Some policy challenges are complicated by money. Some by politics. And some by decades of cultural stigma so entrenched that getting a serious conversation started is the hardest part of the work.
That was the challenge when the Shepherd Strategies team began working with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the nation’s oldest and largest UFO research organization, in 2020. What followed was one of the most unconventional and consequential engagements in the firm’s history.
Getting started with this client was a bit different than most because our first area of focus was changing the language around this topic, not the legislation. The term “UFO” has carried a stigma with it for the last fifty years. Attempting to create serious policy discussions on the topic was also difficult initially. The Shepherd Strategies team worked with MUFON to refine and reframe their messaging to focus on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP), a term already in use by the defense and intelligence communities that carried scientific and national security legitimacy.
Once the messaging framework was in place, it was time to begin building the bipartisan relationships necessary to move federal policy on a topic most of Washington had spent decades avoiding.
Over three years, the Shepherd Strategies team engaged:
Those sustained, relationship-driven efforts produced results that few would have expected when the work began. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA for FY 2024) included landmark UAP provisions, mandating the creation of a UAP Records Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and prohibiting secret funding for unacknowledged UAP programs. While the UAP Disclosure Act originally introduced was scaled back in the final legislation, the NDAA provisions represented the most significant federal commitment to UAP transparency in U.S. history.
The scope and novelty of this work also drew national media attention. Jessica Beeson Tocco appeared on Season 19, Episode 5 of the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens “The MUFON Files”, where she discussed the efforts to bring UAP research out of the shadows and into serious policy conversation. The appearance reflected the broader cultural moment the team had helped create: a Washington finally willing to engage with a topic it had long dismissed.
The legislative momentum established through this work has continued to build. Key milestones following the initial NDAA victory include:
UAP is not the typical Shepherd Strategies practice area. But this engagement illustrates that the hardest policy challenges are rarely about the issue itself. They’re about credibility, relationships, and knowing how to build a coalition that takes a serious ask seriously.
Whether the subject is clean energy infrastructure, healthcare technology, economic development, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the fundamentals are the same.
Define the strategy. Drive the relationships. Deliver the result.
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