Dr. Beatriz Villarroel is an astronomer at Uppsala University who bridges conventional astrophysics and the scientific study of anomalous phenomena, including UFOs/UAPs and vanishing stars. She brings rigorous methodology to topics often dismissed by mainstream science, driven by deep curiosity about whether non-human intelligence might be detectable through astronomical data.
The Baltic Sea Anomaly and Early Fascination with UAPs
As an undergraduate in Sweden, Villarroel became captivated by the Baltic Sea anomaly, a sonar image captured by divers off the Swedish coast showing a structure resembling a crashed Millennium Falcon.
The object appeared to have a trail as if it had slid into the ocean and was covered in burned biological material, which is anomalous because the region has no volcanic activity.
The discoverers believed it could be an artificial structure of unknown origin.
Fox News reported it was “just a rock,” but the scientists making that claim never studied actual samples and published no peer-reviewed paper or open data.
No physical samples were ever retrieved because the object was too hard to extract pieces from.
Villarroel considers it possibly the best candidate for a non-human artifact on Earth and believes it deserves serious scientific analysis.
From Halton Arp to the Question of Vanishing Stars
Villarroel’s PhD focused on active galactic nuclei, but she was deeply influenced by Halton Arp, an astronomer who observed pairs of galaxies that appeared to interact physically but had radically different redshifts, contradicting the standard cosmological interpretation of redshift as a distance indicator.
Arp’s work challenged the foundations of Big Bang cosmology and was fiercely attacked by the astronomical community.
This controversy inspired Villarroel to write a fable in which a quasar vanishes, which led her to wonder: has anyone actually searched for stars or galaxies that disappear?
Project Vasco: Searching for Vanishing Stars
Project Vasco compares photographic plates from the 1950s (from Mount Palomar and the US Naval Observatory catalog) with modern images of the same regions of the sky to identify stars that existed then but have since vanished.
The goal is to find a star that appears consistently across multiple historical images and then disappears without a conventional astrophysical explanation.
During this work, Villarroel discovered multiple transients — objects that appear in 1950s images but are absent today — including cases where several appeared and vanished in a small region simultaneously, which is astrophysically inexplicable.
A colleague used the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canaria to observe the positions of nine such objects; nothing was found at any wavelength.
These cannot be satellites or space debris because the images predate Sputnik (1957).
The 1952 Washington UFO Flap Connection
Villarroel identified two statistically significant alignments of vanishing objects:
July 19, 1952: Three transients in a small area.
July 27, 1952: Five transients aligned along a narrow band.
These dates correspond precisely to the two weekends of the 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO flap, when unidentified objects were tracked on radar over the White House and Capitol, prompting a phone call between President Truman and Project Blue Book head Edward Ruppelt.
The objects look identical to ordinary stars in the images, making them indistinguishable from natural stellar sources except for their disappearance.
Don Menzel: The “Arch Villain” of UFO History
Donald Menzel, a Harvard astronomer and prominent UFO debunker, played a suspicious role in suppressing UFO-related data:
He helped the US Air Force debunk the 1952 Washington flap.
Months later, he became director of Harvard Observatory and ordered his secretary to destroy one-third of the photographic plates without consulting astronomers about which to preserve.
He also destroyed log books documenting observations and stopped Harvard’s long-running sky survey from 1953 to 1967 — a 15-year gap.
He later ran the Bureau of Standards, which codified astronomical data and time zones.
His PhD student Fred Whipple ran Operation Moonwatch, in which J. Allen Hynek participated; the program collected 36 UFO reports.
Menzel’s protégé Lou Branscomb gave Edward Condon his security clearance, enabling the Condon Report that effectively ended Project Blue Book.
Villarroel and host Jesse Michels discuss the possibility that Harvard was an epicenter of UFO-related secrecy in the 1950s, noting that JFK served on the board of overseers for Harvard’s astronomy department.
JFK and UFOs
A FOIA-released letter from JFK to CIA Director John McCone requests data on “unknowns” in US airspace, motivated by concern that Soviet misinterpretation of such objects could provoke conflict.
This aligns with language from the 1971 SALT talks, where the US and USSR agreed to coordinate on unknowns near sensitive military installations.
The document’s authenticity remains debated, but some researchers have speculated about a connection between JFK’s UFO inquiries and his assassination.
Exoprobe: The Next Phase of the Search
Exoprobe is Villarroel’s new project to search for non-human artifacts in orbit around Earth, building on Vasco’s methodology but addressing modern contamination from satellites and space debris.
The project uses a proprietary method to remove human-made space debris signatures from observations in real time.
It aims to build a network of telescopes that can triangulate the distance to detected objects in three dimensions, potentially enabling physical retrieval of a non-human probe.
Villarroel argues that since traditional radio SETI has yielded no results, searching for physical artifacts and probes is the most promising alternative approach.
A Concrete Scientific Approach to UFOs
Villarroel criticizes the broad, unfalsifiable nature of the term UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), which has become so inclusive it encompasses nearly anything.
She argues for specific, concrete hypotheses — such as searching for “flying saucers” or metallic orbs — because a well-defined target allows researchers to design experiments, anticipate failure modes, and produce falsifiable results.
The “exclusion principle” approach (identifying everything that doesn’t match known phenomena) is scientifically weak because it can never conclusively prove anything.
She advocates designing projects around specific expected signatures, such as solar reflections (short flashes or streaks) or artificial emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum.
While many claim UFOs are more visible in infrared, Villarroel is skeptical, suggesting the apparent increase may simply reflect human inexperience with interpreting infrared imagery.
Scientific Backlash and Cancel Culture
Villarroel has faced professional consequences for her work:
In 2021, she co-authored a paper on the nine transients with Geoffrey Marcy, an astronomer who had been accused of sexual harassment in 2015 but never convicted.
The same week the paper was accepted, the National Academy of Sciences expelled Marcy, and Villarroel was warned not to do press to avoid attacks.
She was subsequently excluded from conferences, subjected to social media attacks, and marginalized by colleagues.
Villarroel defends her decision to collaborate with Marcy on grounds of human rights and the presumption of innocence, and says the experience paradoxically liberated her to pursue controversial topics without fear of peer pressure.
European Crash Retrieval Initiative
In her free time, Villarroel participates in the European Crash Retrieval Initiative, a private citizen-led effort to locate and investigate UFO crash sites in Europe.
The project is led by Thomas Pinder and Alex Tal in Sweden and operates independently to avoid government or institutional pressure.
It maintains a database of tips and suggestions, including both cold cases and hopes for fresh crash reports.
The team is currently investigating a cold case that Villarroel describes as “super cool, super scary” but cannot discuss in detail.
The initiative is self-funded and seeks no commercialization, prioritizing independence.
The Quest for Physical Proof
Villarroel believes the most important question is binary: are there non-human artificial objects on Earth, in our oceans, or in orbit?
She is open to the possibility that non-human intelligence has been interacting with humanity for thousands of years and may have influenced our development.
She wants clear, definitive answers within her lifetime, whether through government disclosure or scientific discovery.
She suspects society has been so “marinated in skepticism” that people would rationalize away a crashed flying saucer even if they encountered one — interpreting it as industrial waste or a military project.
She hopes for contact with a benign, kind civilization that could accelerate human progress by sharing knowledge.
How to Support the Work
Villarroel welcomes support for the Exoprobe project, particularly funding for additional telescopes in New Mexico to expand the network’s ability to localize and characterize anomalous objects.
She also hopes to organize a European conference dedicated to the search for non-human artifacts in space, the atmosphere, underwater, and underground, and welcomes practical support such as venue access.
