UAP Health Charity Releases White Paper on Mental Health and UAP Experiences, Which Urges UK Government Action
Written by Christopher Sharp - 17 April 2024
uNHIdden, a London-based mental health and wellbeing charity has released its first White Paper on ‘Exceptional Experiences’ relating to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
In the White Paper, uNHIdden has called for the UK Government to start providing proper care for people who have sightings of UAP and Exceptional Experiences.
A definition of an ‘Exceptional Experience’ crafted by Professor Thomas Rabeyron of the University of Lorraine in 2010, is as follows:
“A rare, spontaneous or provoked experience, involving from the subject's point of view a non-ordinary interaction with his or her environment. It often generates intense emotions, both positive and negative, stemming from its unusual and strange nature.”
The White Paper, named ‘The Impact of Exceptional Experiences and disclosure on mental health and wellbeing’ calls on the UK Government to publicly acknowledge that UAP sightings and other forms of Exceptional Experiences are real, and that the people who are affected need better care and support.
uNHIdden Chairman, John Priestland commented:
“We have come a huge way in terms of mental health in the UK in recent years. People’s ‘lived experience’ is now respected and believed in a way it was not twenty years ago.
“Except, that is, for people who report seeing exceptional things that they cannot explain, where the stigma and sometimes the ridicule remains.”
Above: John Priestland
A U.S. Government investigative report in 2021, found that ‘most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects’.
However, the UK Government continues to resist calls to follow suit, responding to enquiries about UAP with a tangential response about there being no military threat.
uNHIdden Ambassador, Rear Admiral (U.S. Navy Retired) and Oceanographer, Tim Gallaudet said:
“The U.S. Congress has acknowledged the new reality of UAPs, so we need to address the mental health challenges of witnesses which are fuelled by the decades-long misplaced stigma tied to them.
“uNHIdden’s compassionate approach to people who have had Exceptional Experiences is aligned with my own values around ethic of service. I wholeheartedly support what they are doing.”
The uNHIdden White Paper makes clear that people who have Exceptional Experiences have the ‘double whammy’ of, first, having an unusual experience that may be frightening, and then, secondly, being disbelieved and stigmatised by their friends, family and potentially their own doctor.
Guidance for health and social care professionals is needed to make it easier for them to consult patients presenting with Exceptional Experiences in a non-judgmental and evidence-based manner.
Member of the uNHIdden Medical Advisory Board and clinical psychologist, Dr Daniel Stubbings, said:
“A change of policy and a recognition of the reality of UAPs would provide legitimacy to people trying to seek help, and make it far easier for the medical profession to provide care and treatment.
“It would also help move the conversation forward if the UK Government recognised the possibility that not all Exceptional Experiences can be explained by prosaic psychological and/or environmental factors; this is part of moving toward a more non-judgmental approach.”
The White Paper also makes the case for the UK Government providing credible information to the public on the UAP topic, and the importance of developing a single, joined-up plan for UAP disclosure in a way that builds trust.
uNHIdden was established in the summer of 2023 to campaign for better support for people who have Exceptional Experiences and to encourage a better, kinder disclosure process.
The U.S. Department of Defense considers UAP as ‘sources of anomalous detections in one or more domain (i.e., airborne, seaborne, spaceborne, and/or transmedium) that are not yet attributable to known actors and that demonstrate behaviours that are not readily understood by sensors or observers.’
In early 2024, the U.S. Government’s UAP office, known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), in an Historical UAP Report stated it had found no evidence that any government investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel had confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.
However, high-ranking U.S. Government whistleblowers, including former senior intelligence official David Grusch, have made significant allegations that some UAP represent non-human intelligence.
Grusch and more than 40 other whistleblowers, who have come forward to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General, have also made allegations of undisclosed government activities involving the retrieval and reverse engineering of non-human materials.