UAP Disclosure Act

The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA), also known as the Schumer–Rounds amendment, is a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in July 2023 by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mike Rounds (R-SD). It creates a formal mechanism to review, catalog, and release in a controlled way federal government documents about UAP — the official term that replaced "UFO" in Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) usage.

The model is inspired by the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, created in 1992 to review files about President Kennedy's assassination. Here, the target is records about objects, materials, and programs tied to unidentified phenomena.

• Presumption of disclosure: all UAP records held by the federal government would be presumed public unless a formal exception applied.
• Controlled Disclosure Review Board (CDRB): a nine-person panel, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, would decide what to release.
• 25-year sunset: documents over 25 years old would face mandatory release, with only very narrow exceptions.
• Eminent domain: the federal government would assert ownership of any non-human origin technological material held by private contractors.
• Protected testimony: formal channels for former officials to share information without violating secrecy laws.

The original 2023 version was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) FY2024. During the House–Senate conference negotiation, the strongest provisions — especially eminent domain and the CDRB's broad authority — were stripped or weakened. The final text passed in December 2023 preserved only limited parts of the original bill.

In July 2024, Schumer and Rounds reintroduced the bill as S.4610, seeking to restore the original core. In 2025 and 2026, further versions continued to move as attachments to the annual NDAA cycle, but no full version has been enacted into law so far.

Regardless of what one believes actually lies behind UAP reports, this bill is the first institutional attempt to treat the topic as a public-transparency issue rather than folklore. It acknowledges that:

• classified records on the topic exist across multiple agencies, and access to them is fragmented;
• private programs, funded through federal contracts, may be holding material without civilian oversight;
• without a legal review mechanism, Congress itself admits it has trouble auditing what exists.

For the bill to deliver on its stated goal, three elements need to survive the legislative process: (1) real CDRB authority to decide releases; (2) eminent domain over material held privately; and (3) binding disclosure deadlines. Without those, the text becomes a symbolic guideline — which is essentially what remained of the 2023 version.

• Congress.gov — S.Amdt.797 to S.2226 (NDAA FY2024)
• Congress.gov — S.4610 (UAP Disclosure Act of 2024)
• Office of the Director of National Intelligence — Annual UAP Reports
• All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — Historical Record Report Vol. I