript) · May 1, 2025 congressional briefing · NASA UAP independent study report (2023)
Facts and claims
- claimed Gold, a member of NASA's UAP independent study team, testified that academics on the team “were mocked and even threatened for simply having the temerity to engage in the study of UAP.” — Michael Gold Source: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth at 1:01:26
- claimed He said “probably the vast majority of UAP are drones, experimental aircraft, weather conditions”, but that a percentage are not. — Michael Gold Source: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth at 1:38:05
- claimed He recommended using NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System to collect pilots' UAP reports. — Michael Gold Source: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth at 1:03:47
- documented Asked by Rep. Robert Garcia whether part of the government is knowingly concealing UAP evidence, he answered “Yes”; asked what UAP are: “Do not know, but we must find out.” — Michael Gold Source: Hearing transcript: “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth”
- claimed At the May 2025 briefing he showed NASA lunar horizon glow images, from Surveyor sketches to a Blue Ghost lander photo, questioning the levitated-dust explanation, and Apollo 17 archive images of objects he could not identify, urging an AI review of NASA's archives. — Michael Gold Source: Understanding UAP: Science, National Security & Innovation (House Oversight and Government Reform) at 2:47:41
- claimed He said that on the NASA study team he asked the FAA how many commercial-pilot UAP reports it held and got “confusion and no straight answers”. — Michael Gold Source: Understanding UAP: Science, National Security & Innovation (House Oversight and Government Reform) at 3:20:18
Connected files
Documents
- NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023) (co-wrote) — Gold was a member of NASA's UAP independent study team
Documentaries
- The Age of Disclosure (appears in)
Hearings & briefings
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth (testified at)
- Congressional briefing: Understanding UAP — Science, National Security & Innovation (testified at)
Organizations
- NASA (worked at)
Videos
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth (discussed in)
- Understanding UAP: Science, National Security & Innovation (House Oversight and Government Reform) (speaks in)