Shocking UFO allegations make the case for the Disclosure Act

Amid the political spectacle of the election, former President Donald Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast and spoke a bout UFOs. According to Trump, Air Force pilots told him how mysterious spherical objects outperformed one of the most advanced fighter jets America has.

Similar accounts date back to at least the 1940s. More recently, military encounters with spherical objects and other unknown craft that exhibit seemingly extraordinary capabilities generated a series of eyebrow-raising headlines.

But a host of other, ostensibly credible UFO-related allegations is even more remarkable.

Last month, Kirk McConnell, a recently retired 37-year veteran professional staff member on the House and Senate intelligence committees, confirmed publicly that whistleblowers provided firsthand testimony to Congress alleging the existence of ultra-secret programs that retrieve and seek to reverse engineer advanced craft of unknown or non-human origin.

McConnell is not alone. He joins Sen Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; former House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.); and ex-intelligence official David Grusch, who have all stated publicly that individuals with firsthand knowledge have confirmed the existence of such efforts to Congress or to the internal watchdog that oversees America’s spy agencies.

Such remarkable statements provide important context for what is arguably the most extraordinary legislation ever proposed in Congress.

Introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act defines “non-human intelligence,” “technologies of unknown origin” and “legacy program.”

As characterized in the bipartisan Disclosure Act, “legacy program” refers to any “endeavors to collect, exploit, or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence.” The term “non-human intelligence” appears two dozen times throughout the 64-page legislation.

The Disclosure Act would also require the U.S. government to take possession of “any and all” recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of non-human intelligence” transferred to private defense contractors.

In an extraordinary exchange with Rounds on the Senate floor, Schumer stated that “multiple credible sources” have alleged that elements of the U.S. government have illegally withheld information on UFOs from Congress.

Of equal importance, key members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in tandem with other seemingly credible sources, have indicated that some of America’s rivals may also have retrieved technologies of unknown origin.

If, for example, China and Russia have recovered such highly advanced technology, the profound geopolitical implications — including enormous risks to global security and stability — must be addressed proactively and without delay.

At the same time, according to investigative reporter Michael Shellenberger, a new, unnamed whistleblower provided a detailed report to Congress describing a secret government program to “detect, quarantine, and transfer” observations of UFOs by the military’s most advanced sensors to a secret database.

Dubbed “Immaculate Constellation,” the alleged program serves simultaneously as a master repository of radar, infrared, satellite and other UFO observations from sensitive sensor platforms, as well as an internal security process for keeping such data outside of normal military and intelligence communications channels.

If ultra-sensitive UFO data is indeed isolated and sequestered in such a secret database, it may, for example, explain how the Pentagon’s UFO analysis office can plausibly claim that it has received very little truly anomalous data.

At the same time, virtually every former living president, along with a bipartisan cohort of former CIA chiefs, ex-directors of national intelligence and top military officials, has made astounding statements about UFOs in recent years.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, for example, stated in late 2020 that a “different form of life” may be behind recent military UFO incidents. Six months later, former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe said that UFOs exhibit technologies “that we don’t have and, frankly, that we are not capable of defending against.”

Moreover, a series of brazen incursions around sensitive military facilities — including nuclear missile silos — by objects exhibiting seemingly advanced capabilities has left the U.S. government thoroughly baffled.

Notably, by displaying bright flashing lights and flying in various formations, these objects are operating with seemingly brazen impunity around key military assets. Regardless of the nature of these incursions — be they bizarrely theatrical foreign intelligence gathering operations or otherwise — Congress must demand answers from the military and intelligence community.

With the House and Senate both slated to conduct UFO-related hearings in November, Congress has its work cut out for it. At a bare minimum, the sweeping government transparency and disclosure measures mandated by the Disclosure Act make it must-pass legislation.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense.