The 2025 UAP Transparency Hearings and the Disclosure Act

This is the part of the story that is still being written, in committee rooms rather than the sky. Following it means separating the hearings, the headline bill, and what has actually become law.

The September 2025 hearing

In September 2025, a House task force held a hearing titled Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection. Witnesses, including military veterans and a longtime investigative journalist, described encounters and argued that people with knowledge of UAP programs need stronger legal protection to come forward without retaliation. Lawmakers used the session to request additional records and video from the relevant offices, continuing the oversight push that began with the 2023 hearing.

What the Disclosure Act would do

The bill borrows its structure from the 1990s law that released the Kennedy files. Its main features are:

• Create an official UAP Records Collection at the National Archives and bar the destruction or alteration of relevant records.
• Establish an independent review board to decide what records can be released.
• Require disclosure of records within a set number of years unless the executive branch certifies a clear national security reason to keep specific items classified.
• In its fuller drafts, allow the government to take custody of recovered materials held by private parties, a provision that drew particular attention.

What has actually passed

This is where careful reading matters. The strong 2023 version was largely stripped during negotiations on the annual defense bill, leaving a much narrower provision in law. The 2025 version was reintroduced as amendments to the defense bill in both chambers. Lawmakers have since adopted several incremental UAP measures, including a requirement for the Pentagon's anomaly office to brief Congress on the number, location, and nature of UAP intercepts by the commands that defend North American airspace, and steps to streamline how agencies share data with that office. The marquee piece, the independent review board with full authority, has not been enacted as written.

The debate, kept neutral

Supporters, drawn from both parties, argue that decades of secrecy have eroded public trust and that maximum transparency is overdue. Skeptics and some security officials counter that a broad records mandate risks exposing genuine national security programs and the people behind them. The disagreement is less about whether UAP are interesting and more about how to weigh openness against legitimate secrecy. That balance is exactly what the current US administration, Congress, and the agencies are still negotiating.