A Polymarket contract asking whether or not President Donald Trump will declassify UFO recordsdata in 2025 sat at 5.5% on Dec. 6. The following day, it rocketed towards 90%.
The set off wasn’t a White Home announcement or a Pentagon press convention, however doubtless a decision proposal filed with UMA Protocol, the decentralized oracle that settles Polymarket’s disputes.
Somebody argued on Dec. 7 {that a} September doc from the All-domain Anomaly Decision Workplace constituted declassification, and merchants purchased accordingly.
The contract drew over $16 million in lifetime quantity earlier than resolving final evening, and the percentages spike occurred as a result of a governance vote, not new info, compelled a “Sure” payout by year-end.
The decision hinged on whether or not AARO’s four-page info paper, printed Sept. 19 and titled “AARO and the Declassification Course of,” happy the contract’s phrases. Whales determined it did.
The paper discusses AARO’s dedication to transparency and features a screenshot from a beforehand categorized video often called “the jellyfish video,” now accessible on the Protection Visible Info Distribution Service.
The proposer argued that AARO operates underneath the Division of Protection, that the Secretary of Protection reviews to Trump, and that the company’s official X account said that the content material contains “newly declassified movies.”
In accordance with the Dec. 7 UMA proposal, “Each a part of the foundations has been happy. This market ought to resolve to Sure.”
The mechanics of oracle dispute
Polymarket’s decision course of routes contentious markets to UMA Protocol, a decentralized fact machine the place token holders vote on outcomes.
The contract’s guidelines specify that it pays “Sure” provided that the Trump administration declassifies beforehand categorized recordsdata on extraterrestrial life or unidentified aerial phenomena by 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 31, 2025.
The first supply of decision is official US authorities info, with the “consensus of credible reporting” as a fallback. The AARO doc meets the primary criterion, as it’s an official .mil area publication from a Protection Division workplace.
But, whether or not it constitutes “declassification” of UAP recordsdata is the contested query.
Contrarian customers disputed the proposal, arguing that AARO’s paper is procedural steering about declassification processes, not the declassification of particular UAP recordsdata.
The doc explains why UAP imagery usually stays categorized to guard sensor capabilities, not due to extraterrestrial content material, and descriptions the multi-step evaluation course of AARO makes use of to facilitate declassification.
It doesn’t launch a tranche of beforehand withheld recordsdata. It publishes a single video that explains bureaucratic workflows. The dispute superior by means of UMA’s escalation ladder: preliminary proposal, dispute, governance vote, second dispute, and now last evaluation.
In accordance with UMA’s documentation, no disputes stay after last evaluation, that means Polymarket customers should settle for the result.
The timing raises two questions.
First, why did it take almost three months for somebody to file the decision proposal? The AARO doc dropped Sept. 19, but the UMA proposal arrived Dec. 7.
Second, why did the Polymarket odds spike on the identical day the proposal was filed? Both merchants front-ran the governance end result, shopping for YES shares cheaply earlier than the vote compelled a decision, or UMA token holders orchestrated a squeeze, utilizing governance voting energy to fabricate a payout and monetize early positions.
The AlphaRaccoon precedent
This dispute arises weeks after one other Polymarket insider buying and selling episode.
On Dec. 4, reviews flagged that the dealer AlphaRaccoon netted over $1 million in a single day by betting on Google’s “Yr in Search” markets.
Google briefly leaked the info early, then pulled it, however not earlier than AlphaRaccoon went 22 for 23 on predictions. The dealer’s account confirmed $3.9 million in open positions and a historical past of early bets on Gemini 3.0’s launch earlier than the official outcomes had been launched.
The market verdict is that the exercise suggests insider buying and selling.
The governance dynamics of the UFO contract mirror the data asymmetry that made AlphaRaccoon’s trades worthwhile.
In each instances, it isn’t unimaginable for a small group of potential Google insiders and UMA token holders with early visibility into decision proposals to behave earlier than the broader market reprices.
If somebody knew a “Sure” proposal would land on Dec. 7 and understood UMA’s voting mechanics, they might accumulate YES shares at 5.5% and exit after the percentages climbed.
The distinction is that AlphaRaccoon doubtlessly exploited personal knowledge. The UFO commerce exploits ambiguity in decision language and the timing of governance proposals.
What disclosure activists say
Disclosure Get together, a decentralized community centered on UAP transparency, dismissed the AARO doc as public relations when it was printed in September.
In an in depth publish on Sept. 19, the group argued that AARO’s claims about transparency “won’t stand up to authorized scrutiny” and that the company’s justifications for withholding UAP knowledge are “legally indefensible.”
The group famous that AARO asserts UFO secrecy protects sensors. But, the Pentagon has already launched UAP footage from those self same sensors, creating contradictory explanations that may fail in FOIA litigation.
That evaluation cuts each methods. If AARO’s doc is a procedural PR slightly than substantive declassification, then the UMA proposal ought to fail.
Then again, the company’s public dedication to transparency and the discharge of the jellyfish video give the “Sure” facet controversial floor.
The contract’s language doesn’t specify what number of recordsdata have to be declassified or whether or not procedural steering counts.
It asks whether or not the administration “declassifies beforehand categorized recordsdata,” and the AARO paper does launch at the very least one video body that was marked “UNCLASSIFIED” after evaluation.
Whether or not that meets the spirit of the contract is a query UMA governance should reply, not the info themselves.
Who decides fact?
The decision determines whether or not decentralized oracles can adjudicate ambiguous real-world occasions or whether or not they’re weak to governance manipulation when language is free.
If UMA votes “Sure,” merchants who offered into the spike will argue that the oracle rewarded semantic gamesmanship over substance. If UMA votes “No,” early consumers will argue that the platform ignored official authorities documentation and didn’t honor its personal decision standards.
Polymarket advertises itself as a discussion board for value discovery on real-world occasions. Nonetheless, the UFO contract reveals that “real-world” outcomes rely on who interprets the language and after they file the proposal.
The merchants who purchased YES at 5.5% on Dec. 7 both believed AARO’s doc happy the contract’s phrases or believed that UMA governance could be persuaded regardless.
The contract was resolved after UMA’s last evaluation concluded final evening, and the market now decides whether or not prediction platforms settle disputes by means of proof or by means of token-weighted votes.
