(NewsNation) — While lawmakers in Congress are working to force more transparency on UAPs, more commonly called UFOs, some of the world’s top scientists say they aren’t going to wait for the government to disclose what it knows.

A new group wants to study the phenomenon using hard data and begin outlining pathways forward to research and harness the nonhuman technology they fervently believe exists.

NewsNation has spoken to many of the members before. Those involved in the project include Christopher Mellon, a former Defense Department official; Dr. Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor who claims to have found proof of nonhuman technology at the bottom of the ocean; Leslie Kean, a journalist who helped break the David Grusch story; Grusch’s attorney Chuck McCullough, who served as inspector general for the intelligence community under the Obama administration and former Navy scientist Tom Gallaudet.

The leader of the group is Dr. Garry Nolan, a world-renowned immunologist, professor of pathology at Stanford and biotech entrepreneur who believes there is something out there and it’s not human.

“The circumstantial evidence basically has me convinced that it’s well worth my time to spend time looking at it,” he said.

Nolan’s breakthrough biotechnology gene therapy discoveries around cancer treatment are used around the world. He’s also the head of The Sol Foundation, which just announced a new initiative for UFO research and policy.

The intent behind Sol is to be a serious, well-funded, cutting-edge group performing academic research into UAPs. Nolan said the first step is identifying what questions need to be asked.

“Once we’ve put all of the data into the right categories, we say what of this meets the academic standards and criteria of excellence?” Nolan said.

Military pilots who testified before Congress said they have felt discouraged from reporting unexplained occurrences, be they alien or otherwise. Nolan says the same stigma exists in the scientific community.

“There’s plenty of people who I talk to behind the scenes, who are mainstream academics. They just don’t want to talk about it yet because they feel the stigma is still too high,” Nolan said.

Nolan said he believes researchers, not government, will have to spearhead the effort to explain UFOs in ways all of us can understand.

“There’s something they’re trying to hide,” Nolan said. “You have the people from within the government who’ve said that it’s real.”

Yet the government continues to deny any evidence of nonhuman intelligence.

“You can’t wait for daddy government to tell you what you think you already know. They don’t need to give you permission to move forward,” Nolan said.

Nolan said there needs to be an incentive for individuals and government entities to release information on UAPs.

“The incentive should be that this is going to help the country in some way,” he said.

Nolan believes non-human technology could bring benefits and opportunities for humanity, especially if non-human beings are smarter than we are.

“I don’t think I’m going to have an anti-gravity craft before the end of my existence,” he said. “But what I do see is a whole new way, perhaps, to think about the universe. So I look at that as an opportunity to learn from somebody who’s more intelligent. It’s as simple as that.”