What officials have actually said: the 2023–2026 congressional UAP hearings, the Pentagon's AARO office, and the push for disclosure legislation.
Curated · October 2026 by the Signal Post News newsroom. This page reports what was said on the record — who testified, what they claimed, and what agencies concluded. Witness claims are attributed, not asserted as fact. Nothing here is a conspiracy claim.
July 26, 2023 — House Oversight hearing
The House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a public hearing at which three witnesses testified under oath:
David Grusch, former intelligence officer, testified that he had been informed of a multi-decade U.S. program to recover and reverse-engineer crashed craft of non-human origin, and that "biologics came with some of these recoveries" — which he described as "non-human." These were his claims under oath; the Pentagon has denied any such program exists.
David Fravor, retired Navy commander, described his 2004 "Tic Tac" encounter off California — an object with no visible propulsion that outmaneuvered his F/A-18.
Ryan Graves, former Navy pilot, reported repeated UAP encounters by military aviators off the U.S. East Coast and called for better reporting channels.
AARO — the Pentagon's UAP office
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was established in July 2022 inside the Department of Defense as the government's lead UAP investigative body. Key developments:
March 2024: AARO released its report on the historical record of U.S. government involvement with UAP, concluding it had found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology and that most investigated sightings were misidentified conventional objects.
August 2024: Jon Kosloski, previously a physics and engineering leader at the NSA, became AARO's director.
November 19, 2024: Kosloski testified before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities — the first Hill testimony by a sitting AARO chief — and AARO was declared at full operational capability.
The Pentagon's standing position remains: there is no verifiable evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin.
November 13, 2024 — "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth"
House Oversight returned to the topic with four witnesses:
Lue Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon's AATIP program, testified that UAPs are real and that the government possesses technology it cannot identify — testimony, not confirmed fact.
Tim Gallaudet, retired rear admiral, testified to firsthand knowledge of UAP-related programs.
Michael Shellenberger, journalist, presented his claims about a classified program he called "Immaculate Constellation" — presented as his reporting, disputed by officials.
Michael Gold, former NASA associate administrator, urged de-stigmatizing UAP reporting.
2025 — the task force and the third hearing
February 2025: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) launched the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, covering UAPs alongside other declassification topics.
May 2025: the FY2026 defense authorization discussions included provisions requiring the Pentagon to brief Congress on UAP intercept operations since 2004 and stronger whistleblower protections.
September 9, 2025: the task force held the hearing "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," with Air Force veterans Jeffrey Nuccetelli and Dylan Borland, journalist George Knapp, and Navy senior chief Alexandro Wiggins. Witnesses described "Tic Tac"-shaped craft and orbs; one account described a UAP reportedly withstanding a Hellfire missile strike — presented as witness testimony.
2026 — the disclosure legislation fight
July 22, 2026: the House adopted Rep. Eric Burlison's (R-Mo.) UAP disclosure amendment to the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act. If enacted, it would create a permanent UAP Records Collection at the National Archives, an independent UAP Records Review Board with subpoena authority, and require agencies to preserve and transmit UAP records on a statutory timeline.
The Schumer–Rounds UAP Disclosure Act has been introduced for a fourth consecutive year; its strongest provisions (including eminent-domain authority) were stripped in conference in 2023. Senate action on the FY2027 NDAA was pending as of October 2026.
Oversight Chair James Comer said in October 2026 that another UAP hearing could be scheduled in the lame-duck session after the midterm elections.
Where things stand
On the record: military pilots and former officials have testified under oath about encounters they could not explain, and Congress has passed UAP transparency provisions every year since 2021.
Official position: the Pentagon and AARO say they have found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial technology or crash-retrieval programs.
The gap: between whistleblower testimony and official findings is exactly what the hearings and legislation are trying to close. Until records are released or independently verified, claims of recovered craft remain testimony and speculation — not established fact.