The UAP Disclosure Act: what it says and where it stands

Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), then Senate majority leader, and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) introduced the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act in July 2023 as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the defense policy law Congress passes every year. It is modeled on the 1992 JFK Records Act, which forced the release of files on President Kennedy's assassination. The core ideas have stayed the same in every version since:

The bill defines non-human intelligence as "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." It was the first time the phrase appeared in proposed US law, and it is a big reason the bill draws so much attention.

A definition is not a finding. The text never says such beings exist, and the eminent domain section covers recovered material only "should it exist." More on the term in what non-human intelligence means.

The Senate passed its 2024 defense bill with the Act included in July 2023. The House version had nothing like it, and in the closed negotiations that merge the two bills (the "conference"), the Review Board and the eminent domain clause were cut. What survived is Sections 1841–1843 of the FY2024 NDAA (Public Law 118-31), signed on December 22, 2023.

Those sections created the UAP Records Collection at the National Archives (Record Group 615) and ordered agencies to find and transfer their UAP records by October 2024, with the same 25-year rule. The difference is who decides: under current law, the agency that classified a record judges whether it can be released. In 2025 the Archives released records transferred to it by the Pentagon, the intelligence director's office, the FAA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Schumer said it was "beyond disappointing" that the House refused to accept the rest. Rounds called the loss of the board and of the eminent domain clause the deal's most significant shortcomings.

Schumer and Rounds filed the Act again in July 2024 for the 2025 defense bill, and in July 2025 for the 2026 bill (Senate amendment 3111, joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand). Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) filed a House version in 2025. Neither final law included it.

The FY2026 NDAA, signed on December 18, 2025, carried only smaller UAP items, such as briefings for Congress on UAP intercepts by NORAD and Northern Command since 2004.

On July 22, 2026, the House adopted Burlison's version (amendment No. 315) inside a package of 54 amendments approved by voice vote, then passed the whole defense bill, H.R. 8800, 216–212. The House text is the full Act: the Records Collection, a Senate-confirmed Review Board, eminent domain, deadlines of 60 days for the Archives and 300 days for agencies, and a repeal of the weaker 2023 sections it would replace. Burlison's office says it would also put the administration's PURSUE releases on war.gov/UFO on a legal footing; we track those on our UFO files page.

In the Senate, Schumer filed the Act again on June 24, 2026 as amendment 6344 to the Senate bill, S. 4784, with Rounds as a cosponsor. But the Senate bill never reached the floor: a vote to begin debate failed 50–46 on July 14, short of the 60 needed, so no amendment has been voted on.

Fiscal 2027 began on October 1 without a defense law. The final text is expected to be negotiated by the Armed Services leaders of both chambers after the November 3 midterm elections, and the NDAA usually passes in December. Because the Act is only in the House bill, it lives or dies in that negotiation.

In 2023, news reports named two House Republican committee chairs as the main force behind cutting the bill in conference: Mike Rogers of Armed Services and Mike Turner, then chair of the Intelligence Committee. Neither laid out a detailed public case.

The objections reported at the time were the seizure of private property, subpoena power for an outside board, overlap with the Pentagon's UFO office, AARO, and which committees should oversee the subject. Some supporters suspect the cuts were meant to protect defense contractors or secret programs; no evidence of that has been made public. Rounds said in June 2026 that he expects the same concerns and that the way to learn who objects is to "offer it again and then find out who will object to it."

If the final NDAA keeps the House text, agencies would have to search for UAP records and send them to the Archives on fixed deadlines, an outside board rather than the record holders would decide what stays secret, and anyone holding recovered material of unknown origin would have to give it up. Records would then appear over months and years, not on the day the bill is signed.

It would not confirm that aliens, crashed craft or bodies exist. The President would keep the final word on continued secrecy, the board would first need nominations and Senate confirmation, and national security grounds for withholding would remain. For what the government has and hasn't confirmed so far, see our status page.