Marissa E. Yingling

Marissa E. Yingling is a researcher at the University of Louisville's Kent School of Social Work and Family Science who has conducted significant academic research on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). In 2022, she led a survey of 1,460 U.S. academics across 144 universities and 14 academic disciplines regarding their perceptions, experiences, and opinions of UAP. The study, published in 2023 in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, found that 19% of respondents reported witnessing or knowing someone who witnessed UAP, and that 64% of academics considered academic involvement in UAP research to be very important or absolutely essential. Yingling's work has contributed to legitimizing UAP as a topic worthy of serious academic scrutiny and has highlighted the stigma surrounding UAP discussion in academia.