Has the U.S. government secretly retrieved exotic craft of “non-human” origin? Newly declassified documents, along with extraordinary legislation, illustrate how two successive Democratic Senate majority leaders appear to have believed so.

In eyebrow-raising comments on the Senate floor, Schumer said the government “has gathered a great deal of information about [UFOs] over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people.”

Critically, according to Schumer, “multiple credible sources” have alleged that elements of the U.S. government have withheld UFO-related information from Congress illegally.

In recent months, the Pentagon’s UFO office has lost much of its credibility following a series of flawed and deeply misleading reports.

Crucially, another set of newly released documents indicates that high-level current and former officials with apparent knowledge of illicit UFO programs refused to meet with Kirkpatrick.

As Christopher Mellon, the Department of Defense’s former top civilian intelligence official, notes, many UFO whistleblowers do not trust the Pentagon process, preferring to speak to Congress and the intelligence community’s internal watchdog instead.