Congressional leadership has abandoned full enactment of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA) after it was not included in the final National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026. The legislation — which would have mandated declassification of UAP records and established an independent review board with subpoena power — is dead for this legislative cycle.
Christopher Sharp at Liberation Times confirmed the exclusion. The UAPDA was modelled on the JFK Records Act, which forced eventual declassification of assassination-related documents after decades. Applied to UAP, it would have created binding legal mechanisms for the retrieval and review of classified UAP-related records — including materials held by private contractors.
What Was Lost
The UAPDA would have established a UAP Records Review Board independent of the executive branch — the same model used for the JFK records. Unlike AARO, which operates within DOD and can be neutered by classification authority above it, the UAPDA review board would have had independent legal standing and congressional backing to compel production of records from both government agencies and private contractors.
The contractor angle is the critical one. SAIC, Lockheed, Battelle, Northrop Grumman, and EG&G are not government agencies. They cannot be compelled by executive order or presidential social media posts. They respond to legal subpoenas backed by congressional authority. The UAPDA would have provided that authority. Without it, contractor-held programs remain legally unreachable.
What Remains
PURSUE — Trump’s executive-led transparency program — is the remaining mechanism. Its first tranche (162 files, war.gov/UFO) dropped on May 8, 2026. Rolling releases are promised every 2-3 weeks. But PURSUE operates through executive authority alone, with no independent oversight, no subpoena power, and no legal mechanism to compel contractor cooperation. The programmes that matter most are exactly those PURSUE cannot reach.
Christopher Sharp’s assessment: if Trump wishes to reveal what whistleblowers claim — that multiple advanced non-human species surround us — now is the time to do it, before the legislative window closes further.
Source: Liberation Times (Christopher Sharp, December 3, 2025 and subsequent reporting).