The US government should tell the public what it knows about UFOs | Trevor Timm

It doesn’t matter the topic, there always seems to be a group of lawmakers who will stop at nothing to thwart government transparency – even when it’s a subject that could not be more bipartisan or in an obvious need for sunlight.

This time, a small cadre of powerful Republicans have reportedly killed a provision in this year’s defense authorization that would finally bring some transparency to the US government’s knowledge around UFOs (now also known by the updated parlance of “unidentified aerial phenomena”, or UAPs).

Over the summer, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, introduced a UFO transparency bill on the heels of testimony given to Congress b the retired air force officer David Grusch, who made several shocking claims about the US being in possession of alien spacecraft for decades. As Schumer described his bill “the measure would create a board just like with the JFK assassination records to work through the declassification of the many government records on UAPs … This model has been a terrific success for decades and should be used with UAPs”.

Some took Grusch’s testimony very seriously, others viewed him as a crackpot, still others in between. Since it would take a lot more words than this column to litigate his myriad extraordinary claims, let’s forget about him for a moment and focus on what we do know for a fact about the general subject of unidentified flying objects.

For decades, both military and commercial pilots have logged countless sightings of UFOs while flying that defy conventional or scientific explanation. The US government has studied the UFO phenomenon on and off since the 1950s and has kept at least some of what it knows secret. (Read journalist and author Garrett Graff’s meticulously researched and very fact-based new book on the subject.) Recently the US government itself has released several videos of these incidents, which has further fueled public interest and speculation about whether the incidents were extraterrestrial.

Then, it was only nine months ago, shortly after a Chinese spy balloon floated over American airspace, that UFOs became front page news across the country. After the balloon was taken down, and with the air force on high alert and its radar systems tweaked to extra sensitivity, a series of UFOs were tracked and some even shot with US military Sidewinder missiles over both the United States and Canada.

For a few days there was wall-to-wall coverage of these incidents, and the White House was holding press conferences to specifically address it. Members of the military were telling reporters that the objects were not balloons like the one China had lost control of, some reported at least one of the objects “interfered with [pilot’s] sensors” and had no visible propulsion 40,000ft in the air. The military spent millions of dollars to shoot them down, and closed a huge swath of airspace when they thought they spotted more. No one had a definitive explanation of what they were.

And then poof! Everyone seemed to forget about it. The government never released video or photos of the objects it tracked (even though they obviously must have had some footage). They initially claimed they couldn’t recover any wreckage. When reporters and other concerned citizens attempted to Foia the evidence they were stonewalled completely, with the Pentagon claiming it was all classified. By then, the press had moved on and the Biden administration or the Pentagon hasn’t faced an ounce of scrutiny on the issue from mainstream publications since.

It’s clearly in the public interest to get to the bottom of incidents like these, whether you believe these objects are of extraterrestrial origin or not. As Schumer himself said, “Unidentified aerial phenomena has generated intense curiosity from many Americans, and the risk for confusion and misinformation is high if the government is not willing to be transparent.” It also couldn’t be further from a partisan issue, as the bill had several Republicans in support of it. So why did this small group of Republicans – including the House speaker, head of the House intelligence committee and the Senate minority leader – kill this thing?

One explanation is that these specific congressmen are in on a decades-long cover-up, yet somehow the long-serving Senate majority leader isn’t. I have a different theory: these congressmen also don’t necessarily know what is going on, but they are so addicted to government secrecy that they will reflexively fight for it, even when they have no rational reason. They fear creating a framework for more transparency, knowing if it’s a success it could possibly spur more legislative action in a similar vein.

The JFK Records Act, which Schumer referenced as his inspiration, is an aberration in our modern history; it passed more than 30 years ago and there’s been nothing like it since. On most subjects, it’s impossible to get the government to quickly declassify documents – even when it’s of vital public interest. If this new provision would become law, we would then have an updated model for other areas of the government that Congress could target for declassification if they so choose.

Say, for example, a commission on price gouging in the Pentagon that could expose tens of billions in fraud, or commissions who could more quickly declassify the various spying powers that are constantly abused by the NSA and FBI. The House intelligence committee, which seemingly exists to protect our intelligence agencies from scrutiny, is going to do everything in its power to stop that.

The truth may be out there. But believers and skeptics alike should be able to unite on one thing: force the government to reveal what it knows and what it doesn’t know. We will all be better off.

• Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation