Where disclosure stands

Snapshot: October 27, 2026. Everything below is as of that date. If you are reading this later, newer events are listed at the bottom with their own dates. The snapshot itself is not rewritten, so you can tell exactly what was known when this was published.

The 60-second version

For years, people have reported unexplained objects in the sky, most of them military pilots. Since 2017 the story has moved from a newspaper report about a small Pentagon program, to released videos, to hearings, to published files. In May 2026 the Pentagon began posting declassified files on a public website, and by late October it had made seven releases. It has not said what any of the cases are, and says the public can draw its own conclusions. Congress is still working on a law to collect the records. Nobody in government has officially said anything is of non-human origin.

Words you will see

UFO and UAP. UFO is the older popular term. Official usage was “unidentified aerial phenomena” in 2021 and is now “unidentified anomalous phenomena” in law. “Unidentified” means not yet explained. It does not mean alien.

AARO. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, created in July 2022 inside the Pentagon to collect and analyze reports.

PURSUE. The Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, launched May 8, 2026. It runs the release site war.gov/UFO and, under the July 2026 directive, a channel for former and current personnel to report.

NDAA. The National Defense Authorization Act, the yearly defense bill. Congress has used it as the vehicle for UAP law.

ODNI. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which wrote the 2021 assessment and issued the July 31, 2026 guidance.

Declassified. No longer secret. A release of files is not a finding about what they show. In July 2026 an official said the directive on former employees was not a declassification directive.

The timeline

Every entry links to where I got it. “Primary source” means the original document or an official page; “overview” and “news” are secondary and are there because some official pages were not available to me when I checked.

Date	What happened	Where to check it
December 16, 2017	The New York Times reports that the Pentagon ran a small program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, that investigated unidentified aircraft. It reports about $22 million over roughly five years and says funding ended in 2012. This is the story that restarted the modern public conversation.	Overview of the program overview The Times story (subscription may be required) news
April 27, 2020	The Department of Defense officially releases three Navy videos of unidentified objects, from 2004 and 2015, which had leaked earlier. It says the objects remain unidentified.	ABC7 report news
June 25, 2021	The Director of National Intelligence publishes a preliminary assessment. It reviews 144 reports from 2004 to 2021, and one is explained with high confidence (a large deflating balloon). The rest remain unexplained, and the report says limited data prevent firm conclusions.	The assessment (PDF) primary source
May 17, 2022	A House Intelligence subcommittee holds the first public congressional hearing on the subject in decades.	Overview of the hearing overview
July 20, 2022	The Pentagon establishes the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, to collect and analyze reports across the government.	Overview of AARO overview
July 26, 2023	At a House Oversight hearing, former intelligence officer David Grusch testifies under oath that the government holds a decades-old program that recovered non-human craft and biological remains, based on what he says other witnesses told him. He presents no evidence in public. The Pentagon says it found no verifiable information to support the claims, and the head of AARO says Grusch never spoke to his office. The claims remain unverified.	Overview of the claims and responses overview Hearing record primary source
September 14, 2023	NASA's independent study team reports that it found no evidence that these phenomena are extraterrestrial, and that the available data are too limited to draw conclusions.	Overview of the study overview
December 22, 2023	The defense bill for fiscal year 2024 becomes law with a scaled-down version of the proposed UAP Disclosure Act. A records collection at the National Archives survives. A provision for the government to take recovered materials from private holders (eminent domain) is dropped.	Overview of the Act overview National Archives UAP records primary source
March 2024	AARO publishes volume 1 of its historical report on government investigations since 1945. It reports finding no empirical evidence of off-world technology and no hidden program.	Overview of AARO and the report overview
November 13, 2024	A House Oversight joint subcommittee hearing, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.”	Committee page primary source
September 9, 2025	A House Oversight task force holds a hearing titled “Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection.”	Committee page primary source
December 2025	The defense bill for fiscal year 2026 is signed. It adds requirements for briefings to Congress on UAP intercepts near North America and other reporting changes.	DefenseScoop report news
February 19, 2026	President Trump says in a social media post, after former President Obama's comments about aliens, that he will direct the Secretary of War and other agencies to begin identifying and releasing files on this subject. It is a statement, not an executive order. He says he does not know whether they are real.	PBS NewsHour report news
May 8, 2026	The Department of War launches PURSUE (the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters) and posts the first batch of files at war.gov/UFO. It says more will follow on a rolling basis. The Pentagon says the public can draw its own conclusions and gives no determination of what the cases are.	ABC News report news War.gov/UFO primary source
July 14, 2026	The Senate fails, 50 to 46, to begin debate on its version of the fiscal year 2027 defense bill. A motion to reconsider was entered, and the CRS summary shows no further step.	Congressional Research Service summary primary source
July 21, 2026	Reporting says the President directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to let former employees and contractors bring information to AARO and PURSUE despite earlier non-disclosure agreements. An official described it as not a declassification directive. Public release of classified information stays prohibited.	Fox News report news
July 22, 2026	The House passes its version of the fiscal year 2027 defense bill, 216 to 212, with an amendment from Rep. Burlison that would create a permanent UAP records collection and an independent review board. Neither is law.	Congressional Research Service summary primary source Rep. Burlison's release primary source
July 31, 2026	The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issues preliminary guidance for that reporting process. Follow-on guidance is still pending.	DLA Piper summary analysis
October 23, 2026	The seventh PURSUE release: 28 PDF documents and no video. There have now been releases on May 8, May 22, June 12, July 10, August 7, September 18 and October 23. Skeptics say much of the material was already public.	Overview of the releases overview War.gov/UFO primary source

What has not happened

No government agency has determined that any of these cases is of non-human origin. AARO's 2024 historical report and NASA's 2023 study each found no evidence of that, and the Pentagon says the public can draw its own conclusions about the 2026 releases.
No head of state or government of the United States, China, Russia, India, the United Kingdom or France has stated on the record that an intelligence of non-human origin exists. I found no such statement as of the snapshot date. Statements by former officials do not count.
David Grusch's claims have not been publicly substantiated. The Pentagon said it found no verifiable information to support them.
The strongest version of the UAP Disclosure Act, with an independent review board and eminent-domain power, has not become law. The 2023 law kept a records collection at the National Archives. The 2026 House amendment is not law.
The President's February 2026 statement was not an executive order, and the July 2026 directive was described by an official as not a declassification directive.

Read these with care

The 2021 intelligence assessment is often misquoted. One case was explained, a balloon. The report does not say the other 143 are non-human.
A release of files is not a finding. Many items in the 2026 releases were already public, and skeptics have explained several as balloons, optical artifacts or ordinary aircraft.
Some dates and counts differ between outlets. For example, one overview lists the fifth PURSUE release under both August 7 and August 8, and the first release is described as 160 or more files. Check the official site for exact counts.

How my idea differs

This page is the background, not the argument. I am not adding evidence to the pile. My hypothesis is about how we treat each other, and the falsifier I set is on the What would prove me wrong page. I do not speak for anyone named here, and none of them has endorsed this site.

Added after the snapshot

Nothing yet. New entries will appear here with their own dates.

Corrections

None yet. If I fix an error above, I will say what changed and when.

Fingerprint of the snapshot content above (SHA-256):
f2b30e0434489eb3baf0b3c0961533d263162cf08ba64caf1453826c2d3b3b2b