Canonical home moved

The canonical home for the United States is now the United States Country Exhibition, which covers the full record from the 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting to the June 2026 PURSUE Release 03, with the post-2017 disclosure cycle as one chapter in the longer narrative. This Disclosure Network page summarises the post-2017 sequence and is in the process of being merged into the country exhibition.

🇺🇸 Disclosure Cycle

Disclosure in the United States

The United States has produced more on-record acknowledgement of UAP activity since 2017 than the entire preceding seventy years combined. The journalists, filmmakers, and former officials documenting that record sit at the centre of the modern disclosure conversation worldwide.

What the United States Has Done

The US public record on UAP transformed in December 2017 with the New York Times article by Helene Cooper, Leslie Kean, and Ralph Blumenthal revealing the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The Department of Defense released the FLIR1, Gimbal, and GoFast videos officially in April 2020. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence delivered the Preliminary Assessment on UAP to Congress in June 2021. On 17 May 2022 the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation held the first US congressional open UAP testimony since the 1968 Roush symposium, with Under Secretary of Defense Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was established later that year. The House Oversight Subcommittee held subsequent public sworn-testimony hearings on 26 July 2023, 13 November 2024, and 17 September 2025.

On 12 July 2024 Congress passed the UAP Disclosure Act of 2024, establishing a presumption of declassification for UAP records. The Trump administration launched the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) document release programme in 2026, with the first tranche of 162 files made public on 8 May 2026, a second tranche of six documents and 57 video files on 22 May 2026, and a third tranche of eleven documents and two FBI video files on 12 June 2026 that introduced complete FBI investigative case packages, the first Intelligence Community Agency analytical assessment attached to a specific UAP case, and the first African-continent sighting in the PURSUE record.

Whatever assessment one makes of the substance of these releases, the institutional acknowledgement that UAP are a national-security topic worthy of formal investigation is a transformation of the US position. The questions debated today are about scope, sincerity, and depth, not about whether the topic is real.

What the Whistleblowers Say Remains Hidden

On 26 July 2023 former intelligence officer David Grusch testified under oath before the House Oversight Subcommittee that the United States operates a multi-decade UAP retrieval and reverse-engineering programme. Former Pentagon AATIP director Luis Elizondo has stated publicly that the US possesses recovered craft of non-human origin. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon has corroborated the existence of compartmented programmes outside congressional oversight. Karl Nell, a retired Army colonel and AAWSAP/AATIP consultant, signed the public statement confirming the substance of Grusch's allegations.

The Department of Defense and AARO have rejected these claims. Director Sean Kirkpatrick's March 2024 historical-record report found "no empirical evidence" of extraterrestrial activity or reverse-engineering programmes. The contradiction between sworn whistleblower testimony and official AARO findings is the central unresolved fact of the current US disclosure conversation. Both positions are on the public record.

Congressional Activity

Cross-party congressional engagement on UAP has been one of the structural features of the post-2017 era. Senator Marco Rubio chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee when the original UAP language was inserted into appropriations. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand co-authored the establishing legislation for AARO. Senator Chuck Schumer co-sponsored the UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 with Senator Mike Rounds. In the House, Representatives Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna, Eric Burlison, Andre Carson, Mike Gallagher, Robert Garcia, Jared Moskowitz, and Glenn Grothman have all conducted public hearings or made on-record statements pursuing UAP transparency.

Anchors of the US Community

The journalists, filmmakers, and former officials whose work on UAP in the United States is documented on the public record. Each name links to a full profile page.

Early Civilian Disclosure: 1953 to 1960

Before the modern disclosure cycle, civilian researchers in the Los Angeles area organised the first international conventions on flying saucers. The archive's deep-read of Saucers magazine documents these foundational gatherings issue by issue.

4 to 6 June 1954

First Annual International Flying Saucer Convention

Carthay Circle Theatre, Los Angeles, California

On 4 to 6 June 1954, the Saucer Research Foundation held the First Annual International Flying Saucer Convention at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. The convention was moderated by Hal Styles. The documented speakers list included Daniel W. Fry, Orfeo Angelucci, Felix Fraser, Criswell, the science-fiction filmmaker Michael Fox, and the astronomer George H. Lutz.

Max B. Miller, editor of the Los Angeles-based Saucers magazine, attended alongside William A. Devlin, Miller's Director of Research at Flying Saucers International. The Miller-Devlin photograph from the convention appears on page 3 of Saucers Vol 2 No 3 (September 1954), the issue that carried the convention's full editorial coverage.

The Carthay Circle convention sat alongside two other major civilian gatherings of the same year. George W. Van Tassel convened the First Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock California on 4 April 1954. Flying Saucers International had held the World's First Flying Saucer Convention at the Hollywood Hotel from 16 to 18 August 1953, the earlier gathering that produced the formal Resolution to the President and Congress calling for a civilian Project Saucer Authority.

Primary source: Saucers magazine Vol 2 No 3 (September 1954), pp. 2 to 3, Editorial section by Max B. Miller. Convention attendees and proceedings documented from Folio's deep-read extraction.

From the archive: When the Saucers (Max B. Miller) collection exhibition page ships, this entry will cross- reference the issue catalogue. The publication's eleven deep-read issues from 1953 to 1955 document the full foundational convention record, alongside named-witness sightings, the Stringfield Cincinnati searchlight log, the European autumn 1954 landing wave, and the institutional civilian-research network as it emerged.

In the Archive

The US record in the archive: government reading rooms, congressional hearings, and case exhibitions that the Disclosure Network references.

What the United States Has Done

What the Whistleblowers Say Remains Hidden

Congressional Activity

Anchors of the US Community

Journalists and Filmmakers 4

Whistleblowers and Former Programme Officials 7

Scientists and Programme Researchers 4

Former Government and Military Officials 3

Congressional Witnesses and Advocates 6

Early Civilian Disclosure: 1953 to 1960

In the Archive