What do we mean by NHI and UAP

Author //
Ross Coulthart
Published //
30/04/2024
Leaked military footage of UAP sighting
US Navy

The term UAP is an acronym for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The Pentagon’s UAP investigation office, AARO, defines UAPs as:

…sources of anomalous detections in one or more domain (air, sea, space or trans-medium) that are not yet attributable to known actors and that demonstrate behaviours that are not readily understood by sensors or observers. ‘Anomalous detections’ include but are not limited to phenomena that demonstrate apparent capabilities or material that exceed known performance envelopes. A UAP may consist of one or more unidentified anomalous objects and may persist over an extended period of time.[1]

For many years the UAP acronym was generally described as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena but a recent change was made to ‘Anomalous’ to acknowledge the fact that this phenomenon is being observed not just in Earth’s atmosphere but also in outer Space and underwater in oceans and lakes. (Unidentified Submerged / Submersible Objects – USOs - is the term used for undersea anomalous phenomena[2]).

For the same reason, the term UFO is less used these days because the phenomena is increasingly acknowledged to be not just ‘flying’ objects, ie: objects in Earth’s atmosphere. The UFO acronym is also perceived as having become historically stigmatised, because in popular culture it is associated with a definitive (yet, unproven) link to extra-terrestrial aliens. Hence, the term UAP, which is perceived as being more neutral, is used.

The term ‘NHI’ is an acronym for Non-Human Intelligence. In the UAP amendments put to the United States Congress in late 2023 the term NHI was defined as:

Any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.[3]

NHI is perceived as a broader term than extra-terrestrial (ET) because it encompasses the possibility that a hypothetical non-human intelligence might not be extra-terrestrial, a term that means intelligent life from beyond or outside our planet. NHI contemplates the possibility that some kind of life-form is sharing this planet with humans, or that it might be inter-dimensional.