Trump Administration Loosens Rules for UFO Whistleblowers, but Gaps Remain
The US Defense Department issued a legal waiver allowing service members and contractors to share UAP-related information with the White House's PURSUE program. Critics say the move excludes the CIA and private contractors, leaving major gaps.
A year ago, former Air Force geospatial intelligence specialist Dylan Borland told a House Oversight task force he had witnessed an unidentified triangular craft lift off silently from Langley Air Force Base in 2012. During the hearing, he repeatedly said he couldn't answer certain questions, citing fear of prosecution under the Espionage Act.
On September 14, the Pentagon announced a partial fix: a "targeted legal waiver" letting current and former service members, civilian personnel, and contractors holding UAP-related national defense information disclose it to PURSUE, the White House-directed initiative that has been publishing UFO files on war.gov since May. The waiver overrides certain enforcement provisions of nondisclosure agreements, but protections don't extend to talking with Congress, the press, or the public, and the announcement says nothing about criminal liability.
President Donald Trump had signaled this move over the summer, directing the Defense Department and intelligence community to waive UAP-related NDAs. A July memo to intelligence chiefs reinforced the directive, giving agencies 30 days to establish procedures — a deadline that passed in August.
Borland, one of the people the waiver was meant for, says it changes little in practice, since a 2022 congressional provision already protected disclosures made through the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). However, AARO has struggled with credibility after its former director questioned whistleblowers' reliability and a 2024 historical report found no evidence of recovered alien technology. Borland says that after raising concerns with the intelligence community's inspector general, he has been blocked from resuming prior employment and blacklisted by certain agencies.
The new waiver applies only to Defense Department-linked individuals, leaving out the CIA and other intelligence agencies where researchers say key secrets may be held. It also doesn't cover NDAs signed with private contractors, since the government isn't a party to those agreements. Despite the shortcomings, some researchers view the announcement as a meaningful sign that the administration is treating the topic seriously at a political level, rather than leaving it solely to career bureaucrats.
