Congress Wants to Know More About Military UAP Intercepts Around North America
Washington, D.C., Dec. 22, 2025 – Editor’s Note: This article by Brandi Vincent first appeared on the Defensescoop.com website on 12/20/25 and can be seen here: https://defensescoop.com/2025/12/10/uap-ufo-military-intercepts-north-america-fy-2026-ndaa/?ref=ufouapwtf.com
The conferenced version of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Pentagon to brief lawmakers on operations since 2004 involving any unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) intercepts conducted by the integrated military commands that share leadership and a focus on defending North America.
This mandate marks one of three provisions associated with UAP — or the modern term for UFOs and other mysterious transmedium objects — that made it into the annual defense policy legislation.
It also comes as North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) are confronting a concerning spurt in reports of unexplained drone and UAP incursions, particularly near sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure sites.
“Congress’ inclusion of these three UAP provisions in the FY26 NDAA reflects a meaningful, if incremental, step toward transparency and oversight,” the Disclosure Foundation’s Executive Director Jordan Flowers told DefenseScoop.
Formerly known as the UAP Disclosure Fund, that recently rebranded group involves leading scientists, academics, national security experts and transparency advocates, who organize and back a range of efforts to drive policy research, public education, legal support, and congressional reforms to compel UAP disclosure from the U.S. government.
Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, serves as the organization’s chairman of the board. Flowers noted that two of the measures that lawmakers adopted in the latest NDAA mirror specific recommendations Mellon and his team have publicly promoted for years.
The Pentagon has a storied legacy when it comes to dealing with technologies and craft that personnel have reported performing in ways that seem to transcend the capabilities of contemporary assets. At a high level, the Defense Department’s teams to study UAP have taken different forms over recent decades.
Its most recent version — known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO — was officially launched under the Biden administration in 2022 to fulfill a requirement in that year’s NDAA.
A provision in the fiscal 2026 NDAA would amend that prior mandate to also direct the AARO director to supply Congress with briefings and data regarding the “number, location, and nature” of any UAP intercepts conducted by Northcom and NORAD. Details about the procedures and protocols followed during those operations, “including any data collected or analyzed during such intercepts,” is also required under the new legislation.
At an event on Capitol Hill in May, Mellon noted that the U.S. operates some of the most advanced sensor systems in the world, but information they capture about anomalous incursions has historically not reached Congress, AARO, or the scientific community as much as transparency advocates would like to see.
“Creating a statutory obligation to brief Congress on these intercepts is a concrete step toward correcting that deficiency,” Flowers said.
The conferenced version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill also includes a directive for AARO to account for UAP-related security classification guides that apply to information used for reports and investigations of such phenomena.
In Flowers’ view, that inclusion “responds to long-standing concerns about overclassification and improper restrictions on the release of imagery or data.” Disclosure Foundation officials, including Mellon, have repeatedly warned that the DOD’s internal classification guides have been applied in ways that are inconsistent with executive order standards, resulting in what they say involves the suppression of material that was previously unclassified.
“This new requirement is a necessary first move toward greater consistency and transparency,” Flowers noted.
The third UAP-related section in the NDAA would broadly eliminate duplicative reporting requirements and streamline federal agencies’ processes for providing relevant data and information to the Pentagon for AARO’s investigations.
“More work remains, but these updates are encouraging,” Flowers told DefenseScoop. “They demonstrate that Congress is listening to subject matter experts and is taking incremental steps to strengthen oversight, reduce barriers to information sharing, and ensure a clearer understanding of anomalous activity in U.S. airspace.”
Both chambers of Congress must pass the compromise version of the NDAA and the president must sign it, before it becomes law.
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ABOUT THE WRITER:
Brandi Vincent is a Senior Reporter at DefenseScoop, where she reports on disruptive technologies and associated policies impacting Pentagon and military personnel. Prior to joining SNG, she produced a documentary and worked as a journalist at Nextgov, Snapchat and NBC Network. Brandi grew up in Louisiana and received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. She was named Best New Journalist at the 2024 Defence Media Awards.
