When the UFO Story Walks into A&E
Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash
Written by Christopher Sharp - 27 August 2025
There is “no job description as ‘UAP Symptoms and Complications Specialist’.”
That line, from a foreword by famed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) researcher Dr Jacques Vallée, sets the tone for a new 50-page medical literature review that argues encounters with UAP are producing real-world injuries - while medicine largely looks the other way.
Published this month by the Unhidden Foundation (uNHIdden), Potential health effects associated with exposure to UAP reframes a culture-war topic as a public-health gap.
The report concludes there is “credible evidence that UAP encounters can cause physical, physiological and psychological harm,” and calls for independent research, clinical training, specialist referral pathways, and far greater transparency between military and civilian health systems.
Its bottom line: treat UAP-linked cases with “scientific rigour” and patients “with care and respect.”
The authors stress what the report is and isn’t. It does not claim proof of non-human intelligence or attempt to explain what UAP are.
Instead, it aggregates what physicians and witnesses have reported about health outcomes, and asks healthcare to catch up.
“This document does not attempt to draw conclusions where evidence is lacking,” writes Dr Daniel Weaver, a GP, in a personal preface, framing the work as a cautious, evidence-informed review aimed at clinicians.
That caution is paired with unusually direct language for a medical brief.
The executive summary lists four takeaways:
UAP are real, as acknowledged by the U.S. and U.K. government reporting;
UAP can harm human health;
Radio-frequency and microwave exposure appears to be a common mechanism; and
Civilians—and their doctors—lack access to much of the relevant knowledge because key studies remain classified.
uNhIdden’s review stitches together open-source government assessments, defence-funded research, case catalogues, and peer-reviewed medicine:
Government confirmation that UAP are “real objects.” The report cites the U.S. Director of National Intelligence’s 2021 assessment that some UAP are physical objects and a hazard to aviation; it also quotes President Obama’s plain-spoken admission that there are “records of objects in the skies” that defy easy explanation. In the U.K., the MoD’s Project Condign concluded in 2006: “That UAP exist is indisputable.”
Injury mechanisms. A Defense Intelligence Agency–commissioned review - Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human and Biological Tissues - produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), the DIA’s broad 2008–10 UAP study administered by the agency and contracted to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, concluded that “humans have been found to have been injured” in close proximity to anomalous craft, with electromagnetic radiation field effects - especially in the UHF/microwave bands - identified as a primary mechanism; the AARO Report further identifies frequency “hot spots” around 400 MHz–2 GHz and describes heat-linked and neuro-sensory symptoms consistent with radio frequency exposure.
Symptoms that go beyond simple heating. The report lists patterns from the AAWSAP files that include acute headaches, vertigo with nausea, palpitations, sleep disturbance, ocular irritation, and persistent paraesthesiae - alongside an absence of certain routine lab abnormalities - suggesting complex neurophysiological effects in some cases.
A larger, still-hidden record. Citing Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, authored by AAWSAP principals, the AAWSAP team documented the effects on human health as a result of interacting with UAP,...examining the hematological, immunological, neuro-anatomical, and biochemical sequelae of close encounters in witnesses. uNHIdden argues this implies further human-effects research remains unreleased at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Classic cases, medicalised. The review revisits high-profile incidents not as mysteries to solve but as clinical data points: Falcon Lake (burns in a grid pattern; prolonged neurologic symptoms), Cash-Landrum (severe acute illness compatible with high-energy exposure), Colares (dozens treated for burns, puncture-like lesions and partial paralysis), and Rendlesham (veteran disability awarded years later amid references to elevated radiation readings).
Breadth of reported effects. The Schuessler catalogue—356 cases across 1873–1994 - ranks frequently reported effects such as burns, nausea, headaches, tingling, weakness/fatigue, insomnia, amnesia and more, underscoring recurring clinical themes seen across disparate events.
Vallée’s foreword describes why experiencers often avoid doctors, fearing ridicule or misdiagnosis, and why ufologists - not clinicians - have been the de facto first responders. That stigma, the report argues, “prevents proper, professional discussions,” deters data collection, and leaves patients unsupported.
uNHIdden’s remedy is practical: create safe clinical pathways so a GP, emergency physician or occupational-health nurse knows what to do next - whom to refer to, what to test, and how to document without prejudging. The group explicitly invites peer feedback and corrections to shape a second edition, signalling that building a reliable knowledge base will require the broader medical community.
Though focused on UAP-linked health effects rather than the broader bucket of “Anomalous Health Incidents,” the report reproduces correspondence from the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care stating, for the first time to the authors’ knowledge, that Havana syndrome exists—albeit as a “rare, poorly understood” entity with no current NHS pathway.
That acknowledgement, even if limited, could open the door to specialist commissioning when better criteria emerge.
The review’s physiology chapter is not a diagnostic manual, but it does surface recurring red flags after close-range UAP encounters: sudden warmth or “prickling” over exposed skin; delayed erythema progressing to burns; severe temporal headaches; vertigo, nausea and sleep disruption; ocular inflammation and photophobia; and multi-week paraesthesiae.
Documenting onset times, environmental context (including radio frequency sources), and neurological/ocular findings is emphasised.
It also notes a research thread around brain findings (caudate/putamen) in some affected personnel, and urges caution: hypotheses abound, from radio frequency-induced neurochemical changes to more exotic models, but proof remains thin without open datasets and replication.
uNHIdden’s recommendations are concrete.
First, fund independent studies and publish historical human-effects datasets long held within defence channels, subject to genuine national-security limits.
Second, incorporate awareness training into medical education and create specialist referral routes so patients aren’t bounced between A&E, neurology and psychiatry.
Third, normalise reporting so patterns can be seen and harms mitigated—without requiring anyone to take a position on who or what is behind UAP.
“We are not here to gather information about the origins of UAP sightings or the technology involved,” the authors write.
“Our role is to educate and help provide care to people affected.”
That’s the pivot: from spectacle to standards of care.
