The National Archives Has Established an Official Collection of Government UAP Records

The United States National Archives and Records Administration has established a new records collection dedicated to publicly archiving government documents related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, in response to a directive outlined in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), one of the few provisions set out by the Schumer Amendment to the Act to have survived its December 2023 passage through Congress.

Originally, the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act” called for the creation of an executive-level review board similar to the Assassination Records Review Board that deals with the declassification of material regarding the JFK assassination, along with the reappropriation of recovered UAP material handed out to contractors and agencies in the past.

In accordance with the sole-surviving measure from the Schumer Amendment to pass with the NDAA, the National Archives has now established that collection, designed to “consist of record copies of all Government, Government-provided, or… Government-funded records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and nonhuman intelligence,” according to section 1841 of the NDAA, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration”.

“The law also requires that by October 2024, each federal agency review, identify, and organize each UAP record in its custody for disclosure to the public and transmission to the National Archives,” according to a February 6 joint memo issued by Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government, Laurence Brewer, and NARA Executive for Research Services Chris Naylor.

An important part of the measures included in the NDAA is that, barring national security concerns, all copies of UAP records included in the Collection “be available to the public… for inspection and copying” within 30 days of their receipt at the Archives, and that they be made available “digitally via the National Archives online database” within 180 days. Additionally, processing priority is to be given to records that were not previously available to the public, along with steps to ensure that the information in the records are not “destroyed, altered, or mutilated in any way” are to be taken by the agencies providing the documents.

“For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time they get some answers,”  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a July 14 statement.

“The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena,” Schumer added. “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.”