The majority leader of the US Senate has introduced new legislation that would declassify government records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
New York Senator Chuck Schumer announced the new bill via social media and in the New York Times. It would create a commission with the authority to declassify government documents about UFOs in an attempt to force the government to share all that it knows about unidentified phenomena.
Democrat Schumer will introduce the legislation as an amendment to the annual defense policy bill. It has bipartisan support, with South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio among those to give it their backing.
The New York Times reports that support in the House is also likely. The new legislation follows the example set by the commission that oversaw the release of information about John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
The Kennedy assassination review board forced the release of thousands of pages of documents. However, Schumer’s legislation would allow the president to delay material the commission has chosen to release if there are national security concerns.
On Twitter, Schumer said: “I’m introducing new legislation to declassify government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena and UFOs as an amendment to the NDAA, modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.”
Government officials have repeatedly denied having the remains of a crashed alien spacecraft. Nonetheless, Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described the new bill as “cool”.
It comes as the House Oversight Committee plans to hold a hearing on UAPS and UFOs. Senior Republicans are tentatively scheduling the hearing for the last week of July. Tim Burchett, Republican representative for Tennessee, told Politico: “That’s what it is about: aliens. I think people deserve to know.”
A Republican member of the Oversight Committee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Politico: “There are some people who want to stop it. There are some people who want to do it.
“There’s just internal machinations between staff and members … Some don’t want to do it at this time right now, think it is a bad idea.”
Last month, Senator Marco Rubio said that multiple whistleblowers with access to restricted government information have claimed first-hand knowledge about US activity involving UFOs.
In an interview with NewsNation, Rubio – vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – said: “People who we entrusted to do some really important things for our country are saying some pretty incredible things that I think we have an obligation to take seriously and listen to.”
