Trump Waives UFO Whistleblower NDAs In New UAP Order
- Cristina Gomez
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
President Trump has directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to let former government employees and contractors come forward with information about UAP. According to reporting from Fox News, these witnesses would meet with cleared officials at the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, or with the presidential task force now called PURSUE, short for the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. During those meetings, a prior nondisclosure agreement could be set aside so the person can speak. A senior administration official stressed that this is not a declassification order, and that anything shared still runs through the normal declassification review before the public sees it.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has pushed for whistleblower protection since February 2025, when she was named to lead the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. At a September 2025 hearing, reference the House Oversight Committee record, she argued that people with knowledge of UAP programs should be able to speak without retaliation. By mid 2026 she wanted more, telling reporters there was a list of people she wanted the White House to grant immunity so they could describe claimed recovered nonhuman craft or biologics. Trump’s directive addresses the NDA piece, but it is not amnesty and not immunity from prosecution, which was her central demand.
There is a catch. AARO has been allowed to receive NDA-protected UAP information for years. That authority was written into the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, and AARO’s own reporting form says a person may report without fear of violating an agreement. Researcher John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault published two government memos he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, one from the Pentagon and one from the intelligence community, both confirming AARO could already hear this information. The harder issue is what happened to those who did come forward. At the September hearing, according to the hearing transcript, Air Force veteran Dylan Borland said AARO’s director at the time would not meet him, that his information was classified, and that he faced retaliation afterward.
The same week, AARO released its overdue Fiscal Year 2025 report. According to DefenseScoop, the report landed more than a year past its own May 2025 cutoff. It logged 319 UAP reports, resolved 114 of them, and disclosed a single maritime case in which Navy assets off Virginia reported roughly 100 airborne objects and two likely uncrewed surface craft, still under investigation. The report closed 238 sightings as satellite flaring, yet said nothing about GREMLIN, AARO’s own sensor suite that ran a 90-day collection inside the reporting period. AARO also reported a 178 percent jump in drones near nuclear sites and, per the report, found no evidence anyone has ever recovered UAP material, even as it builds a process to handle such material if it ever appears.
Sources
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. (n.d.). UAP records/information papers. https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Records/
DefenseScoop. (2026, July 21). Pentagon investigating mysterious UAP event reported by the Navy near Virginia’s coast. https://defensescoop.com/2026/07/21/pentagon-investigating-ufo-uap-event-near-virginia-coast/
Fox News. (2026, July 21). Long-hidden UFO information at center of Trump push to free former officials. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/long-hidden-ufo-information-center-trump-push-free-former-officials
Greenewald, J., Jr. (2025, August 4). DOD releases “verbal legal advisement” given to UFO whistleblower David Grusch. The Black Vault. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/dod-releases-verbal-legal-advisement-given-to-ufo-whistleblower-david-grusch/
Trevithick, J. (2024, March 8). DoD to deploy ‘Gremlin’ sensors to collect intel on unidentified flying objects. The War Zone. https://www.twz.com/air/dod-to-deploy-gremlin-sensors-to-collect-intel-on-unidentified-flying-objects
