The Real Reason Your Government Won’t Release UFO Files — UAPDA 2025

Cristina Gomez
Jul 31
3 min read

Congress has just filed the most comprehensive UAP disclosure bill (UAPDA) in 2025 — but this marks the third time lawmakers have attempted such sweeping transparency legislation. The previous two efforts were systematically dismantled by the same coalition of House Republican leadership, Pentagon officials, and defense industry interests, revealing a coordinated pattern of resistance to UAP transparency that spans multiple congressional sessions.

The UAPDA 2023 Attempt

On July 13, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds introduced the first UAP Disclosure Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The original legislation was modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act and contained unprecedented provisions that would have fundamentally altered government UAP secrecy. According to the bill’s text, it established an independent nine-member review board with presidential appointments, created federal eminent domain authority over “technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence” held by private contractors, and implemented a presumption that all UAP records would be disclosed within 25 years.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed this comprehensive version by an 86–11 vote on July 27, 2023. However, according to reporting on the legislative process, the bill’s fate was sealed during House-Senate conference committee negotiations in November and December 2023. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner from Ohio and Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers from Alabama orchestrated systematic opposition to the disclosure provisions. According to campaign finance records, Turner, whose district includes Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, received nearly $200,000 from Lockheed Martin, while Rogers became the largest recipient of defense sector funding in 2022.

The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) actively lobbied against the legislation, according to congressional sources, providing a 33-page line-by-line rewrite of the Senate-passed bill. AARO officials argued the review board would “duplicate” their existing work, despite the obvious conflict of interest in having the same agencies that created decades of UAP secrecy investigate themselves.

What President Biden signed into law in December 2023 was, according to transparency advocates, a hollow shell of the original legislation. The final version eliminated the independent review board, eminent domain authority over private contractors, subpoena powers, and presumption of disclosure. What remained was essentially a filing cabinet at the National Archives with no enforcement mechanisms and no deadline for disclosure, giving agencies complete discretion over what to release.

Swift Death of the 2024 Attempt

Undeterred by the 2023 defeat, Schumer and Rounds reintroduced nearly identical legislation in July 2024. According to congressional records, the 2024 version restored all the provisions that had been stripped: the review board, eminent domain authority, and $20 million in funding authorization. However, this second attempt met an even swifter death. The amendment was “ordered to lie on the table” through parliamentary procedure, effectively killing it without a vote. Meanwhile, Representative Tim Burchett introduced a streamlined House version requiring all UAP records to be declassified within 270 days, but according to committee records, it died in the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

The UAPDA 2025 Strategic Evolution

The current 2025 effort, filed as Senate Amendment 3111 on July 29, is described by congressional sources as “nearly identical” to previous versions, including the controversial eminent domain provisions. However, according to legislative strategists, the approach has evolved. Sponsors have expanded their coalition to include Senator Gillibrand, are running dual tracks in both chambers, and have built sustained public pressure through high-profile whistleblower hearings.

Schumer (left), Rounds (middle), Gillibrand (right) all part of the UAPDA — Schumer (left), Rounds (middle), Gillibrand (right)

According to Senator Rounds in a recent interview with KOTA Territory News, the legislation is driven by credible witnesses who speak in classified settings because they fear losing their jobs if they go public. These individuals, whom Rounds describes as “very capable,” report UAP capabilities that include rapid movement, instantaneous direction changes, and transmedium travel between air and water environments. Rounds emphasizes that “with the technologies we’ve got today, they’re not making this stuff up.”

The Opposition’s Fear

The eminent domain provision appears to be what most terrifies the opposition. According to whistleblower David Grusch’s testimony, Lockheed Martin specifically holds retrieved UAP materials, and former Senator Harry Reid was repeatedly denied clearance to view alleged Lockheed holdings. If this bill passes, companies sitting on crash materials would be legally required to surrender them to the government for potential public disclosure.

According to Burchett’s statements to NewsNation, defense contractors avoid Freedom of Information Act requests by placing UAP materials under cost-plus government contracts, effectively shielding them from public scrutiny. This three-attempt history reveals what transparency advocates describe as coordinated resistance from entrenched interests determined to preserve institutional control over potentially transformative information. Whether the third attempt will succeed may depend on whether public pressure can finally overcome decades of systematic obstruction.