Between Disclosure and Conspiracy: r/UFO and r/UAP Subreddits
Marco Bastos, Marisa Duarte
Information, Communication and Society
Summary
Quantitative analysis of how transparency and disclosure events reshape framing within the r/UFO and r/UAP Reddit communities. Examines the tension between disclosure-oriented and conspiracy-oriented discursive frames, and how official UAP acknowledgments shift community dynamics. Methodologically rigorous social science paper relevant to understanding DECUR's audience.
Abstract
While there exists genuine scientific inquiry seeking to understand Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), the lore of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) is deeply intertwined with narratives deliberately crafted to mislead, obfuscate, and manipulate public perception with a community historically targeted by sustained disinformation campaigns. In this study, we explore the public reception regarding UAP disclosures against the historical context of government disinformation and obstructive information flows. To this end, we retrieved the posts and comments featured in the UAP and UFO Reddit communities and modeled the data by constructing a timeline of governmental and intelligence announcements, leaks, and reports, but also congressional and senate committee hearings, special news reports, and DOD AARO public statements about UAPs. Using time series analysis techniques, we modeled this data to test whether government direct engagement with the topic has tangible effects in subsiding disinformation concerns and conspiratorial narratives within these communities. Our results show that the transparency effect driven by government disclosures effectively counters the erosion of trust fueled by conspiratorial narratives. We conclude by outlining the limitations and challenges embedded in the very idea of disclosure, a term that is ideologically and politically inflected and calls for further studies in this area.
Citation
Marco Bastos, Marisa Duarte. (2025). Information, Communication and Society. DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2026.2645882
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2645882Related Papers
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