Background

Garry P. Nolan, born c. 1961, is a British-American immunologist, academic, inventor, and biotech entrepreneur. He holds the Rachford and Carlota A. Harris Professor Endowed Chair in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Cornell BS 1983, Stanford PhD in genetics 1989 under Leonard Herzenberg, postdoctoral work with Nobel laureate David Baltimore at MIT.

The Credentials Behind the Voice

Nolan is not a fringe figure. He has founded or co-founded six biotech companies including Rigel, Inc. (1996), Nodality (2003), BINA Technology (sold to Roche for $107 million in 2014), Apprise, Scale Bio, and Akoya Biosciences (2015). He holds the United States Department of Defense Teal Innovator Award (2012) and the Hans Sigrist Prize (2021). His CODEX (co-Detection by indexing) technology is commercialised through Akoya. He has been published continuously across decades in immunology, oncology, and computational biology.

The UAP Pivot

Per Nolan’s own account, he was approached by «some people representing the government and an aerospace corporation to help them understand the medical harm that had come to some individuals, related to supposed interactions with an anomalous craft» because they were interested in the kinds of blood analysis his lab can do. From that entry point Nolan has spent over a decade analysing materials and biological samples connected to UAP interaction events.

In 2022 he co-authored, with Jacques Vallée, Sizun Jiang, and Larry Lemke, the peer-reviewed paper «Improved instrumental techniques, including isotopic analysis, applicable to the characterization of unusual materials with potential relevance to aerospace forensics» in Progress in Aerospace Sciences — the most-cited mainstream-journal paper ever published on UAP material analysis methodology.

The Sol Foundation

In August 2023 Nolan co-founded The Sol Foundation with sociocultural anthropologist Peter Skafish. Sol’s stated purpose is «methodical, scientifically-robust assessment and analysis» of UAP and what it terms «non-human intelligence» (NHI). Sol’s board and advisors include some of the most credentialed academics in the field:

• Garry Nolan (Executive Director, Stanford)
• Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, US Navy (ret), former Deputy Administrator of NOAA
• Kevin Knuth, Professor of Physics, University at Albany
• Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought, Rice University
• Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science, Harvard University
• Diana Walsh Pasulka, Professor of Religious Studies, UNCW
• Jacques Vallée, ufologist and Internet pioneer

The first Sol Foundation Symposium was held at Stanford University in November 2023. Speakers included former IC Inspector General Charles McCullough, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon, Colonel Karl Nell (former Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Africa Command), Tim Gallaudet, and David Grusch in a surprise appearance.

Why He Matters

At a SALT iConnections conference in May 2023, Nolan stated his probability that extraterrestrials have visited Earth is «100 percent» and that they have been visiting for a long time. Speculated that what is here are likely «emissaries» or drones rather than the originating intelligences themselves. In Leslie Kean’s June 2023 conversation with Ezra Klein, Kean stated that Nolan «knows David Grusch very well and vouches for him.»

Nolan brings what UAP research has always lacked: a Stanford-anchored credentialed scientist with no fringe history, no commercial UAP product to sell, no political angle — just a working laboratory and a willingness to put his name on peer-reviewed analysis. He has appeared in the 2025 disclosure documentary The Age of Disclosure alongside Mellon, Knuth, Gallaudet, and others.

Connections

• Co-author with Jacques Vallée of the 2022 isotopic analysis paper
• Personal vouch for David Grusch credibility
• Sol Foundation co-founder with Skafish, Knuth, Vallée, Loeb, Pasulka, Gallaudet, Kripal
• The 2018 Atacama skeleton work (which he correctly resolved as a human stillbirth) established his rigour
• Featured in The Age of Disclosure (2025)

Sources

• Nolan, G. P., Vallée, J. F., Jiang, S., & Lemke, L. G. (2022). Progress in Aerospace Sciences, vol. 128, 100788.
• The New Yorker, «How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously», Lewis-Kraus, April 30 2021.
• SALT iConnections conference, Manhattan, May 2023.
• The Debrief, «The Sol Foundation», Hanks, September 12 2023.
• Stanford profile: profiles.stanford.edu/garry-nolan