--- alias: - Diana Walsh Pasulka - D. W. Pasulka - DW Pasulka - Diana W. Pasulka - Pasulka category: UFO & Anomalous Phenomena created: 2026-10-03 location: Wilmington, North Carolina relations: - fn: 1 role: professor of religious studies type: employed_by with: '[[University of North Carolina Wilmington]]' - fn: 4 role: announced on September 11, 2023 that she was joining the board; listed on the foundation's website under its Social Sciences Advisory Board in October 2026 start: 2023-09-11 type: member_of with: '[[Sol Foundation]]' summary: Professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, author of American Cosmic (2019) and Encounters (2023), who said on September 11, 2023 that she was joining the Sol Foundation board. tags: - Person - UFO - UAP - ReligiousStudies - SolFoundation - Author updated: 2026-10-03 --- Diana Walsh Pasulka is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.[^1] Her books include "Heaven Can Wait" (Oxford University Press), "American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology" (Oxford University Press, 2019) and "Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences" (St. Martin's Press, 2023).[^2] ### Tyler D. and James Master American Cosmic is dedicated to "Tyler D.," a pseudonymous figure whom Pasulka describes as one of the "most intelligent and successful people" she had met, a former aeronautical engineer who "worked on almost every space shuttle that was ever launched" and later a wealthy entrepreneur. As Nathaniel Rich summarizes Pasulka's account, after selling a biomedical device Tyler was stopped at an airport by federal agents who asked whether he wanted to return to the space program in a "very special" office, which Rich writes was "presumably located within" the White Sands Test Facility in [New Mexico](/places/new-mexico/), where he was assigned a desk beside a square room wrapped in concrete and metal. Tyler took Pasulka to a purported crash site in the New Mexico desert in the company of a second figure she called "James Master," who had analyzed an alleged artifact for a documentary and said two men in suits afterward asked him what he had really found.[^3] In Encounters, Pasulka identifies "James Master" as the Stanford immunologist [Garry Nolan](/people/garry-nolan/).[^3] The identity of Tyler D. has not been given in the sources opened. Encounters also introduces "Gray Man," described as the head of a laboratory for a major research agency.[^3] ### Sol Foundation Pasulka posted on September 11, 2023 that she was joining the board of the [Sol Foundation](/organizations/sol-foundation/), a statement reproduced in coverage of its launch.[^4] She spoke at the foundation's first symposium on November 17 to 18, 2023 in Palo Alto, California.[^5] She was a signatory, with [Peter Skafish](/people/peter-skafish/), Nolan, [Avi Loeb](/people/avi-loeb/), [Christopher Mellon](/people/christopher-mellon/) and [Tim Gallaudet](/people/tim-gallaudet/), of the November 12, 2024 letter to Congress urging enactment of the review-board provisions of the [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act](/concepts/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-disclosure-act/).[^6] The foundation's website, read on October 3, 2026, lists "Diana Pasulka" under its Social Sciences Advisory Board, with [Eric Davis](/people/eric-davis/) and Jeffrey J. Kripal.[^7] The Sol Foundation's 2024 Form 990 lists no director or officer named Pasulka.[^8] [^1]: Signatory entry, "Diana Walsh Pasulka, Ph.D., Professor," in the letter of November 12, 2024, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-GallaudetPhDRearAdmiralUSNavyRetT-20241113-SD001.pdf [^2]: Open Library author search for "Pasulka," records for *American Cosmic* (Oxford University Press, 2019), *Encounters* (St. Martin's Press, 2023), and *Heaven Can Wait* (Oxford University Press). https://openlibrary.org/search.json?author=Pasulka [^3]: Nathaniel Rich, "Ufologists, Unite!," *The New York Review of Books*, April 18, 2024, reviewing *American Cosmic* and *Encounters*. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/04/18/ufologists-unite-american-cosmic-d-w-pasulka/ (the review's account is the sole source for the passages so cited; the books themselves were not opened). [^4]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation: How a New Think Tank of Academics is Applying 'Cutting-Edge Research' to the UAP Mystery," *The Debrief*, September 12, 2023 (embedding her post of September 11, 2023). https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-how-a-new-think-tank-of-academics-is-applying-cutting-edge-research-the-uap-mystery/ [^5]: Micah Hanks, *The Debrief*, February 12, 2024. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-academias-new-uap-think-tank-releases-videos-of-lectures-from-its-inaugural-symposium/ [^6]: Signatory letter of November 12, 2024, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (the statement of Tim Gallaudet), https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-GallaudetPhDRearAdmiralUSNavyRetT-20241113-SD001.pdf [^7]: The Sol Foundation, home page, "People" section (Advisory Board), https://thesolfoundation.org/ , read October 3, 2026. [^8]: IRS Form 990 for 2024, EIN 93-3649160, Part VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933649160/202543269349300004/full