The UFO disclosure timeline
Disclosure didn't happen in a moment, it happened in a sequence, each step grudging, each one on the record. Here's the whole arc, from the 1947 Roswell origin to this month's headlines, newest first, every entry linked to a primary source or a deep dive.
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'Disclosure Day' opens
Steven Spielberg's fictional film about the day the secret breaks arrives three days after a real whistleblower tried to break it on the Capitol steps. Culture catches up to the cycle, but a movie ending is not a press release.
→ Fiction vs. the real record -
The Capitol-steps press conference
Grusch and a bipartisan group of lawmakers demand the White House release UFO files and grant whistleblowers immunity. Grusch describes a 'continuum' of beings, including 'sentient plasmoid life', but produces no evidence, and no bill.
→ What was actually said -
The PURSUE files
A fresh document wave reignites the cycle. We read the strangest of it so you don't have to wade through the dump.
→ Inside PURSUE -
AARO's historical report lands, and is disputed
AARO's Historical Record Report Volume 1 concludes it found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology. Disclosure advocates contest its scope and access. The argument is the point.
→ What AARO actually published -
The UAP Disclosure Act is gutted
The Schumer-Rounds amendment, eminent domain over recovered material, a records-review board, is stripped down before passing in the NDAA. What survived still matters.
→ Why it still matters -
Grusch testifies under oath
At a House Oversight hearing, former intelligence officer David Grusch swears the U.S. operates a decades-long crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program. Navy pilots Ryan Graves and David Fravor corroborate the encounter record.
→ The biology question -
AARO is established
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is created to investigate UAP across air, sea, space and trans-medium domains, a standing office, not a task force.
→ DoD establishment memo -
Congress holds its first UAP hearing in 50+ years
A House Intelligence subcommittee questions Pentagon officials on the record, the first open congressional UAP hearing since the Project Blue Book era.
→ Decode the acronyms -
ODNI's preliminary assessment
The intelligence community delivers an unclassified assessment of 144 military UAP reports. It explains away exactly one. The rest stay open, and it declines to rule anything out.
→ ODNI assessment (PDF) -
The Pentagon releases the Navy videos
The Department of Defense formally declassifies and releases FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, officially confirming footage that had already leaked, and that the objects in them remain unidentified.
→ DoD statement -
AATIP goes public
The New York Times reveals the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, and the first U.S. Navy encounter videos reach the public. The topic moves from fringe to front page.
→ The five observables this produced -
AATIP is quietly funded
Via a congressional earmark, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program begins studying UAP for the Pentagon, entirely out of public view. The modern era has a secret prologue that won't surface for a decade.
→ Decode the programs -
Project Blue Book closes
The U.S. Air Force shutters its 17-year public UFO study, concluding none of the cases was a national-security threat or non-terrestrial. The government officially exits the UFO business for nearly four decades.
→ Project Blue Book (National Archives) -
Roswell, the origin myth
A rancher finds debris near Roswell, New Mexico. The Army first announces it captured a 'flying disc,' then retracts to 'weather balloon.' Whatever it was, it became the seed of every disclosure argument that followed.
→ The recovered-bodies claim
Frequently asked
What is UFO disclosure? +
UFO (or UAP) disclosure is the gradual, partial release by the US government of information about unidentified anomalous phenomena, videos, intelligence assessments, hearings, and whistleblower testimony, plus the ongoing push by some lawmakers and advocates for fuller transparency. It is a process, not a single event, and it remains incomplete.
When did the modern UFO disclosure era begin? +
Most date it to December 2017, when The New York Times revealed the Pentagon's AATIP program and published the first US Navy encounter videos. That moved UAP from a fringe topic to mainstream news and led directly to official assessments, congressional hearings, and a standing Pentagon office (AARO).
Has the US government confirmed that aliens are real? +
No. The government has officially confirmed that some objects in military footage are unidentified and that it cannot explain many incidents, but it has not confirmed any are non-human. The Pentagon's UAP office (AARO) stated in 2024 it found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial technology. Claims to the contrary are testimony, not confirmation.
What is the latest in UFO disclosure? +
As of mid-2026, the Pentagon has been releasing tranches of UAP files (the PURSUE releases), and in June 2026 whistleblower David Grusch and a bipartisan group of lawmakers held a Capitol press conference demanding fuller release and whistleblower immunity. No physical evidence or smoking-gun document has been made public.
The cycle is still running. Argue with the evidence on the ranked case files, follow new disclosure at the Disclosure desk, or have it delivered, the Briefing.