The Department of War has missed a 14 April deadline to hand over 46 classified UAP video files to Congress, prompting accusations of continued institutional obstruction from the very task force charged with investigating government secrecy.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, chairwoman of the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, sent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a four-page letter on 31 March demanding the footage. The letter named individual video files by title, date, location and, in several cases, military callsign. Congressional sources described it as the most specific UAP disclosure demand in the history of the U.S. legislature.
What Congress asked for
The 46 videos span multiple military branches and geographic locations. They reportedly include spherical objects manoeuvring erratically over Afghanistan, cigar-shaped craft, Tic Tac-style encounters, and transmedium vehicles moving between air and water. Among the most striking requests: footage from an F-16 engagement with a UAP over Lake Huron in February 2023, and multiple incidents documented by MQ-9 Reaper drone operators over Iran, Syria, the Persian Gulf and the East China Sea.
Whistleblowers had told Luna’s task force that AARO, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, already possessed the material.
The deadline passes
As of 8:28 a.m. EDT on 15 April, no public confirmation appeared on the House Oversight Committee website or AARO’s public imagery page that any of the requested files had been delivered. Luna responded bluntly, calling the Pentagon’s non-compliance “how convenient” and warning she was prepared to compel production if “institutional resistance continues.”
A Pentagon spokesperson offered a measured response: “Since the office was established, AARO has made progress to make UAP information available and transfer those records to the National Archives in accordance with federal law. We welcome the president’s initiative to supercharge these efforts and make more UAP information available to the public as soon as possible.”
Pattern of delay
The missed deadline fits a broader pattern that has defined the Pentagon’s relationship with congressional UAP oversight. Since AARO’s creation in 2022, the office has faced repeated criticism for slow-walking requests, providing incomplete briefings, and failing to engage meaningfully with whistleblower testimony.
That pattern now faces pressure from multiple directions simultaneously. Representative Tim Burchett introduced H.R. 8197 on 6 April to dismantle AARO entirely, arguing the office has spent tens of millions of dollars across four years while maintaining over 2,000 open cases. President Trump told a Phoenix rally on 18 April that “very interesting documents” would be released “very, very soon.”
What comes next
Luna has signalled she intends to work directly with Hegseth rather than escalate immediately, describing the Defense Secretary as a close working partner aligned with Trump’s disclosure directive. But the task force retains the option of issuing subpoenas if cooperation does not materialise.
The 46 videos remain the most concrete test of whether the executive branch’s stated commitment to UAP transparency will translate into actual document production, or whether the machinery of classification will continue to grind disclosure efforts to a halt.