A few months back I watched the documentary Age of Disclosure and found it quite compelling, especially given the number of people who went on record, including current and former members of the government, intel community, and scientists. And most recently, the Trump administration began releasing declassified UAP files on May 8, 2026, through a new system called PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters), with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth pledging “maximum transparency” and DNI Tulsi Gabbard describing a comprehensive multi-agency declassification programme.

The critical tension is that the files show no definitive government interaction with non-humans, yet the phenomena themselves remain totally unexplained, leaving the world in a state of ambiguity: something is happening, but no one in authority will definitively say exactly what, or at least doesn’t have unequivocable proof.

So far, the Ryanverse has yet to engage with this subject matter. It’s unlikely that the Ryanverse is going to turn its hand to the aspects of this that are in the realm of science fiction, nor would I want it to. In order to address this but keep it within the Ryanverse, the mystery shouldn’t be about aliens but rather about the development of the tech and the related Special Access Programs.

While this is really pushing the boundaries of the Ryanverse, we have seen the exploration of bleeding edge tech in the Ryanverse before. The Ryanverse cannot ignore a very real event that’s happening, and the discourse regarding the ongoing release and declassification of information related to UAPs.

The Ryanverse is, however, about the human struggle to control information, power and narrative. The UAP disclosure moment is precisely that kind of story:

• A deep state within a deep state — Special Access Programs that reportedly ran for years without congressional oversight.
• Private aerospace contractors potentially holding reverse-engineered technology outside government control.
• Adversarial exploitation — China and Russia watching the US tear itself apart over disclosure.
• Whistleblowers (real figures like David Grusch) who claim crash retrieval programs exist, creating a constitutional crisis over who really owns this secret.
• Nuclear surveillance — UAPs have repeatedly appeared over nuclear facilities, raising existential command-and-control questions.

It’s for this reason that a Ryanverse novel centred on this subject would be prescient, or at least very timely.

Novel Concept: Tom Clancy Transmedium

Some secrets defend the nation. Others endanger it.

Premise

A senior AARO analyst is found dead in his car outside Langley, ruled a suicide. He was one of three people with full access to what insiders call the Legacy Record, a classified archive of 45 years of Special Access Program data on supposedly recovered craft, held not by the government, but by a consortium of private defence contractors who have operated entirely outside congressional oversight.

The death coincides with a White House order to begin full declassification and disclosure. Someone is cleaning house before the files reach the public.

The Jack Ryan Angle

President Ryan is the one who signed the declassification order, PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters). Politically, he had no choice. Congressional pressure, public demand, and a classified briefing that left him with a sense of betrayal, have forced his hand. But within 72 hours of PURSUE going live, three things happen simultaneously:

1. A senior whistleblower from a Lockheed-adjacent black program contacts DNI Mary Pat Foley claiming the released files are being sanitised. The real Legacy Record contains material that would rewrite understanding of the last 45 years of advanced technological development.
2. Chinese signals intelligence lights up in a pattern that suggests Beijing knew the release was coming and has been positioning assets accordingly.
3. A series of UAP incidents over US carrier groups in the Pacific escalates dramatically. F-35 pilots experience a total breakdown of their Link 16 data sharing. UAPs appear to go transmedium on their screens, diving in and out of the ocean at incredible speeds. It’s unclear if this really happening or if someone has developed a waveform capable of spoofing the most advanced AESA radars in the world.

Ryan’s biggest problem isn’t with the mystery—whether the phenomena are adversarial technology, or an elaborate psychological operation—it’s with his increasing and unsettling awareness of the deep state. His order for declassification and disclosure is being obstructed, if not by the elimination of people willing to come forward, then by those willing to claim national security over all else and redact 90% of what is disclosed.

The Campus Angle

Jack Ryan Jr. and the Campus are tasked off-the-books with tracking the Special Access Program pass-throughs. Jack is looking for the black money that flows from the Pentagon to shell companies that then buy up small tech startups to bury their research. The trail leads them into the heart of a shadow contractor network, a loose alliance of aerospace, defence and intelligence figures who have controlled UAP-related Special Access Programs at least since the 1980s.

Ding Chavez and John Clark (in a mentorship/advisory capacity — older now, but still formidable) help Jack Jr. and the other Campus operators navigate a world where the enemy has no flag and the intelligence community itself is fractured between those who want the truth out and those who’ve built careers on burying it.

These aren’t cartoon villains. They’re true believers, bureaucrats and corporate titans protecting their bottom line. They have, along the way, accumulated extraordinary technological leverage. They will not give it up. The Legacy Record isn’t just about craft; it’s about unauthorized patenting—private contractors using taxpayer-funded black projects to derive new technologies they’ve then spent 30 years selling back to the government under different names. It’s a multi-trillion dollar fraud case, and something Jack Jr. can unravel using his skills as a financial analyst, if the Campus operators can recover the necessary financial records.

The Geopolitical Dimension

The novel’s third strand follows Scott Adler at State, dealing with the international fallout. The UAP files include diplomatic cables detailing US knowledge and involvement in UAP incidents in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea, among others. Foreign governments are furious that the US sat on their data regarding their nations for decades. Russia is exploiting the chaos and preparing to move on territory in central Asia. And China is quietly starting its own disclosure, releasing a carefully curated set of its UAP files that conveniently make the US look like a sovereign aggressor, using advanced technology to trample other nations, including interfering with their nuclear arsenals.

The real war is over who controls the narrative around the UAP disclosures, and who stands to gain as a result.

The Central Moral Question

The novel’s power comes from Ryan being genuinely uncertain about the right answer. The contractors who’ve suppressed this for 45 years aren’t entirely wrong, there were national secrets to protect. But the extent and manner of the coverup just doesn’t wash with President Ryan. And disclosure obstruction has caused chaos. Markets have wobbled, a religious crisis is brewing in parts of the world. A democracy cannot function on managed ignorance. And if the technology is real, then the people currently holding it have more power than any elected government on Earth. President Ryan has to decide whether to seize a number of private corporations under the Defense Production Act to get to the truth, knowing it might trigger a coup from within the darkest recesses of the military-industrial complex.