Will the Third UAP Bill Survive the Pentagon's Deadly Grip?

Show Transcript

Cristina Gomez: Congress just filed the most comprehensive UAP disclosure bill in American history. But here's what they don't want you to know. This is actually the third time they've tried this. And the first two attempts were systematically gutted by the same group of politicians with ties to defense contractors.

Hey, UFOlogers, I'm Cristina Gomez, and welcome to this episode of UFO News Updates. The 2025 UAP Disclosure Act includes eminent domain over crash materials, a Kennedy assassination style review board, and provisions to seize UAP technologies from private aerospace companies. But in 2023, a nearly identical bill passed the Senate by 86 to 11, only to be stripped down to nothing behind closed doors.

Kind of highlight some of the key disclosure takeaways from this and what this act actually mean for getting some of this UAP information out? Sure.

Senator Mike Rounds (Clip 1): Look, UAPs are items that we don't know what they are. We haven't been able to identify what they are. There's a pretty strong agreement, I think, among most people that have studied this, that a lot of the sightings of items, what used to be UFOs, were probably U.S. aircraft that were being developed for the stealth programs, the F-117, the F-22, the SR-71 and so forth. But there are a number of other sightings, not just visible sightings, but also radar catches over the last 20 years that we just can't explain. We've seen objects that move, you know, more rapidly than any of the technologies that we've ever disclosed that we have.

Cristina Gomez: That's Senator Mike Rounds on ABC News explaining why this legislation keeps getting reintroduced. Let me show you exactly who killed it twice and why this third attempt might be different. If you enjoy UFO news, updates, case studies, and interviews, then you will like this channel, subscribe, and share this episode with those you want to keep in the know with the latest UFO news.

On July 13th, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds introduced the first UAP Disclosure Act. The original version was revolutionary. It would have created an independent nine-member review board with presidential appointments, established federal eminent domain over technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence, and set a presumption that all UAP records would be disclosed within 25 years.

The Senate passed it overwhelmingly, 86 to 11 votes, but that's where the story gets interesting. During the House Senate Conference Committee negotiations, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner from Ohio and Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers from Alabama orchestrated the systematic destruction of the bill. Turner, whose district includes Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he received a little under $200,000 from Lockheed Martin. Rogers became the largest recipient of defense sector funds in 2022, but the Pentagon's UAP office, AARO, provided a 33-page line-by-line rewrite of the Senate-passed legislation, arguing the review board would duplicate their work. Think about that. The same agencies that created decades of UAP secrecy were rewriting the law designed to end the secrecy.

Senator Mike Rounds (Clip 2): We don't want any of it destroyed. We don't want contractors that might have any of that to destroy any of it. We want them to know that they can deliver it and that they have an expectation that they have to deliver it to this facility or to this impoundment area.

Cristina Gomez: What former President Joe Biden signed into law in December of 2023 was a pretty much a hollow shell. Gone were the independent review boards, eminent domain authority, subpoena powers, and presumption of disclosure. What remained was basically a filing cabinet at the National Archives with no reinforcement mechanisms, completely eliminated. The power to seize UAP materials from private contractors, external oversight of government agencies, and any deadline for disclosure. The final version gave agencies complete discretion over what to release.

Undeterred, Schumer and Rounds reintroduced nearly an identical legislation in July of 2024. The 2024 version restored everything that had been stripped. The review board, the eminent domain authority, $20 million in funds, and this time they didn't even bother with conference committee theatrics. The amendment was ordered to lie on the table through parliamentary procedure, effectively killed without a vote. Meanwhile, Representative Tim Burchett introduced a streamlined House version requiring all UAP records to be declassified within 270 days. It died in committee. Same opposition, same result. The pattern was becoming clear.

Representative Tim Burchett (Clip 3): Who have confirmed many of my suspicions about this. And the way they do it is, they put it off into these corporations that have government contracts that are cost-plus, and then we can't FOIA, then we can't ask for a Freedom of Information Act on them. And that's the way they do it. But I just want to know what the government has. Every Alphabet agency has. I mean, we've had testimony that they have recovery units. What are the heck are they recovering?

Cristina Gomez: The 2025 version, filed July 29th as Senate Amendment 3111, is described as nearly identical to previous versions, but the strategy has evolved. Sponsors have expanded the coalition to include Senator Gillibrand. They're running dual tracks in both chambers, and they've built sustained public pressure through whistleblower hearings.

Senator Mike Rounds (Clip 4): Either they're telling us a heck of a story, or they truly don't know what it is. But it is phenomenal in terms of its capabilities, in terms of speed, some of these objects, the speed at which it moves, the easy way in which it can change directions, the fact that it can be in both underwater and in the air, and it can apparently move to very, very high altitudes as well in a very short period of time. You know, these folks that are giving this information and with the technologies that we've got today, they're not making this stuff up. There's something there, we just don't know what it is.

Cristina Gomez: Those brilliant individuals Rounds mentions are speaking in classified settings with senators because they fear losing their jobs if they go public. This is the source pressure driving the legislation. Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee draft NDAA includes three separate provisions targeting Pentagon UAP investigations, including requirements for NORAD and the Northern Command to brief Congress on UAP intercepts.

Chris Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, told Defense Scoop that NORAD's historical failure to inform AARO of UAP incidents shows these agencies can't be trusted to police themselves. Critical sensor data is often gone by the time AARO learns of intercepts, if it learns about them at all.

The eminent domain provision is what terrifies the opposition. Whistleblower David Grusch specifically named Lockheed Martin as holding retrieved UAP materials. Former Senator Harry Reid was repeatedly denied clearance to view alleged Lockheed holdings. If this bill passes, companies sitting on crash material would have to surrender them. At least they should, right?

Senator Mike Rounds (Clip 5): And there's no reason for them to come in to try to tell us stories. These are folks that are very, very capable. They are brilliant individuals. They fear sometimes that if their whole story got out, they'd lose their jobs. They don't want that to happen. So they'll come in and they'll visit with us in a classified setting with just one or two or three of us there. And our agreement is, we will not disclose, and we won't let it get back to their, either the contractor that they work for or to the department that they work for.

Cristina Gomez: This three-attempt history reveals coordinated resistance from entrenched interests. The same House Republican leaders, Pentagon officers, and defense contractors have successfully blocked every meaningful disclosure mechanism while allowing cosmetic reforms that preserve their control.

Senator Mike Rounds (Clip 6): We are collecting the information now. We've set up a separate database that has passed into law. The part that is not in law is having a commission set up to actually disseminate or to go through, filter through this, organize it, and then to be able to lay out and disclose to the American people what we've actually learned and what we simply don't know the origins of it are.

Cristina Gomez: What we're witnessing is a genuine struggle between transparency advocates and powerful interests invested in maintaining secrecy. The repeated stripping of identical provisions across multiple congressional sessions shows this isn't about legitimate security concerns. It's about preserving institutional control over potentially transformative information. Do you think this third bill will pass? Let me know in the comments below. That is it for today. I will see you next time. Be safe and remember, keep your eyes on the skies.