Government and military
Hearings, briefings, letters and laws, from the 1966 House hearing to the 2025 task force. 122 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Congress and hearings as a timeline
Government22 Jul 2026
The House adopted Rep. Eric Burlison's UAP Disclosure Act as an amendment to the FY2027 defense bill. It would set up a review board with subpoena power and require agencies and contractors to send UAP records to the National Archives. The bill then went to the Senate.
Photo: Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government31 Mar 2026
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who chairs a House Oversight task force on declassification, wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listing 46 UAP video files, citing whistleblowers who said AARO held more footage. She asked for delivery by April 14, 2026.
Photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government18 Dec 2025
The FY2026 defense authorization law requires AARO briefings to cover UAP intercepts by NORAD and Northern Command, including ones back to 2004, repeals a duplicate reporting rule, and orders an accounting of UAP security classification guides.
Government2 Dec 2025
Asked on Fox News about The Age of Disclosure, Rubio said his interview was filmed years earlier as a senator and relayed what witnesses had told him, not firsthand knowledge. He said his main worry was an adversary's surveillance capability over restricted airspace.
Photo: U.S. Department of State, Public domain
Government9 Sep 2025
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's House Oversight task force heard sworn testimony from Navy and Air Force witnesses and journalist George Knapp. Rep. Eric Burlison showed a video he said was filmed off Yemen in October 2024 of a Hellfire missile apparently failing to down an object.
Photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government17 Jul 2025
The Senate Intelligence Committee reported S. 2342, the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2026. Its Section 323 consolidated reporting requirements for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and directed that UAP-related data be made available to AARO.
Photo: United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Public domain
Government19 Feb 2025
The House Oversight Committee said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's new Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets had asked the administration for briefings on records about UAP and unidentified submerged objects, alongside files on the JFK assassination and other topics.
Photo: US House of Representatives, Public domain
Military13 Feb 2025
At a Senate Armed Services posture hearing, Gen. Gregory Guillot of U.S. Northern Command said 350 drone detections were reported on military installations the year before, across about 100 installations, and that he saw surveillance of sensitive capabilities as the main threat.
Photo: U.S. Air Force, Public domain
Government11 Feb 2025
House Oversight Chairman James Comer named Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to lead a six-month task force on declassifying federal records. Its announced remit put UAPs alongside the JFK, RFK and MLK assassination files, the Epstein files, COVID-19 origins and 9/11.
Photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government11 Feb 2025
Rep. Tim Burchett introduced H.R. 1187 in the 119th Congress. It would have the President direct agencies to declassify and post their UAP records online within 270 days, with progress reports to Congress. It repeats a bill he first filed in May 2024 and was referred to the Oversight Committee.
Photo: U.S. House of Representatives, Public domain
Government28 Jan 2025
At the first press briefing of President Trump's second term, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the drones seen over New Jersey were authorized by the FAA for research and other reasons, with many flown by hobbyists. She gave no details on who operated them.
Photo: The White House, Public domain
Government23 Dec 2024
The FY2025 defense bill became Public Law 118-159. Its intelligence division has a UAP title ordering a Government Accountability Office review of AARO and sunsetting audit requirements for AARO's historical report; the bill also has AARO liaise with a new counter-drone task force.
Photo: U. S. Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Public domain
Government21 Dec 2024
The American Relief Act, 2025, a stopgap spending law approved Dec. 21, 2024, extended DHS and Justice Department authority to counter drones over protected sites from Dec. 20, 2024 to March 14, 2025. Officials had asked Congress for more drone powers during the New Jersey sightings.
Government16 Dec 2024
DHS, the FBI, FAA and Pentagon said the FBI had received more than 5,000 drone tips, about 100 of which produced leads. They said sightings were lawful drones, manned aircraft, helicopters and stars, that nothing anomalous had been found, and asked Congress for counter-drone powers.
Photo: Chetsford, Public domain
Government15 Dec 2024
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC's This Week that officials knew of no foreign involvement in the Northeast sightings. He said some were real drones and others manned aircraft, linked the rise partly to night-flight rules, and asked Congress for wider powers.
Photo: Zachary Hupp/U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Public domain
Government15 Dec 2024
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Department of Homeland Security to deploy a recently declassified radio-wave tracking system to identify drones reported over New York and New Jersey and their operators, noting state and local police lacked authority to track them.
Photo: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio/Jeff McEvoy, Public domain
Government12 Dec 2024
At a White House briefing, national security spokesman John Kirby said there was no evidence the New Jersey sightings posed a security or safety threat or had a foreign link. He said many appeared to be lawful manned aircraft and urged Congress to expand counter-drone authority.
Photo: The White House, Public domain
Government11 Dec 2024
Senators Andy Kim, Cory Booker, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote to DHS, the FBI and the FAA asking for an immediate briefing on how they were working with police to identify the source of night drone sightings over New Jersey and New York.
Photo: Chetsford, Public domain
GovernmentDec 2024
For the second year running, the Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act, including its independent review board, failed to make it into the final National Defense Authorization Act, reported The Debrief in December 2024.
Photo: The White House, Public domain
Whistleblowers22 Nov 2024
The Sol Foundation, a UAP think tank founded by Stanford academics, held its second annual symposium on Nov. 22-23, 2024. Speakers included former NOAA head Tim Gallaudet, a former Senate Armed Services staffer, and scientists Garry Nolan, Avi Loeb and Jacques Vallee.
Government19 Nov 2024
AARO director Jon Kosloski testified to the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee in an open and closed hearing on the office's activities, days after its FY2024 annual report was released.
Photo: All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Public domain
Government19 Nov 2024
At a Senate hearing, AARO released December 2018 infrared drone video that seemed to show an object passing through Mount Etna's eruption plume. AARO said atmospheric distortion caused the effect and assessed with moderate confidence the object was a balloon drifting with the wind.
Photo: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, Public domain
Government13 Nov 2024
Two House Oversight subcommittees held a joint hearing at which Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Gold and Michael Shellenberger testified under oath. The witnesses alleged excessive secrecy around UAP and urged more disclosure and better reporting.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
Whistleblowers13 Nov 2024
Journalist Michael Shellenberger's written House testimony described an anonymous whistleblower report alleging a hidden Pentagon program, 'Immaculate Constellation', that gathers UAP imagery. A Defense Department spokesperson said it has no record of any such program; the claim is unverified.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
Military30 Oct 2024
At a September 2025 House Oversight hearing, Rep. Eric Burlison played a video he said was taken on October 30, 2024 by an MQ-9 tracking an orb off Yemen as another MQ-9 fired a Hellfire missile that appeared to strike it. The video's source was not officially authenticated at the hearing.
Photo: House Creative Services, Public domain
