Astronomer Beatriz Villarroel claims she is facing targeted harassment and foul play following her research into UAPs. In an interview updated September 17, 2026, she detailed how she feels she is being targeted for her work on the missing stars phenomenon. Though not alone, Villarroel is currently part of a review of the NASA archives working with the Disclosure Foundation to search for unidentified aerial phenomena.
Astronomer Beatriz Villarroel claims she is facing targeted harassment and foul play following her research into UAPs. The astronomer always assumed there would be some resistance to her ideas when she began researching the missing stars phenomenon, but she just didn't know the lengths people would go. In a detailed interview conducted by journalist George Knapp and updated September 17, 2026, she described how she feels she has been targeted: "In 2021, they already started targeting me when we came up with the first paper, when we saw, 'hey', this looks like UFOs. They didn't attack me at that time for working with the UFOs. At that moment, it was people who blocked me out of conferences for my collaboration with Jeff Marcy."
Villarroel expressed disappointment with part of the UAP scientist community, stating there have been very targeted attacks that were not nice, with foul play in the background, including contacting common colleagues and trying to make her life as hard as possible. She noted that after the research papers were published last year, very targeted attacks emerged that were not pleasant, with foul play occurring behind the scenes that included contacting colleagues and attempting to sabotage her professional standing. In her remarks, Villarroel alluded to connections that make her think of certain legacy programs, though she declined to explicitly name them.
The allegations represent a significant claim about scientific suppression within academic and UAP research communities. Villarroel's work focuses on the missing stars phenomenon and potential UAP connections, research that she says drew initial professional isolation when she began collaborating with other researchers in this field. Villarroel is currently part of a review of the NASA archives working with the Disclosure Foundation to search for unidentified aerial phenomena. Her claims mirror broader concerns raised by UAP disclosure advocates about institutional resistance to anomalous phenomena research.
In her full statement, Villarroel criticized the professional tactics used against her, saying: "There has been foul play in the background. Including contacting common colleagues and trying to make my life as hard as possible. And I don't think this has been a very beautiful act, and I hope that people can act with more dignity in the future. And if you disagree, you can write a scientific paper disagreeing on the science. You don't need to try to destroy another person." She emphasized that scientific disagreement should occur through peer review and published papers, not through professional ostracism or coordinated campaigns.
She is not alone in her experience, as others in the astronomy field—as well as UFO researchers—support her while the battle over the evidence she has presented intensifies. The broader scientific community has been divided over how to approach UAP research, with some institutional resistance attributed to concerns about scientific credibility and methodology. Villarroel states she keeps a record of these incidents to determine whether she is becoming paranoid or whether a genuine pattern of professional sabotage exists.
The timing of Villarroel's allegations coincides with renewed government disclosure efforts under the Trump administration's PURSUE program, which has accelerated the declassification of UAP-related documents. Her participation in the Disclosure Foundation's NASA archives review project represents an institutional acknowledgment that serious researchers warrant access to government records on anomalous phenomena. Villarroel's experience raises questions about whether institutional and social pressures may have deterred scientific investigation into UAP phenomena over past decades, a concern that aligns with recent congressional inquiries into transparency and witness protection in UAP research.
