UAP Disclosure Act Challenges Department of Energy Secrecy
The Schumer-Rounds amendment may help begin to answer generations of Americans' questions about UFOs. It may also shed light on the DOE's unique system of secrecy and relationship to the topic.
By Dustin Slaughter and Gene Shannon *
Proposed legislation making its way through Congress could significantly change how the American public, and the world, look at the issue of unidentified anomalous phenomena. It would also begin to reverse over 70 years of U.S. government secrecy on the topic and even points to one agency in particular — the Department of Energy (and its predecessors) — as playing a key role in keeping UAP-related material hidden since World War II. The bill’s contents also bear some striking similarities to extraordinary sworn testimony given by a former Air Force intelligence officer to Congress in July.
The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023, a proposed amendment to the forthcoming National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Mike Rounds (R-SD) in July. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), and other Senators are supporting the bill too. The bill is modeled heavily after the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
In a statement formally announcing the bill, Sen. Schumer said in part: “For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time they get some answers. The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public.”
Among the proposed legislation’s mandates is a clause requiring every federal government agency or office to disclose to the public through the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) all records relating to UAP in its possession, including documentation about “technologies of unknown origin” and “non-human intelligence” no later than 25 years after their release following passage of the amendment. If an agency contends that a record should be withheld from the public, that record must be submitted to a Congressionally-enacted UAP Records Review Board to determine eligibility for release.
The proposed Board, which would consist of nine individuals appointed by the President of the United States, would consider whether the agency’s argument for delayed disclosure of a record is merited. All Review Board members would have the necessary security clearances.
The bill would also mandate that any UAP records controlled by an agency but in the possession of individuals or private entities formerly or currently under contract with the federal government be sent to the Review Board for determination of disclosure. In this instance, government agencies would have to identify any responsive records within their control but in private hands, however.
UAP records belonging to Presidential archives would be prioritized for disclosure. President Barack Obama’s library, for example, contains tens of thousands of records about unidentified anomalous phenomena.
Another remarkable clause would empower the federal government to “exercise eminent domain over any recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good.” This suggests that certain members of Congress suspect aerospace companies possess evidence of non-human technology and non-human intelligence, and want those companies to turn over those materials to the federal government. To stress this point, the term “non-human intelligence” occurs over one dozen times throughout the bill.
Spokespersons for Senators Schumer and Rounds did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including whether or not the Biden administration was consulted on the crafting of the legislation, as first reported by Christopher Sharp of The Liberation Times.
According to a statement announcing the bill, the impetus for this legislation stems in part from “a vast web of individuals and groups” that have come forward to share information with Congress about UAP-related programs in which they are allegedly involved or of which they are aware. The statement also alleges that some members of Congress, based on information provided by government eyewitnesses purportedly vetted by Congressional attorneys and the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, believe that the Executive Branch has been “concealing important information regarding UAPs over broad periods of time.”
One of those individuals is likely 37-year-old former Air Force and intelligence officer David Grusch. Grusch testified under oath before Congress in July about his investigation of secret UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs, among other claims, that he was tasked to do while working for the Pentagon’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force. Grusch told Congress that while he has no firsthand knowledge of the programs, he interviewed dozens of witnesses throughout his four-year investigation who allegedly do. Grusch’s saga began in July 2021, when he filed a whistleblower complaint with the Defense Department Inspector General alleging criminal misappropriation of federal dollars to fund secret UAP programs outside the purview of Congressional oversight.
The Debrief, which first broke the news of Grusch’s revelations, also reported that Grusch’s complaint leaked and was followed by “months of retaliation and reprisals related to those disclosures” that same year. He subsequently filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG). After sworn and corroborated testimony from Grusch and others with firsthand knowledge of the programs, the ICIG deemed the allegations “credible and urgent” and referred Grusch’s claims to Congress.
Grusch, when questioned under oath by Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) during the Congressional hearing in July, seemed to suggest that the Department of Energy is collecting data on UAP, but Grusch would not confirm this in a public setting. You can watch this brief exchange below.
What Grusch declined to confirm in an open setting before Congress about what the DOE may know about UAP might be answered, at least in part, by the Schumer-Rounds amendment – specifically with the DOE’s extraordinary power to restrict the flow of information outside the normal channels by which other defense and intelligence agencies are bound. According to the proposed bill’s findings, Congress believes that the DOE and its predecessor agencies have been interpreting the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 in an overly broad manner to maintain secrecy over the UAP issue. The Senate has not made clear what the DOE’s contested interpretation is. The answer may lie in the web of laws surrounding government secrets.
The Department of Energy’s Unique Ability to Restrict Information
Pop culture is filled with spies and their top secret clearances, but how do these secrets work and what does it have to do with the DOE? The government usually controls its secrets under the authority of presidential directives, like Executive Order 13526. Under this standard framework, bureaucrats mark documents with classification levels and restrict access based on clearances and compartmentalization. Government agencies can create Special Access Programs, disclosing top secret information to only those with a “need to know.” As surveyed by Tim McMillan at the Debrief, these information control systems are complex.
The DOE has its special authority to control secret information, however. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA), the DOE is the sole decision maker on what to do with atomic energy-related information called “Restricted Data.” Unlike the standard procedure where information is not classified until a government employee makes it so, Restricted Data is “born secret.” In addition to giving the DOE exclusive authority, the AEA explicitly states that its provisions are the ultimate law on all matters related to Restricted Data. Thus, if any other laws contradict the AEA’s information control rules, the government—including the DOE—must follow the AEA. This AEA supremacy provision has vast implications.
While nothing in the AEA explicitly defines Restricted Data as including UAP, aspects of UAP might be captured by Restricted Data’s possibly ambiguous definitions.
On first reading, the AEA defines Restricted Data as information under two categories: special nuclear materials and atomic weapons. In a recent interview with Jesse Michels, David Grusch speculated a connection between UAP and the DOE based on the AEA’s special nuclear materials category. According to Grusch, if material from a crashed UAP gives off radiation, then it could fall under the definition of special nuclear materials. However, the AEA narrowly defines special nuclear materials as plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium-235. The AEA does allow the DOE to include other materials in this definition, but only through a series of requests and approval by the President and congressional committees. While plausible, categorizing UAP under special nuclear materials would expand the scope of disclosure and leave a trail of records.
Another avenue exists within the AEA’s classification of atomic weapons, which encompasses any device utilizing atomic energy, primarily as a weapon rather than for transportation. Atomic energy itself is also defined as “all forms of energy released in the course of nuclear fission or nuclear transformation.” It’s easy to see how Grusch’s description of hypothetical UAP radiation could invoke the DOE’s authority over atomic energy weapons. However, this option becomes problematic because the AEA would likely require sharing UAP-related atomic weapon information with the Pentagon, opening up any secret program to more Congressional oversight. Stopping there, Grusch’s theory of UAP classification seems weakened by the AEA itself. But what if there’s an additional, secret definition of Restricted Data? For that, we must consider DOE’s relationship with the intelligence community.
When atomic energy secrets under the AEA have intelligence purposes, they may be removed from the Restricted Data classification and moved to another level of classification, a process known as transclassification. The DOE and the Director of National Intelligence may jointly decide whether Restricted Data contains “information concerning the atomic energy programs of other nations.” If so, such information becomes Transclassified Foreign Nuclear Information (TFNI). This section of the AEA seems to only describe a process to share DOE secrets with the intelligence community, but evidence suggests that this language does much more.
The late Arvin Quist was a DOE chemist and lawyer, retiring in 1998 as the Head Classification Officer for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Quist is the author of a prolific multi-volume work on the aspects of information classification. Quist writes how the AEA’s TFNI provision “specifically implies that atomic-energy information originating from foreign countries” is Restricted Data. Quist cites an Atomic Energy Commission document from 1973 where the agency officially states that “indeed, the Act indicates that information on foreign atomic energy programs constitutes Restricted Data unless specifically removed” by the agency. This may be the most plausible way that “atomic energy” can be used to hide a UAP program.
Could UAP data be hiding under the TFNI definition of “atomic energy programs of other nations”? Grusch is not the only one connecting UAP to radiation. Stanford professor Garry Nolan reports finding brain damage in individuals exposed to UAP and the “fields generated by them.” But what about “other nations”? Recall that the UAP Disclosure Act refers to technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence over 20 times. This suggests that the DOE could interpret “other nations” to include unknown or even non-human origin. If that seems like a stretch, you’re not alone: the UAP Disclosure Act expresses specific concern over how the DOE is interpreting TFNI. It’s possible that this is how the DOE has asserted near-total control over its share of UAP-related information for decades.
The DOE has yet to respond to repeated requests for comment from the UAPR on the bill. As a result of this, the UAPR has recently filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as part of an investigation of the agency’s position on whistleblower David Grusch, the proposed Schumer-Rounds amendment, and more.
The Department of Energy’s Predecessor Had Significant History with UAP
Almost nothing is publicly known about the Department of Energy’s current relationship with UAP. However, there is documented historical evidence that its predecessors have come into contact with strange phenomena and have at least expressed interest in studying them, even though secrecy has shrouded any results that may have come from such studies.
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was formed after World War II to manage atomic technology in the wake of the Manhattan Project. In 1974, the Energy Reorganization Act was passed and transferred regulation of nuclear power to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the management of atomic weapons and special energy development programs later became the charge of the Department of Energy in 1977.
According to one declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document, numerous UAP encounters occurred at Atomic Energy Commission sites in New Mexico, such as Sandia, which worked on non-nuclear national security technologies, and Los Alamos, which played an instrumental role in the Manhattan Project and that later helped develop the hydrogen bomb. The FBI memo was obtained by physicist and UFO researcher Dr. Bruce Maccabee and included in UAP researcher Robert Hastings’ groundbreaking book UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites. The book is a sweeping history of U.S. atomic power and nuclear weapon site personnel’s interactions with unidentified anomalous phenomena.
The FBI memo states that from 1948 to 1950, a variety of phenomena were witnessed over 150 times by numerous individuals, many of whom were considered credible by government investigators, in the vicinity of Sandia and Los Alamos in New Mexico. The sightings included “flying discs” emitting “brilliant white light” as well as numerous sightings of “green fireballs” flying horizontally over the sensitive facilities. The memo also indicates that according to a “meteor expert” at the University of New Mexico – Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, director of the University’s Institute of Meteoritics – “the phenomena do not appear to be of meteoric origin.” Dr. LaPaz hypothesized that the strange sightings were probably a type of secret Soviet surveillance technology, but history has borne out the fact that no such technology ever existed in that country’s arsenal.
More incidents occurred around Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, according to the book UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry. Shortly after the end of World War II, Oak Ridge began developing nuclear reactor technology. Starting in 1950, numerous radar tracks of bogies over the facility, detected by personnel at nearby Knoxville Airport, resulted in Air Force jet fighters being scrambled to intercept whatever was there. No visual contacts were made from these scrambles. By October, the U.S. Army and FBI became involved in trying to determine the nature of the sightings.
Visual sightings by lab personnel of “flying saucers” did occur around this time, however. The FBI conducted interviews of witnesses at the lab as well as the surrounding community to “ascertain their reliability, integrity, and loyalty to the United States Government.” After an extensive investigation, the FBI was unable to produce any explanation for the Oak Ridge sightings. According to a U.S. Army report produced as part of its investigation into the Oak Ridge incidents:
“The opinions of the officials of the Security Division, AED, Oak Ridge; AEC Security Patrol, Oak Ridge; FBI, Knoxville; Air Force Radar and Fighter Squadrons, Knoxville; and the OSI, Knoxville, Tennessee, fail to evolve an adequate explanation…”.
The Savannah River Plant in South Carolina also had its share of sightings. The plant was instrumental in the production of high-grade plutonium and other materials that sustained America’s nuclear weapons production program for over 40 years.
Per Hastings’ UFOs and Nukes, a declassified FBI letter from Director J. Edgar Hoover to the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations stated that four DuPont Company employees saw multiple “flying discs” over the plant in May 1952. “The discs were described [by the employees] as being approximately 15 inches in diameter and yellow to gold in color,” wrote Hoover. “All of the objects were allegedly traveling at a high rate of speed and at a high altitude without any noise.”
The Atomic Energy Commission itself had expressed interest in investigating the phenomenon, according to Air Force documents located in the National Archives and highlighted by the Witness Citizen podcast. On January 4, 1950, the Commission contacted the Air Force to request files from the Air Force’s Project Grudge, a program that started (and ended) in 1949 that ostensibly investigated UAP sightings. Grudge followed the USAF’s first foray into UAP investigations, known as Project Sign, and preceded the longer-running and more publicly known Project Blue Book.
More sightings occurred in the vicinity of these facilities in later years, too.
The Schumer-Rounds Amendment: What Happens Next?
Schumer confirmed in late July that the amendment was added to the NDAA without objection from Senate colleagues. The NDAA will now be subjected to House-Senate “pre-conference and conference committee meetings during the weeks ahead mostly behind closed doors; this process has already begun. The fate of the UAP provisions (both Schumer-Rounds and the others) will be determined in those conference negotiations,” Douglas Dean Johnson, a private researcher who covers UAP-related activity in the legislative and executive branches, told the UAPR. The House will next vote on the package before President Joe Biden signs the final version into law. While passed by the Senate, it is not clear whether the proposed Schumer-Rounds amendment to the NDAA will remain intact in its current form.
“Any of these provisions could be modified a little or a lot, or dropped entirely, during the House-Senate negotiations. It is also possible that essentially new provisions dealing with the same general subject matter could emerge during the House-Senate negotiations,” Johnson wrote recently. For an excellent overview of all the legislative activity on UAP currently happening in Congress, including the Schumer-Rounds bill, check out Johnson’s latest.
The UAP Disclosure Act has the potential to link America’s long history with the UFO enigma to the questions we’re asking about the mystery now, and in so doing, provide answers to generations of Americans. But as we’ve seen with legislation such as the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, it may only be the beginning of a long process toward truth and transparency.
“I noted the language in the Schumer legislation regarding UAPs and the Atomic Energy Act and was intrigued,” Robert Hastings, author of UFOs and Nukes, told the UAPR. “I hope that nut is cracked in the future.”
If you want this proposed legislation included in the final version of the NDAA, contact your legislators.
* Please note that Gene Shannon is a pseudonym; the co-author of this article wishes to remain anonymous at this time for personal and professional reasons.
* This article has been updated to clarify the legislative process pertaining to the NDAA; it now reflects that the NDAA and related provisions will be subject to joint House-Senate committee negotiations.
*This article has been updated to clarify that the FBI memo included in Hastings’ UFOs and Nukes was obtained by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, not Mr. Hastings.