The UAP Disclosure Act

Schumer and Rounds designed the bill to solve a specific problem: the executive branch had spent decades classifying and compartmentalising UAP-related information in ways that kept even senior members of Congress in the dark. The JFK Records Act had precedent. Congress had forced the release of assassination-related records through an independent review board. Schumer and Rounds wanted the same mechanism applied to UAP.

The bill proposed five things. An independent nine-member review board appointed by the president with subpoena power to compel disclosure. Eminent domain authority over UAP-related materials held by private persons or entities, meaning defence contractors could not simply refuse to hand over what they had. A 25-year mandatory disclosure timeline for all UAP records. A centralised UAP Records Collection at the National Archives. And a $20 million appropriation for FY2024 to fund the effort.

Six senators co-sponsored it: Schumer (D-NY), Rounds (R-SD), Rubio (R-FL), Gillibrand (D-NY), Young (R-IN), and Heinrich (D-NM). Three Republicans and three Democrats. The Senate passed it as part of their version of the FY2024 NDAA.

Then it went to conference.

The conference committee removed the independent review board and the eminent domain authority. These were the two provisions that would have given the legislation actual enforcement power. Without them, the remaining framework relied on the same agencies that had been withholding information to voluntarily release it.

Four people bear the most direct responsibility for the gutting.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and led the opposition. Turner's district includes Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which has featured in UAP lore since the 1940s and houses significant classified aerospace programmes. He argued the bill's provisions were too broad and would compromise national security. Critics pointed out that the JFK Records Act had identical powers and had not destroyed the Republic.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) chaired the House Armed Services Committee and supported the stripping. His committee had jurisdiction over the NDAA conference.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) backed the conference committee's decision. He did not publicly advocate for the Disclosure Act's provisions.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) worked behind the scenes. Liberation Times reported that McConnell's chief of staff, Terry Carmack, pressed to have the act stripped from the NDAA manager's package. McConnell never publicly addressed the allegation.

Schumer and Rounds took to the Senate floor to publicly address what had happened. Schumer called it "really an outrage" and warned that without the independent review board, declassification would be left to the same entities that had blocked transparency for decades. Rounds pledged to reintroduce the legislation. Both senators made clear they were not going to let the issue die in conference.

The FY2024 NDAA kept a framework, but not the teeth. A UAP Records Collection was established at the National Archives. Government offices were required to transfer UAP records to the collection. Records would be reviewed for disclosure, but under criteria that allowed release to be "postponed" rather than mandated. AARO received an expanded mandate. New whistleblower protections were enacted for individuals with UAP-related knowledge. And a historical records review was required.

All of this depended on voluntary compliance from the agencies holding the records. Without the review board's subpoena power, there was no mechanism to compel release. Without eminent domain, defence contractors could keep whatever they had. The legislation created a process with no enforcement.

Rounds and Schumer reintroduced the full Disclosure Act on 11 July 2024 as S.Amdt.2610 to the FY2025 NDAA. Gillibrand and Heinrich joined as co-sponsors. The bill restored every provision that had been stripped: the independent review board, the eminent domain authority, the 25-year disclosure mandate. The amendment was not included in the final NDAA. The same opposition forces killed it. The pattern had become predictable.

In 2025, the effort split into two tracks. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) introduced a House version as an amendment to the FY2026 NDAA. Schumer, Rounds, and Gillibrand introduced S.Amdt.3111 in the Senate. Neither version was included in the final legislation. Dean Johnson reported on 9 September 2025 that the Disclosure Act would not be part of the FY2026 NDAA.

Three years. Three NDAA cycles. The same bill, refined but functionally identical. Each time, the Senate passed or supported it. Each time, the House killed it. The blockage sat in specific committee chairs and leadership offices, not in the broader Congress.

UAP Transparency Act (H.R.1187). Introduced by Rep. Tim Burchett on 11 February 2025. A simpler approach than the Disclosure Act: it requires the President to direct every federal agency holding UAP documents to declassify and publish them on a public website within 270 days. No review board, no eminent domain. Just release everything. GovTrack estimates a 15% chance of getting past committee.

UAP Whistleblower Protection Act (H.R.5060). Introduced by Burchett and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on 29 August 2025, twelve days before the September 2025 hearing. Protects federal employees, military personnel, and contractors from retaliation when they report the use of taxpayer funds for UAP-related programmes. Targeted at the specific problem described by Dylan Borland and David Grusch in their testimony: people who report what they know face career destruction.

AARO Shutdown Bill (H.R.8197). Introduced by Burchett on 6 April 2026. Terminates the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office within 60 days, transfers its functions across other DoD elements, and prohibits the creation of any centralised replacement. Born from frustration that AARO had accumulated over 2,000 open cases while providing minimal transparency. Both of its first two directors resigned.

On 19 February 2026, Trump posted on Truth Social directing the Secretary of War (formerly Secretary of Defense, after the department rename) and other agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to UAP. The order bypassed three years of congressional deadlock.

The resulting programme was called PURSUE: Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. Overseen by the Department of War, it launched a multi-agency effort to find, review, declassify, and publicly release UAP records through war.gov/UFO.

The first release came on 8 May 2026. 162 files covering reports, photographs, videos, witness accounts, military records, and astronaut transcripts from 1947 to the present.

The scientific reception was mixed. Avi Loeb reviewed the materials and found optical artefacts, blurry images, light smears, and obvious balloons. Others noted the first release appeared deliberately underwhelming, a low-risk opening tranche rather than the classified material Congress had spent three years trying to force out. Officials described it as the beginning of a rolling disclosure process.

The executive order achieved in weeks what Congress could not do in years. But it came with a fundamental limitation: executive orders can be revoked by future presidents. A legislative framework, had the Disclosure Act passed intact, would have been far harder to undo. The executive bypass was faster. It was also more fragile.

Four Republicans and three Democrats. The bill was bipartisan from its first day and remained so across all three attempts. The opposition was bipartisan too, but concentrated in specific committee chairs with direct oversight of defence and intelligence budgets.