Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee introduced H.R. 8197 on 6 April 2026, a bill that would terminate the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and bar the creation of any centralised replacement.
AARO has been the Department of Defense’s sole dedicated body for investigating UAP since its establishment in 2022. In that time it has accumulated a caseload exceeding 2,000 reports dating back to 1945, drawn tens of millions in federal funding, and faced sustained criticism from Congress, whistleblowers and the public for a perceived lack of meaningful output.
What the bill does
H.R. 8197 gives the Secretary of War 60 days to shut down AARO and redistribute its functions across existing DoD elements. The bill includes a hard prohibition: neither the Secretary of War nor the Director of National Intelligence may create any new centralised office to replace it. That provision is designed to prevent the bureaucratic tactic of rebranding a dismantled office under a new name while preserving its structure and personnel.
Burchett’s rationale
Burchett, who has attended every major UAP hearing since 2023 and has been one of Congress’s most vocal critics of the Pentagon’s handling of the issue, framed the bill as a response to institutional failure. He told Newsmax on 1 April that the public “has a right to know” and that he was “tired of restructuring government.”
His frustration appears rooted in a specific complaint: that AARO has functioned less as an investigative body and more as a classification management tool, absorbing reports while producing little in the way of public findings or congressional briefings that match the scale of the phenomenon being reported.
The wider context
The bill lands at a moment of competing pressures on the Pentagon’s UAP infrastructure. President Trump has directed agencies to begin declassifying UAP records. Representative Luna’s task force is demanding specific video files. Whistleblowers, including the recently emerged “Source Kilo,” are providing testimony about recovered non-human materials.
Whether dismantling AARO would accelerate or hinder disclosure is a matter of active debate. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was instrumental in creating AARO, has defended its role in improving interagency coordination. But Burchett and his allies argue the office has become part of the problem, providing a veneer of institutional engagement while the actual secrets remain locked away in compartmented programmes that AARO has either been unable or unwilling to access.