The Murky Workd of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena in Congress
In the U.S, the battle rages between congress people working for transparency around the UAP phenomena and alleged keepers of secrets.
Matt Laslo, from ‘Ask a Pol’, a Sentinel News partner in Washington, is the journalist who is not afraid to ask questions about UFOs on Capitol Hill. He has been asking law-makers what they think about President Trump’s announcement of the declassification of UAP files.
On April the 8th, Laslo asked Senator Kirsten Gillibrand , long-standing member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), what she thought about President Donald Trump’s call for the federal government to make UFO files available to the public. She replied it was great. When asked if the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) would be involved, she said she didn’t know but tweeted the president to ask.
Her aide interjected that ‘it’s redundant,because we already passed it in the NDAA and that stuff has to be made public’.
The ‘NDAA’ he referred to is also called the “Schumer Amendment“, after its co-author, Senate majority Leader (at the time) Chuck (Charles) Schumer. The other author of the bill is Senator Mike Rounds. The bill reflected congressional concern that information about UAPs and Non-Human-Intelligences (NHI) had been withheld from the American public. It aimed at immediate disclosure of US government records regarding UAP technologies and NHI (which were mentioned 24 times in the bill). All records, unless they fell under very particular restrictions, were to be provided to the National Archives, which would create an independent review board.
The bill also provided ‘imminent domain’ which meant that in the name of transparency, all recovered UAPs and NHI ‘biologics’ (bodies or part of bodies) currently in the possession of private contractors would become National property. It is the issue that faced the most push-back and eventually led the bill being rejected and its very watered-down version to be adopted instead. If passed, the bill would have put AARO in charge of overseeing the transfer of data.
On the programme “News Nation ‘ Q&A’ on 26 April 2026, Ross Coulthart strongly contested Senator Gillibrand’s aide’s claim and reminded the audience that the original UAP disclosure bill had been ‘watered down’ in Congress and that what remained of it did not meet the requirements set out by the President on Truth Social, namely that there would be disclosure of UAPs. The new, watered-down version of the 2023 UAP Disclosure Act forms part of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for the 2024 financial year. It mandates the public disclosure of federal documents concerning “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAPs) and “non-human intelligence” (NHI). It mandates the creation of a centralised public collection at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), with a presumption of disclosure, aimed at bringing to light decades of government knowledge whilst addressing potential threats to national security. The amendment no longer obliges private companies or special access programs to release information or recovered materials. As of April 2026, it is understood that whilst some agencies have released some documents, not all have, and it is unknown what is still waiting to be handed over to the National Archives.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is amongst the most prominent contributors in congress to the disclosure and transparency push about UFOs, as long as it is under the authority of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). She was instrumental in its creation, is committed to making it a more efficient organisation and to keep the conversation in congress in order to reduce stigma in reporting and ensure UAP records are properly disclosed and made available to the public.
Following President Donald Trump’s announcement that the UAP files would be declassified, and the subsequent creation by the U.S. government of the ‘alien.gov’ and ‘aliens.gov’ domain names, very few congresspeople have dared to speak out in public. So, when…
On April 9th, Matt Laslo asked representative Andy Ogles :
‘Is the White House trolling us by registering Aliens.gov, or is it a genuine signal that UFO disclosure is coming?...
It was a surprise to hear him reply:
“There’s been so much chatter, and there’s so many people coming forward that the administration, President Trump, just wants to lay a baseline and he wants to be honest with it,” Rep. Andy Ogles exclusively tells Ask a Pol UAP. “He likes to break the mold, right? And so being the guy that revealed the truth — whatever the truth is — that’d be historic, right? So, I mean, that’s exactly who President Trump is. There’s some pretty compelling stuff out there. Now, how much of it they release, we’ll see’. He didn’t say what the ‘stuff out there’ is…
There’s someone in congress who’s always happy to talk about UAP’s, though…
On April 10th, Representative and UAP Caucus chair Tim Burchett didn’t wait to be asked a question and launched into a statement about ex-representative Matt Gaetz’ explosive revelations ‘being crazy’. He was referring to the declaration by Gaetz that he was briefed by a U.S. army whistle-blower about a secret program of alien-human hybridisation allegedly using captured extra-terrestrials and abducted humans from migrant or war-zone communities. The whistle-blower allegedly revealed that there were between six and twelve such facilities in the U.S. Gaetz admitted that he did not verify the information but was later told by White House representatives that the disclosure was ‘anti-christian’. Burchett insisted that Gaetz did not say it was happening for sure, but merely that he was told it did.
The US society is very steeped in Judeo-Christianism, and the idea of hybridisation between humans and extra-terrestrials is enduring in the American mythos. In the Old Testament, the ‘Watchers’, gigantic and powerful beings said to be ‘the sons of God’ interbred with humans, creating the ‘nephilim’.
Matt Laslo moved on with his question:
‘The congressional UAP Caucus has been really outspoken lately on classified info. Is that because you all are banking on disclosure coming from President Donald Trump?’
The UAP Caucus is a focused group within the U.S. Congress dedicated to the study, disclosure and policy development surrounding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
Burchett replied that they are all frustrated and when asked if he thought that disclosure is coming, he expressed doubts: He added that the only chance of success was if someone managed to convince the president to release the information before the other side convinced him of the contrary, and if ‘he pulls a classic Trump and does what he wants to do, which in that case…I would love that’
He added : “I told him, look, it’s so many levels of this thing — you got to peel back that onion. I said we need to get to the bottom of it. He was very receptive.”
Laslo then asked if the White House knew where to look, Burchett replied :
‘I told my liaison at the White House, he was asking me, ‘what do we — what do y’all want to do?’ And I said, ‘well, we need to go meet with the President’ and put him with some people that can tell him where to look and what to ask for.’’
Laslo suggested that UFO files might be held by military contractors, and could be outside the reach of the government. Burchett acquiesced : ‘’That’s why they’ve done it. It’s un-FOIA-able — that’s why I think it’s going to be almost next to impossible unless Trump grants them some sort of amnesty to come forward’‘.
‘FOIA’ stands for ‘Freedom of Information Act’. It is a 1967 US federal law allowing any person to request access to federal agency records, ensuring government transparency. There are exceptions such as national security or personal privacy.
Laslo mentioned that other UAP Caucus members want to replace AARO, while Burchett just wants to blow it up, and Burchett replied : ‘’Yes. I just think it needs to go. And we’ve gotten some blowback. Somebody called the office saying maybe we could restructure it or something. I’m just tired of restructuring the government. We just end up with the same dad-gum thing every time. I just want to do away with it. I just think it’s time’‘
As reported by Sentinel News, Representative Anna Paulina Luna has now called for the defunding of AARO.
In an interview with News Nation on April 17th in which his demeanour was more grave and somber than usual, Burchett confided that he has seen some incredible things and that ‘Americans are ready and they should see this stuff’. He advocates for the public to be able to find out what pilots report to have seen. He mentions that critics will say it is AI, but ‘why would pilots take the risk of losing their credibility and having psychological evaluations for something they are faking? But now we’ve got officers in the Navy seeing these very large objects on sonar travelling at a very high rate of speed. Something that’s exponentially faster than anything we can accomplish. You got to realize that you have an object out there in the ocean that hovers, above the ocean in the air that hovers for could be hours on end. We have nothing with that capability. You’d run out of fuel and then when they take off they just go straight up and the power to do that is something like the energy it takes to fuel Los Angeles. I mean it is that incredible and I just don’t see any reason why our government should be hiding it and I don’t like going into a meeting and an unelected bureaucrat tells us that the president is on a need to know basis. To me, that should be very telling to America that there’s a lot more going on with this behind the scenes than we’re aware’‘.
He goes on to say that some of the information seemed to be reluctantly given in the SCIF (‘sensitive compartmented information facility’), a room with no risk of bugs where top secret information can be exchanged), and that there is a certain amount of arrogance because some people do not want the truth to get out. He thinks Americans should know what the money is spent on. He added that ‘if it was the Russians, they wouldn’t be bogged down in Ukraine. If it was the Chinese, they would own us, more so than now. And what about the Americans? Why in the world would we risk a half a billion dollar high-tech aircraft or a fleet of aircraft or a battleship or something to be around these things and a pilot losing their life when we just saw rightfully so the President spent millions of dollars to rescue a pilot?’.
He goes on to explain that it is difficult to get hold of the material because some of it is not reachable with a FOIA. He also explains that compartementalisation means that information cannot cross channels and therefore cannot be seen by anyone else than those with the right clearance. And when these people die, the knowledge goes. He also deplores that ‘bureaucrats take congresspeople for idiots in SCIF meetings, showing them cartoons to be thought of as UAPs’.
When asked what he thinks what would happen if the president decided to release images or videos that have been classified or say ‘there are technologies we believe very well may be NHI, non-human-intelligence’, he replied : ‘every time we ask for something specific, the military or the war pimps at the Pentagon, the ‘intelligencia’, as I call them, hide behind national security.
If you remember, I had a bill a few years back. It was two pages long to release it. Release everything. And then the Democrat Schumer in the Senate, everybody thought, “Oh, Schumer’s on board with us.” And he wanted to release his 60 pages bill, and it created some structure similar to the Kennedy files. Kennedy was shot over 60 years ago and they still won’t release everything on that. And you know that’s what they wanted to create and everybody was cheering. Oh, Schumer’s on our side. No, he’s not. If he was on our side, he would have pushed to do this years ago.The push is coming from people that haven’t been here very long. and some of our leadership now after they’ve seen some things they want to know.
It’s going to take the president of the United States to step up and say:’This has gone on long enough. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”
That would help Representative Anna Paulina Luna, chairwoman of the task force on the declassification of federal secrets a lot. On March 31st, she sent a letter to secretary of war Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon asking for the release of 46 videos of UAPs. They include some spherical cigar-shaped and “Tic Tac”-like objects recorded by U.S. military platforms over war zones, oceans and restricted airspace. The incidents are said to include activity near Iran, Syria, U.S. bases and airports, and a 2023 incident over Lake Huron. As reported by Sentinel News, the deadline imposed was April 14th and was missed by the Pentagon. Luna wrote on social media : “No one from the Pentagon had responded until we reached out, and it appears that someone did not pass the letter to the appropriate authorities. How convenient.”
Yet the Pentagon said in a statement to Newsweek: “The Department of War’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is working in close coordination with the White House and across federal agencies to consolidate existing UAP records collections and facilitate the expeditious release of never-before-seen UAP information’.
Luna said she intends to work directly with War Secretary Pete Hegseth to secure the footage and described him as a close working partner aligned with President Donald Trump’s directive on UAP disclosure. She said she is confident cooperation between her office and Pentagon leadership can produce the requested materials. However, she made it clear that if resistance continues, she is prepared to work with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer to exercise the committee’s subpoena authority.
On April 21st, Representative Eric Burlison lent support to Luna and his colleagues by giving an interview on News Nation. He describes some of the UFO and how they are capable of immediate acceleration that defies propulsion physics as we understand them. He added ‘we want the American people to see these videos. The American people deserve to know’.
On April 22nd, Burlison indicated how difficult the task is and said ‘I’m totally dubious. I don’t trust this town at all but it still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try’.
On the same day, Matt Laslo met Tim Burchett who had just left a meeting. Although he was reluctant to give information as it was in a SCIF, he did let a little slip....
‘I’ve been in a couple meetings here. In fact I was in one today. Last week was pretty intense and I’m hoping they’ ll get some more to some more members...’‘
Laslo mentioned that two years ago and last year again, the UAP caucus was not allowed a SCIF room. He asked if things had changed, to which Burchett replied ‘a little bit, yeah, but...’
Laslo asked if ‘today was about AARO‘. Burchett replied ‘there was some of those guys in there’
Laslo pressed on again, asking if they (AARO) had changed their tune at all. Burchett replied :
‘A little. They’re more receptive, but I just don’t - I think they’re limited on - they send the people in there that are limited on what they know. And that’s why they do it. That way they don’t have to lie to us’.
Asked if it felt on purpose, he replied: ‘Oh absolutely, 100%. 100%’.
Laslo asked him if it felt like a new day in Washington, with Trump. Burchett replied:
‘Oh yeah, but you know, Trump doesn’t know the questions to ask, and I think the intelligence people around him are going to try to buffalo him and lead him in a different direction’.
Laslo: ‘yeah? And especially the underlings who you guys are dealing with?’.
Burchett : Absolutely. One hundred per cent.
Burchett’s wish that more evidence should be given to more members of congress was granted, because on April 30th, Matt Laslo asked Rep. Steve Scalise, Majority Leader at the House of Representatives, who is not a member of the UAP Caucus and who has in the past criticised the initiative, if the recent classified meeting was eye-opening, to which Scalise replied :
‘We had a classified briefing that some of us went to. Obviously, you can’t talk about what was discussed at the briefing’.
When Laslo pressed him to say if it was eye-opening, he answered:
‘ Well, you know, whenever you go to a briefing like that, there’s some things you see that are eye-opening. And that’s about as far as I’ll go’.
Obfuscation, cover up, non-cooperation… Senators are even left in the dark about what happens in their own state…
On Friday 11th of April, Laslo asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), this question :
‘Do you have any idea what the mysterious craft were that reportedly surveilled Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base?
Barksdale is one of the largest and most strategic airfields in the US, covering 22,000 acres and housing 15,000 personnel. It is home to the Air Force Global Strike Command and the 2nd Bomb Wing, which includes nuclear-armed B-52 bomber squadrons. In her book ‘Nuclear War, A Scenario’, investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen frequently discusses Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana as a critical component of the U.S. nuclear command structure, specifically concerning nuclear-armed B-52 bombers. She asserted it would be the first base targeted in case of an attack. As reported by Sentinel News, In Early March 2026, multiple waves of unauthorized drones were spotted over the base. They were thought so dangerous that they initiated a ‘shelter-in-place’ order (an official directive issued by authorities during an emergency, instructing residents to immediately seek safety within the building they already occupy, rather than evacuating the area. It is a short-term protective measure designed to create a barrier between people and an outside hazard).
Although it happened in his own state of Louisiana, Senator Cassidy did not know about this event, but he expressed his concern about problems with drones in a more general way, such as drones delivering narcotics into a federal prison in his state. When asked by Laslo if he had an idea if the Pentagon knew what happened in Barksdale, he said he would try and find out. As Laslo mentioned that it had also happened in other air-force bases such as Langley and Arizona, Cassidy replied :
‘There’s enough stupid people out there that it could be totally benign – accepting that stupidity is sometimes not benign, but you have to fear the worst’.
He did not elaborate on what he meant… but true to his word, he has since followed up on the subject and explained on television:
‘Since the beginning of Epic Fury, there’s been an uptake of these nationwide. There’s been five or so at Barksdale from the 9th through to the 15th. One was a hobbyist. The other four, it’s unclear. Two of the drones have been recovered or at least perhaps recovered. They found a drone. They’re not sure it was the one related to the incursion. It’s being treated as a police matter, but of course the Air Force is aware that it might be more than that. And it might just have been probing what the Air Force would do in case they came along. They have recovered two, they’re looking for fingerprints and other things that might give information as to the origins of the drones’.
Another US Senator who’s given very little information about what is happening in his own state, then, but someone knows more than Senator Cassidy, though…
As reported by Sentinel News, on April 22nd, 2026, News Nation host Ross Coulthart interviewed former superintendent inspector general, Ronald Bilak, who witnessed in December 2024 (before Operation ‘Epic Fury’, then, and at the beginning of the so-called ‘New Jersey drone flap’, although Barksdale is in Louisiana, a long way away from New Jersey), some unknown objects over Barksdale, which he filmed. Coulthart reminded us that ‘drones’ that he prefers calling ‘objects’ have been flying over nuclear bases all over the USA for the last 2 years or so now. Barksdale has been the scene of swarms of objects that counter-drone technology has failed to take down. Bilak photographed an object that he estimated to be about 15 feet wide and about 75 feet off the ground. It flew over the base, which is a FAA (Federal Aviation Agency) violation. Twenty minutes later, he saw three objects that he had never seen before. They flashed, went left to right and up and down at hypersonic speeds.
Coulthart asked Bilak if he observed ‘stealth’, which means objects disguising themselves and then literally disappear and reappear, and he confirmed that they would blink and immediately appear somewhere else.
After leaving employment at the base, Bilak worked as a security officer across the road from the base and on March 21st 2026, he saw some other objects, but this time, much more conventional looking. They resembled drones but had no noise. It was just a light that floated very gently, about 2 miles away from where he was standing.
He raised the issue about Senator Cassidy (whom he called ‘Kennedy’ by mistake) getting a report that the army got ‘one, maybe two objects’. How come the army cannot say exactly what they have? And how do they know one of them was a ‘hobbyist’? He adds that there have been no official announcement or arrest following the event, although there is a sign at the entrance of the base saying that it is a drone-free zone and that trespassers would be prosecuted.
Coulthart states that he knows that Barksdale has nuclear weapons and asks Bilak how serious the potential incursion in December 2024 or in March 2026 would be, to which he replied: ‘I think it would be the highest national security infringement as you can get. Like Annie (Jacobsen) says in her book, Barksdale is on top of the list for terrorism. That’s a fact.’ He also added that speaker of the house Mike Johnson lives just an hour from the base and that too should be a cause of concern.
He stated that friends inside the base told him that anti UAS (unmanned aircraft system) was ineffective and more technology was supposed to be brought to the base. Coulthart asserted that the current ‘technology’ is mostly netting thrown at drones. Bilak has not heard that techniques such as lasers or high pulse microwaves were used against these objects
Coulthart summarised that ‘ we’ve got a security breach over one of the most sensitive air force bases in America that I will say definitely has nuclear weapons. There’s a strong link between UAP activity and nuclear weapons. But irrespective of whether these objects are or aren’t conventional drones, the mere fact that they were able to operate over the base with apparent impunity without being able to be brought down by the authorities, that’s a very grave concern’.
Bilak agreed and cited Robert Hasting’s book, UFOs and Nukes, to explain why.
This book is a comprehensive collection of hundreds or recorded incidents of UAPs over nuclear facilities, including many incidents during the cold war.
Coulthart asked him why the December 2024 events (known as the ‘New Jersey drones flap’) were written off by the authorities and explained by President Trump as FAA authorized research drones, but he couldn’t say anything else than he had no idea.
Bilak reasserted that these objects were operating far outside the conventional limitations of modern technology and that he had never seen anything like that, adding ‘The video doesn’t lie’.
Coulthart summarised the different sightings of the same objects in the area but still geographically far enough from each other to doubt the conventional drone hypothesis and asked Bilak how important that President Trump follows up on his promise of disclosing. He replied ‘Well, extremely because I think it’s owed to humanity that we know the truth… I don’t want to live my whole life and not know the truth’.
All the above stories show that the institutions in the know are dragging their feet and using all means possible to delay information being transferred to congress and keep the public in the dark. The road to disclosure is full of obstacles, and it looks like another hurdle is looming in the horizon. On April 14th, House representative Jamie Raskin, top democrat on the house judiciary committee called for Vice-President J.D Vance to invoke the American constitution’s 25th amendment to remove President Trump from office for being allegedly ‘mentally unfit’. This follows President Trump’s social media posts threatening the entire population of Iran of annihilation, and the image of himself portrayed as Jesus Christ. Although debates and hearings have happened in congress, there is no indication yet that it will be followed up by the president’s removal. However, should it happen, this could play in favour of the keepers of the secret, as Donald Trump’s orders might be easier to rescind with the official recognition that he gave that order when he was ‘no longer mentally fit to run office’. Although Trump’s immediate entourage is made of a number of people in favour of disclosure (Vice-president J.D Vance, Secretary of state Marco Rubio, Minister of war Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbart, CIA Director John Ratcliffe), there is no guarantee that they will all be in cabinet after a reshuffle (although Vice President J.D. Vance would become President) and they may be easier to dissuade than President Trump who, to quote Representatives Ogles and Burchett ‘does whatever he wants’.
Finally, due to the unpopular war in Iran, it is suspected that the Mid-term elections in November will play in favour of the Democrats. As Ross Coulthart mentioned recently, the push for transparency is mainly coming from the Republicans. He criticises the Democrats for ‘peddling the issue and not pulling their weight or taking it seriously enough’, adding they needed to show ‘more spine and bottle’. Should the democrats change the balance of votes in congress, the whole issue of transparency and disclosure could lose its momentum, which again would play in the hands of the keepers of the secret.
All this might explain the sense of urgency amongst the advocates of disclosure in congress, and at times also their despondency. It must therefore have been an immense relief when, on April
29th 2026, they heard President Trump reiterate his commitment to releasing the UFO files during a press conference in the Oval Office with the Artemis II crew, as reported by Sentinel News.