UAP Policy & Oversight

Congress has established a permanent office to detect, identify, and resolve UAP; required regular reporting; created whistleblower and authorized-disclosure protections; and directed a government-wide records collection at the National Archives. These are enacted provisions of successive National Defense Authorization Acts.

The comprehensive “UAP Disclosure Act” — which would have created an independent review board and asserted federal control (including eminent domain) over recovered materials and technologies — has been proposed in multiple Congresses but never became law. Only its narrower records-collection provisions were enacted.

Public attention has centered on witness allegations of hidden recovery or reverse-engineering programs. Those allegations have not been substantiated by publicly available official evidence; the Defense Department’s own review office reports that it has found no verifiable evidence for them. This dossier keeps that distinction visible throughout.

AARO was established within the Department of Defense in 2022. Its statutory basis is Section 1683 of the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 117-81), codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373, which Congress subsequently amended in later defense-authorization laws.

50 U.S.C. §3373 ↗

By statute, AARO’s role is to detect, identify, and attribute objects of interest in, on, or near military installations and other areas of national-security concern, and to mitigate any associated threats — in short, to resolve anomalies and minimize technical and intelligence surprise.

AARO is led by Dr. Jon Kosloski, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s emerging-threats subcommittee in November 2024.

In its Historical Record Report and in congressional testimony, AARO has stated that it has found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government or private companies have recovered, concealed, or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology. This is the office’s analytic assessment of the record it has reviewed — an official judgment, not a matter this publication independently confirms.

Oversight runs primarily through the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (including its task force on the declassification of federal secrets), the Senate and House Armed Services Committees (particularly their emerging-threats subcommittees), and the congressional intelligence committees.

The FY2023 NDAA created protections and a secure channel for current and former federal employees and contractors to report UAP-related information to AARO, codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373b. This is the lawful route for insiders to bring forward information.

50 U.S.C. §3373b ↗

Created the standing UAP office (now AARO), codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373. Public Law 117-81, enacted December 27, 2021.

Expanded AARO’s mandate and established UAP authorized-disclosure and whistleblower protections, codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373b. Public Law 117-263, enacted December 23, 2022.

Directed a government-wide UAP Records Collection at the National Archives and set transmission requirements for federal agencies, codified at 44 U.S.C. §2107 note. Public Law 118-31, enacted December 22, 2023. The broader review-board and eminent-domain provisions of the proposed UAP Disclosure Act were not included in the enacted law.

The FY2026 NDAA (Public Law 119-60, enacted December 2025) further amended the AARO statute at 50 U.S.C. §3373, reflecting Congress’s continuing adjustment of the office’s authorities.

A House Oversight national-security subcommittee heard from former military and intelligence witnesses. Former intelligence officer David Grusch alleged the existence of a concealed crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program — an allegation he described as based largely on information relayed to him by others.

Claims of hidden recovery programs, “non-human” materials, and reverse engineering are allegations made on the record by witnesses. They have not been substantiated by any published federal investigation; AARO’s Historical Record Report is the government’s formal rebuttal. Federal Policy Monitor reports that such testimony was given — not that its contents are true.

A second House Oversight hearing heard further witness testimony pressing for greater transparency. As with the 2023 hearing, the witness assertions are allegations on the record, not established findings.

AARO Director Dr. Jon Kosloski testified before the Senate Armed Services emerging-threats subcommittee. His statement that AARO had found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial technology is the office’s assessment, delivered as testimony.

The House Oversight task force on the declassification of federal secrets held a further UAP hearing focused on transparency and whistleblower protection. Witness accounts remain testimony/allegation pending corroboration.

AARO’s review of U.S. government UAP activity from 1945 onward concluded that it found no verifiable evidence that the government has recovered or concealed extraterrestrial technology, and that many well-known claims traced to misidentification of genuine, often classified, programs. This is AARO’s assessment of the historical record.

AARO, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, issues annual consolidated reports cataloguing UAP cases reported to the government during each period. Successive reports have described most cases as resolvable to ordinary sources (aircraft, balloons, satellites, sensor artifacts) while noting that a minority remain unresolved, typically for lack of sufficient data rather than evidence of exotic technology.

NARA maintains Record Group 615, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection, created by Sections 1841–1843 of the FY2024 NDAA and codified at 44 U.S.C. §2107 note. It gathers UAP-related records from across the federal government into a single, publicly accessible collection.

National Archives — RG 615 ↗

Per the National Archives, contributing agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Department of State, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Federal agencies were directed to transmit qualifying records to NARA under a statutory deadline of September 30, 2025, and NARA describes the collection as released on an ongoing, rolling basis through the National Archives Catalog rather than as a single disclosure event.

National Archives — UAP records FAQ ↗

RG 615 is a records-transparency mechanism: it makes government documents about UAP available for public research. It does not adjudicate the truth of any claim, and the presence of a record in the collection reflects that an agency held the document — not that its contents are established fact.

The DoD Inspector General evaluated the Department’s actions on UAP and, in an unclassified summary released in 2024, found that the Department lacked a coordinated, department-wide approach and recommended that it establish consistent policy and procedures. The finding concerns governance and coordination — it did not substantiate any claim about the nature or origin of UAP.

DoD IG report page ↗

A bipartisan “UAP Disclosure Act,” led in the Senate by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds, proposed an independent review board to oversee declassification and asserted federal control — including eminent domain — over recovered UAP materials and technologies. It was first advanced as an amendment to the FY2024 NDAA.

In the enacted FY2024 NDAA, the review-board and eminent-domain provisions were dropped; only the narrower records-collection provisions (§§1841–1843) survived. Versions of the full Disclosure Act have been reintroduced in subsequent Congresses but have not been enacted. As of 2026, the comprehensive disclosure regime remains proposed, not law.

Where organizations register to lobby on UAP transparency or disclosure legislation, those engagements appear in public LDA filings. Federal Policy Monitor tracks lobbying registrations and terminations in The Lobbying Ledger and is building its issue-level index to surface activity by policy area. This module is architecture-ready; it does not assert specific filings that have not been verified against the official record.

The Lobbying Ledger ↗

Our explainer walks through the same framework in narrative form — the office, the statutes, the reporting requirements, the hearings, the oversight, and the records collection — and why the official-fact / testimony distinction matters.

Read the explainer ↗