The story of Congressional UAP work is the story of about a dozen members who took the issue seriously when it was career-risky to do so. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Eric Burlison (R-MO), and a handful of senators including Kirsten Gillibrand and the late Harry Reid's successors have been the spine of it. Most of the work has happened on House Oversight and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Three lines of effort have converged in 2026.
1. The hearings — and the whistleblowers behind them
The September 9, 2025 House Oversight hearing — “Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection” — was the most substantive UAP session Congress has held since the 2023 Grusch testimony. Witnesses included former service members Jeffrey Nuccetelli, Alexandro C. Wiggins, and Dylan Borland, journalist George Knapp, and Joe Spielberger from the Project on Government Oversight.
The January 23, 2026 follow-up hearing focused specifically on whistleblower protection mechanics — what existing statute does and does not cover, where AARO's intake fits, and what compartmented-program disclosures look like in practice. The takeaway from members on both sides was that current protections are inadequate for the type of disclosure UAP whistleblowers are actually attempting.
2. The legislation
Two pieces of work matter here.
The UAP Whistleblower Protection Act, introduced by Burchett and Luna, would extend Inspector General-style protections to personnel disclosing information about UAP-related programs to designated Congressional committees. It would also create a presumption of urgent-concern handling for such disclosures, which currently can languish for months in IG queues.
More consequentially, the conferenced FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act contains three UAP-related provisions:
- A requirement that the Pentagon brief lawmakers on every UAP intercept conducted by the integrated military commands defending North America since 2004.
- An expansion of AARO's authority to compel inter-agency cooperation, eliminating duplicative reporting requirements.
- A mandate to streamline the process by which other federal agencies provide relevant data to AARO for analysis.
None of those are Schumer-Rounds-tier language — the maximalist UAP Disclosure Act that would have created an independent review board on the model of the JFK Records Act has not advanced. But they are real authorities, and they will shape AARO's operational reality through 2027.
3. The Luna fight
The single most concrete piece of Congressional pressure on the Pentagon right now is Rep. Luna's demand for 46 specific UAP video files. She has named each one — date, location, reporting unit, classification level. The specificity matters. A vague request is easy to deflect; a named-document request is not.
The Pentagon missed Luna's most recent compliance deadline. The Oversight Task Force has signaled it will move to subpoena if there is not visible movement within the next reporting window. That puts the administration in a structurally awkward position: a sitting Republican President's transparency directive on one side, a sitting Republican-led Oversight subcommittee with subpoena power on the other.
“A vague request is easy to deflect; a named-document request is not.”
The bipartisan structure of UAP politics
One of the genuinely unusual features of UAP disclosure is that it does not map cleanly onto partisan polarity. The most aggressive members on both Republican and Democratic sides have generally cooperated. Burchett and Moskowitz publicly. Luna and Raskin behind closed doors on multiple occasions. Gillibrand has held the line on the Senate side across two administrations.
This bipartisan structure is what has made UAP language survive in the NDAA when it would otherwise be a casualty of conference negotiations. It is also what gives Congressional pressure its institutional teeth. A subpoena fight that united Luna and a Democratic ranking member would be substantially harder to deflect than a partisan one.
What to watch
The next Oversight hearing. Members have publicly indicated another session is on the calendar. Witnesses will likely include AARO leadership and at least one new whistleblower whose identity has not yet been made public.
The Luna deadline. If the Pentagon misses again, expect movement toward formal subpoena within 30 days.
FY2027 NDAA markup. The maximalist UAP Disclosure Act language is expected to be reintroduced as an NDAA amendment. Whether it survives conference will be the most consequential UAP legislative question of the year.
The administration has the loudest microphone. Congress has the patience and the subpoena power. The disclosure story over the next twelve months will be told largely through the interplay between them.