Zakiya Lathan, News Editor, Digital and Audio
A new Pentagon waiver allows current and former personnel and contractors to provide protected UAP information directly to the PURSUE initiative without violating certain nondisclosure agreements. It does not, however, authorize them to disclose classified information publicly.
The Pentagon has created a new legally protected pathway for current and former military personnel, civilian employees and contractors to disclose sensitive information about unidentified anomalous phenomena — a development that could expand the amount of UAP material available for government review and possible declassification.
The Pentagon announced Sept. 14, 2026, that it had issued a targeted legal waiver allowing individuals with access to UAP-related National Defense Information to provide that information directly to designated representatives of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, or PURSUE.
According to the department, the waiver supersedes civil and administrative enforcement provisions in nondisclosure agreements and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements, but only for disclosures made to authorized PURSUE representatives.
Functionally, that means someone who encountered UAP information while working inside a sensitive or compartmented government program can use this authorized channel without the standard NDA itself preventing the disclosure to PURSUE.
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What it does not do is equally important.
The announcement does not give government employees or contractors blanket permission to release classified UAP information to journalists, researchers or the public. Nor does it automatically declassify anything a witness provides. Instead, the department describes the mechanism as a pipeline for “systematic review, security evaluation, and potential declassification.” In other words, disclosure to PURSUE and disclosure to the public remain two different things.
The waiver also does not establish that secret programs involving extraterrestrial or nonhuman technology exist. The announcement makes no such finding.
The initiative nevertheless represents another notable step in a government UAP transparency process that has accelerated considerably in recent years.
Congress established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, in 2022. Under provisions of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, AARO already has authority to receive UAP-related information at all classification levels despite restrictive access controls, including special access and compartmented programs. AARO states that authorized disclosures to its office are not subject to an individual’s NDA.
That makes the new PURSUE waiver less a beginning than an expansion of an existing principle: secrecy agreements should not prevent authorized UAP reporting within designated government channels.
The historical backdrop extends much further. AARO’s 2024 historical review examined official U.S. government UAP investigations dating to 1945, encompassing the decades that produced projects such as Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. AARO reported that it had found no evidence that the U.S. government or private companies had confirmed extraterrestrial technology, while also acknowledging unresolved allegations requiring further examination.
PURSUE now adds a different dimension. Launched in May, the interagency effort is specifically tasked with finding, reviewing, declassifying and publicly releasing UAP records. Five tranches had been released by Aug. 7, 2026.
For Disclosure, therefore, the significance of the new waiver may depend on what happens next. It removes one stated obstacle preventing knowledgeable insiders from talking to PURSUE. Whether those disclosures produce genuinely new information — and how much of that information ultimately reaches the public — remains unknown.
The door has been opened wider. What comes through it is the unanswered question.
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