Legislation
The following pieces of US legislation represent the current legal framework for Congress’ regulation of and investigation into the UAP topic over the past several years. Bills, amendments and laws are divided into sections for:
- Legislation that was passed and made into law in previous years;
- Current legislation that is in effect (building on and modifying earlier laws);
- Pending legislation that is currently being worked on and considered by Congress, or is awaiting sign-off by the President (if both the House of Representatives and Senate have passed it).
Past Legislation
Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year 2021
A brief provision in language surrounding this bill mandated that the Office of Naval Intelligence’s UAP Task Force issue an unclassified report on UAP to Congress within 180 days of the enactment of the Act. This resulted in the UAPTF’s June 25, 2021 Preliminary Assessment on UAP.
Date of Passage: Unclear (bill language that was released was marked as “June 17, 2020–Ordered to be printed”)
Public Law 117–81 (S.1605) – National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022
Date of Passage: December 27, 2021
Section: 1683 (Establishment of Office, Organizational Structure, and Authorities to Address Unidentified Aerial Phenomena)
US Code: 50 U.S. Code § 3373 – Establishment of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
The FY22 NDAA was the first significant piece of legislation that began to define recent government regulation surrounding UAP, following up on the FY20 IAA UAP reporting requirement. These regulations were updated in the subsequent FY23 NDAA.
The bill incorporated an amendment introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), which established a Congressionally-mandated UAP office within DoD.
DoD had actually pre-empted the legislative requirement to create such an office when they announced the creation of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) in the weeks before the passage of the FY22 NDAA. Some observers publicly speculated that this was perhaps to stave off growing Congressional oversight of UAP, and demonstrate that DoD was already suitably engaged with the topic.
The following are the primary activities of the office, as stipulated by Congress:
- Study UAP, develop a UAP science plan, and try to come to some conclusions about the nature of the phenomena being observed;
- Collect UAP reports from across various agencies within the DoD, and present summaries and analysis in annual public and classified reports (Note: The first annual report’s deadline of October 31, 2022 was missed by AOIMSG, and by the time it was delivered in January of ‘23 AOIMSG had evolved into AARO, as per the FY23 NDAA which had been passed by that point);
- Provide semi-annual classified briefings to Congress on the status of UAP investigations;
- Coordinate UAP activities between DoD and other Federal agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NASA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Department of Energy (DoE).
The law also created a specific legal definition for the term UAP:
- Airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable;
- Transmedium objects or devices, meaning objects or devices that are observed to transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water, that are not immediately identifiable;
- Submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting that the objects or devices may be related to the objects or devices described above.
- Finally, the law stipulated which Congressional leaders and committees DoD should provide with classified briefings and reports regarding UAP moving forward.
Current Legislation
Public Law 117–263 (H.R.7776) – James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023
Date of Passage: December 23, 2022
Sections: 1673 (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Reporting Procedures), 6802 (Modification of Requirement for Office to Address Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), and 6803 (Comptroller General of the United States Audits and Briefings on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Historical Record Report)
US Code: 50 U.S. Code § 3373 – Establishment of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
Passage of the FY23 NDAA provided updates to Federal UAP legislation that were initially established in FY22.
These updates included the establishment of a secure reporting system within the Congressionally-mandated UAP office for any UAP-related event intersecting with an element of DoD, as well as any program or activity across any government agency relating to UAP (including potential reverse-engineering programs). If any such reports indicate the existence of programs that have not been properly briefed to Congressional intelligence committees, those committees must be informed within 72 hours.
Coupled with this provision is a set of whistleblower protections for those filing such reports to DoD’s UAP office, should they face reprisals.
The DoD UAP office was renamed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution office, or AARO, by the law. It further defined various aspects of the organization including several key staff positions, and a direct reporting chain for the director of the office up to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
The law also modified the term UAP to mean Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The legal definition remained identical to that of the FY22 NDAA, which had used Unidentified Aerial Phenomena for UAP.
The final major requirement of the law is for AARO to engage in a major historical UAP review to uncover any and all information relating to UAP across the government, and to issue a report on this review no later than 540 days after passage (equating to June 15, 2024). The covered timeframe for this investigation is January 1, 1945, up through the time of the report’s submission.
Pending Legislation
S.2103 – Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year 2024
Date of Latest Submission: June 22, 2023
Section: 1104 (Funding Limitations Relating to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)
One provision in this pending legislation moves to cut off funding for any clandestine UAP-related program receiving financing from the government that is not being properly briefed to Congress.
Another requires that Federal contractors who are in possession of any recovered UAP materials must make them available to official channels in DoD within 180 days of the bill’s passage. Protections are granted to contractors and their employees who make such materials available, even if previously unreported programs received improper funding, or were not properly briefed to Congress previously as required by law.
S.2226 – National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024
Date of Initial Submission: June 22, 2023
Section: 1546 (Funding Limitation on Certain Unreported Programs)
Similar to what’s been proposed in the FY24 IAA, the initial version of the FY24 NDAA that was submitted contains language moving to cut off funding for any UAP program not properly briefed to Congress as per existing legal requirements. Likewise, protections are offered for those who report improper activities and programs relating to UAP.
Date of Latest Submission: July 18, 2023
Amendment: 836 (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023)
This sweeping amendment, presented by a prominent and bipartisan group of Senators including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is stunning in both its scope and its specificity in its establishment of a set of protocols for the broad declassification of government records relating to UAP. It was modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_John_F._Kennedy_Assassination_Records_Collection_Act_of_1992] of 1992.
A review board would be created that holds broad investigative powers and high-level security clearances, in order to seek out information regarding UAP across the Federal government that has not been previously released to the public. Records are to be transmitted to a special repository at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
While the review board will make recommendations for declassification of UAP records, ultimate authority to release such records would lie with the President. Any denials must be reported to Congress, including in unclassified form. This would presumably make sure the public is informed that records regarding UAP are being withheld by the Chief Executive of the United States.
Beyond records, the amendment grants the review board powers to visit any facilities that may house recovered UAP materials, and review them in situ.
The board must develop a so-called “Controlled Disclosure Campaign Plan,” a process for sharing with the American people potentially significant information regarding a number of things the bill defines:
- Non-Human Intelligence – Any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.
- Technologies of Unknown Origin – Any materials or meta-materials, ejecta, crash debris, mechanisms, machinery, equipment, assemblies or subassemblies, engineering models or processes, damaged or intact aerospace vehicles, and damaged or intact ocean-surface and undersea craft associated with unidentified anomalous phenomena or incorporating science and technology that lacks prosaic attribution or known means of human manufacture.
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer-space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces, or undersea lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable based upon commonly accepted physical principles. Unidentified anomalous phenomena are differentiated from both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables:
- Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia
- Hypersonic velocity absent a thermal signature and sonic shockwave
- Transmedium (such as space-to-ground and air-to-undersea) travel
- Positive lift contrary to known aero- dynamic principles
- Multispectral signature control
- Physical or invasive biological effects to close observers and the environment
The term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena includes objects that have been previously described as:
- flying discs
- flying saucers
- unidentified aerial phenomena
- unidentified flying objects (UFOs)
- unidentified submerged objects (USOs)
The terms of review board members expire September 30, 2030, and can be extended if required.
The amendment grants the government eminent domain regarding any recovered materials associated with Non-Human Intelligence, Technologies of Unknown Origin, or UAP. This means it would have the absolute legal right to reclaim any such materials from contractors or other private entities who may have them in their possession.
This investigation and record-gathering operation is funded to the tune of $20,000,000 for FY2024 alone, demonstrating that the Senate does not want lack of resources to impede its progress.
Finally, included is a “Sense of Congress” statement, indicating the overall tone the Legislative branch is trying to set with this amendment. The scope literally includes top officials of the US government doing what they can to foster a worldwide movement toward broad UAP disclosure. From the bill:
“It is the sense of the Congress that—
(1) the Attorney General should assist the Review Board in good faith to unseal any records that the Review Board determines to be relevant and held under seal by a court or under the injunction of secrecy of a grand jury;
(2) the Secretary of State should contact any foreign government that may hold material relevant to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, or non-human intelligence and seek disclosure of such material; and
(3) all heads of Executive agencies should cooperate in full with the Review Board to seek the disclosure of all material relevant to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence consistent with the public interest.”
All reports indicate that the Senate has been receiving significant UAP-related whistleblower testimony from a number of credible individuals, including military aviators and radar operators, nuclear missile commanders, and high level intelligence officials such as David Grusch, who in early June 2023 went public with claims that the government has been covering up vast amounts of information on UAP.
Grusch alleged that this includes a number of recovered objects, and even bodies of the operators of such objects, representing some form of non-human intelligence. Grusch was part of the UAP Task Force, and held high-level positions with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), as well as being a decorated military combatant.
Based on the breadth and depth of the provisions set out in the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023, it would seem Senators may be receiving classified information of a potentially paradigm-shifting nature that the public is not yet privy to – information that is currently being closely guarded by the Executive Branch.