(NewsNation) — A new bipartisan bill announced Thursday looks to encourage commercial pilots to report sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), or unidentified flying objects (UFOs), to the United States government.
The effort — led by Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc. — aims to promote safe airspace for Americans by encouraging pilots to report any potential sightings to the government. It would also require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to relay all reports to the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
The bill will also set up legal safeguards for all pilots who make these reports to the federal government.
“UAP transparency is incredibly important for our national security, which is why we need to create a space where those in aviation have the ability to report their findings and experiences,” Garcia said. “This bill is another step forward for disclosure and to provide a safe process for UAP reporting by civilian and commercial personnel.”
The Americans for Safe Aerospace, an advocacy organization for aerospace safety and national security, has endorsed this legislation.
ASA executive Ryan Graves, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot, testified before Congress last summer on his experience with UAPs. During his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Graves asked Congress to provide safe reporting options for commercial pilots.
“Pilots are trained observers of our skies, but I have heard from dozens of frustrated pilots for major airlines who witnessed UAP yet had no confidential way to report them to the government,” Graves said.
If passed, the bill will enable civilian aircrew, FAA air traffic controllers, flight attendants, maintenance workers, dispatchers and airlines to report UAP encounters to the FAA. These reports will allow the FAA and DOD to investigate potential threats to the nation’s airspace.
“All that information should be public,” Garcia said. “It’ll be the first time that aviation personnel and pilots will actually be able to report these UAP encounters to the FAA.”
Last year, whistleblower David Grusch, a former military intelligence officer, came forward publicly in a NewsNation exclusive with allegations the government is covering up a secret UFO crash retrieval program.
That eventually led to Grusch testifying publicly before Congress. The Pentagon has given congressional members a few closed-door briefings since, and they are set to receive another classified briefing Friday from the intelligence community’s inspector general, the same office to which Grusch initially reported his claims. But members who’ve attended the meetings say there have been no bombshells.
“This is a national security issue. This is an issue about transparency, about getting to disclosure,” Garcia said.
“This is not a secret anymore. We now need to get deeper,” UFO reporter Jeremy Corbell said in an interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo. “This is something that I know for sure has been held back, and that’s what’s really pissed off people in Congress and Senate and our government, is that they’re starting to find out that they’ve been lied to, as well.”
Lawmakers were angered last year by what they said was stonewalling from the defense and intelligence communities in their quest for more information.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech in December that information on UAPs is being kept from Congress in violation of the law. A bill he co-sponsored would have required the disclosure of UAP records, but it was significantly pared down before being included in the annual defense authorization bill.
That fight for knowledge, Corbell says, is what’s leading people to reveal more about what they know.