UAP disclosure advocates call for transparency on drone incursions

Two former defense officials who helped spur major efforts during previous congressional sessions to drive government transparency on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) returned to the Hill last week for closed-door discussions with several lawmakers about that issue and emerging challenges associated with drones.

“I’m confident that next steps are not only going to follow, but I think we’re going to see potentially even more progress this year than we have in the last seven,” Lue Elizondo told DefenseScoop on Thursday in an interview shortly after departing from those meetings.

Elizondo spent much of his early career in the shadows, working as a career intelligence officer and counterintelligence special agent all over the world on counternarcotics, counter-espionage, counter-insurgency and other covert operations. 

In the early to mid-2000s, he led the Pentagon’s now disbanded, secretive task force that was then studying sky-based anomalies, dubbed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). That hub was essentially a precursor to the Defense Department’s nascent All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was established via the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act following mounting pressure from the public and high-profile proponents like Elizondo and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon.

Under AARO, the Pentagon’s scope has expanded to investigate not just UFOs, but also other types of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” — a broader term that also encompasses undersea objects and those that transition between mediums.

Elizondo said his team for the series of meetings last week included Mellon, two attorneys and a security representative. They met in-person with lawmakers and staff from multiple offices including at least one senator, as well as Reps. Anna Luna, Tim Burchett and Eric Burlison. Officials from several of those offices acknowledged the meetings but declined to provide comments regarding specific discussions.

“The purpose was twofold. One, was to offer our assistance in helping them find the information they’re looking for and help to, I think, increase transparency [on the UAP] topic that is often misunderstood and not very well-appreciated. And we are now seeing with drone incidents that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate between the typical or classic UAP-type incursions and signatures, and those of drones, especially now with the proliferation and the fact that the technology is continuing to get better and better,” Elizondo said.

They discussed how, as he put it, “drones can do now what in 2017 we could only dream of.”

Elizondo noted that cutting-edge battery technologies now allow unmanned aerial systems to deploy on longer flights with better power options. New and lighter materials, such as carbon fiber, are more accessible and affordable to use. And innovation in motors is reducing wear and tear on modern systems.

“Drones are now being used like never before. And in fact, we’re seeing in Ukraine the lethality of these drones is to the point now where there are more casualties caused by drones now than there are by artillery. So this is changing warfare. Now, if there’s one thing we haven’t learned since 9/11 it’s that we don’t seem to be taking these emerging technologies very seriously. It is a matter of time — not if, but when — an adversary, whether it’s a state or a non-state actor, decides to deploy these capabilities in a hostile manner” against the U.S. homeland, he said.

One simple difference between UAP and drones, according to Elizondo, comes down to attribution. 

“Our hope is that drones are attributable — to country X, country Y, company XYZ, right? This rebel group, that rebel group, that non-state actor, this non-state actor. UAP is a little bit different. Both have very unique signatures. In some cases, no signature at all. So ultimately, you don’t know what you don’t know,” he said.

However, “it may turn out that some of these UAP are indeed new drones, [or] some sort of adversarial technology that is flying completely unchallenged, like we saw over Langley Air Force Base,” which disrupted U.S. military flights, Elizondo added.

Roughly a year after that incident happened, the Pentagon confirmed that for 17 days in December 2023, officials reported incursions of unauthorized unmanned aerial systems in restricted airspace over Langley, where highly advanced military assets are housed.

More recently, military officials expressed uncertainty and frustration regarding a series of baffling incidents where mystery drones were repeatedly reported maneuvering over at least two defense installations and elsewhere in New Jersey late last year.

The Trump administration suggested in late January that most of those drones were approved by the Federal Aviation Administration and were not perceived as threats.

“People will tell you, ‘Well, these are all attributable drones.’ Why is it we haven’t recovered a single one? Why is it we haven’t found a single source, a single person [on the record] that is actually flying one of these things? Why is it we don’t have the electromagnetic signature, right?” Elizondo said. 

In the meetings with members of Congress last week, his team called for more public transparency on what the government knows about those recent incursions — and for AARO experts to investigate them.

“Everything is unidentified until it becomes identified. You can’t have a conversation about drones of unknown origin without having a conversation about UAP. You have to think of it as a large umbrella of the UAP issue, and then drones is a smaller umbrella, underneath that bigger umbrella. Drones are a subset of a bigger problem,” Elizondo noted.

Participants in the exchanges also explored possibilities around new legislation to further push the government’s UAP records-release campaigns and information-sharing this year.

“We also discussed the need for certain administrative tools and mechanisms to be implemented, which Congress has the authority to implement, to force elements within the intelligence community and the defense community to be more forthcoming, not only with unclassified information, but with classified information,” Elizondo said.

The lawmakers were also keen to connect on some of their “biggest concerns about expectations management,” in the context of their constituents’ demands for government documentation and oversight for UAP-related projects and materials, according to Elizondo.

“I’ve said before that disclosure and transparency is a process — it’s not an event — meaning you’re going to be sadly disappointed if you think all the revelations are going to be provided all at once. Congress is very concerned. They want to make sure that the American people know this is just step one in a multi-step process to give the American people what they want and what they deserve,” he told DefenseScoop.