Disclosure Diaries Update #38

Speaking with Askapol, Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand revealed that she intends to arrange a public hearing this summer, where AARO will be tasked with:

"[putting] together some data and information to disclose in a public hearing to show what work they've done, especially examples of things that were unknown that they've been able to figure out and examples of things that were unknown that they still haven't figured out so that the public can see the difference between what technology brings to this analysis to inform lawmakers on what we need to do."

She was also seemingly unaware that Sen. Chuck Schumer's original UAP Disclosure Act language had been significantly watered down in the final NDAA:

“I thought Chuck got done what he wanted to get done, but maybe I'm mistaken. I thought he accomplished what he wanted,” Gillibrand says. “The work I wanna keep doing is to have much more thorough data collection, because we are still seeing so many unidentified aerial phenomena and we don't know what they are. And that's very frustrating.”

Following the reports that David Grusch avoided meeting with AARO to discuss his UAP-related claims, Grusch released a statement to clarify his reasoning:

"AARO officially made contact with me in November 2023 as indicated by the email chain in the FOIA release. Prior to this, neither my attorney nor myself had been officially contacted in any way by AARO.

To date, my 8 January 2024 email to AARO requesting them to answer my security-related concerns I sent to them via email on 13 November 2023 has gone unanswered.

The DoD SAPCO and DNI CAPCO memorandums do not address the variety of serious procedural issues I voiced in November 2023 as it relates to non-UAP related compartmented programs, as well as National Security Council SAPs and CIA Directorate of Operations human intelligence programs.

Protecting classified information is a lifelong obligation. To be clear, AARO does not have access to the information I provided to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) and the Congressional Intelligence Committees under the PPD-19 whistleblowing process. I trust in the investigative and law enforcement/criminal referral authorities ICIG has independent of DoD oversight"

In the wake of AARO's historical record review, Rep. Mike Gallagher levied somewhat critical statements at AARO, and indicated that there was still a lot of work left to be accomplished.

“I still don’t think we have a good explanation for what’s fouling our ranges. I haven’t heard one. And that’s just a matter of safety for our pilots. And furthermore, I don’t think we have a well-enough established process for just cataloging the incidents, like analyzing all the data and storing it in the right way. I just feel like AARO [the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office] has a long way to go in that respect as well.”

He also speculated that UAP would once again be a topic in the NDAA language for 2025:

“I think it’s probably gonna be another issue that will be addressed in some fashion in this year's NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]|".

In an exchange on Twitter, Rep. Burlison affirmed that AARO has been asked to make imagery shared during the Apr 17 UAP-briefings available for public dissemination.

"We need to call on AARO [All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office] to declassify that same report they gave to Congress. Some of the images they're saying are top-secret because of the technology that collected the images, but the content should be made public.”

“We’re working on doing something with USO so we’re talking to some people,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna reveals to Ask a Pol.

Rep. Burlison covered a few interesting aspects of the current discourse with Askapol. For example, on the subject of full data access:

"When [Rep. Tim] Burchett asked [AARO] about some of the data, they said that they had not received data from the Navy. That's pretty alarming. But it's been over a year they've, you know, AARO is not getting all the information that they want. I mean, they said that in general, they are — most or all the other agencies are cooperative, but at the end of the day, they're not getting some of it."

Rep. Burlison also acknowledged that AARO was able to convincingly debunk a variety of cases, and ultimately believes the majority of UAP video/imagery is fake and/or prosaic, but emphasised that:

"we still have dark programs that are spending money that we don't have an answer for"

• According to Senator Gillibrand – a public hearing in line with AARO's latest report can be expected soon, saying –"I'll probably have another hearing aligned with that public report.”

• Following the UAP hearing on the 26th of July, Members of Congress have called for a select committee with subpoena authority, to “go about the task of collecting information from the Pentagon and elsewhere” on unidentified flying objects. There have been conflicting messages from various Members of Congress on whether this is likely to happen anytime soon.
  
  Note – a select subcommittee was formally requested on March 13th.
• Reps. Moskowitz, Luna, and Burchett have repeatedly stated their intent to hold field hearings to overcome stonewalling from the Pentagon and military establishment
  
  "I think we [Congress] should try to get into one of these places [housing UAP evidence]...and if they won't let us in I think we should have a field hearing right outside the building...and the military will have to explain why that is." – Rep. Moskowitz (D)
  
  It is currently unknown when exactly we might expect that to occur, however as of Jan 12 – Rep. Luna confirmed: "I feel confident that we have enough evidence to move forward with our first field hearing. @mattgaetz @JaredEMoskowitz @timburchett . We will be announcing details soon."
• Several journalists have indicated that first-hand witnesses of the alleged UAP legacy programs are in the process of providing testimony/evidence to the relevant authorities (e.g. the IC IG) and/or are on the verge of making public statements in the near future (Example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4)
• David Grusch has received additional clearances through DOPSR to discuss some of his (alleged) first-hand knowledge of Legacy programs. He has mentioned he may be covering more of this information in an upcoming Op-Ed
• Some commentators have speculated that the architects of the UAPDA (e.g. Sens. Schumer/Rounds et al) are working diligently behind the scenes to continue furthering serious legislative UAP transparency efforts