The UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 and its implications

post by andeslodes · 2023-07-21T17:21:35.623Z · LW · GW · 47 comments

This is a link post for https://www.congress.gov/amendment/118th-congress/senate-amendment/797/text

Contents

  The Document
  Definitions
  Intriguing Parts and Discussion
  Conclusion
None
47 comments

TL;DR: A recently proposed (7/13/2023) bipartisan amendment to the NDAA for 2024, with senate majority leader Chuck Schumer as its first sponsor and with the aim of declassifying documents related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). It explicitly defines UAPs as pertaining to objects exhibiting "performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable based upon commonly accepted physical principles" such as, among other things, "instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia", "transmedium travel" and "positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles". It takes care to separate these from "temporarily non-attributed objects" with prosaic explanations. The terms "Non-human intelligence" and "Technologies of unknown origin" are explicitly defined and encountered multiple times throughout the text. The amendment also non-dismissively mentions "reverse engineering of technologies of unknown origins" and "examination of biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence". It declares that "Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records exist that have not been declassified".

 

It is surprising to me that the community has not noticed / discussed the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023, given how much discussion was generated by UFO Betting: Put Up or Shut Up [LW · GW] (enough for Eliezer to indicate willingness to bet 150k yesterday) and Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin [LW · GW]. I think that anyone that is dismissing the topic out of hand should have a good look at this document. While I do not claim that it provides direct proof of phenomena necessitating an "ontological crisis",  I believe that it can be a source of major updates. I also strongly believe that this is the point where a serious discussion must be had about this topic by the community, given the accumulating evidence of  *something* going on, together with the potential ramifications of an "ontologically shocking" outcome. The situation at this point displays parallels with the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in that the topic is not seriously covered by mainstream media yet, despite the available evidence pointing towards some (at least) "interesting" outcomes.  

The Document

The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023 is an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024, which was proposed a week ago (7/13/2023) by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, together with the Republican senator Mike Rounds. The other cosponsors are Marco Rubio (Republican), Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat), Todd Young (Republican) and Martin Heinrich (Democrat). Given the bipartisan sponsorship of the bill and the position of Schumer in the Senate, it is relatively safe to assume that the amendment will become law.

The first thing to notice is the change of meaning for the acronym UAP, from Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, a term which is explicitly defined in the document. This is a sign of things to come, as the text takes care to specify that its contents refer exclusively to non-prosaic phenomena. 

At a high level, this amendment aims to declassify and publicly release records related to UAPs. It requires the creation of a collection of UAP records at the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as the public disclosure of all such records that are not deemed potentially harmful to national security by a Review Board appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate. As discussed in a recent Reuters article, the amendment "is modeled after a 1992 U.S. law spelling out the handling of records related to the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy".

Definitions

A good starting point is to note the definition of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena as given in Section 3 (21) of the document:

UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’’ means any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces, or undersea, lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable based upon commonly accepted physical principles. Unidentified anomalous phenomena are differentiated from both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables:

(i) Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia.
(ii) Hypersonic velocity absent a thermal signature and sonic shockwave.
(iii) Transmedium (such as space-to-ground and air-to-undersea) travel.
(iv) Positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles.
(v) Multispectral signature control
(vi) Physical or invasive biological effects to close observers and the environment.

(B) INCLUSIONS.—The term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’’ includes what were previously described as
(i) flying discs;
(ii) flying saucers;
(iii) unidentified aerial phenomena;
(iv) unidentified flying objects (UFOs); and
(v) unidentified submerged objects(USOs)

The authors of the amendment make sure to separate "physics-defying" phenomena from the prosaic "attributed" and "temporarily non-attributed" objects. The definitions for both of these are given in sections 3 (14) and 3 (19):

PROSAIC ATTRIBUTION

The term ‘‘prosaic attribution’’ means having a human (either foreign or domestic) origin and operating according to current, proven, and generally understood scientific and engineering principles and established laws-of-nature and not attributable to non-human intelligence.

(Emphasis mine)

Notice the mention of non-human intelligence. The term is also explicitly defined in the text and we will get back to it shortly.

 TEMPORARILY NON-ATTRIBUTED OBJECTS

(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘temporarily non-attributed objects’’ means the class of objects that temporarily resist prosaic attribution by the initial observer as a result of environmental or system limitations associated with the observation process that nevertheless ultimately have an accepted human origin or known physical cause. Although some unidentified anomalous phenomena may at first be interpreted as temporarily non-attributed objects, they are not temporarily non-attributed objects, and the two categories are mutually exclusive

(B) INCLUSION.—The term ‘‘temporarily non-attributed objects’’ includes

(i) natural celestial, meteorological, and undersea weather phenomena;

(ii) mundane human-made airborne objects, clutter, and marine debris;

(iii) Federal, State, and local government, commercial industry, academic, and private sector aerospace platforms;

(iv) Federal, State, and local government, commercial industry, academic, and private sector ocean-surface and undersea vehicles;  and

(v) known foreign systems.

In short, the authors of the amendment explicitly separate what they call UAPs from any phenomenon which can be explained away as human technology based on the currently known laws of physics. They also make sure not to include phenomena that remain unexplained due to lack of data. My reading of these definitions is that some phenomenon is characterized as an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon only when the available data explicitly rules out any other potential explanation involving "current physics". While I am unsure if say a Chinese or Russian drone operating on some kind of unknown antigravity device would be considered a UAP, the fact that the term "non-human intelligence" is encountered multiple times in the text seems to indicate that the authors have a different origin in mind for these unexplained phenomena. 

The separation between UAPs and prosaic phenomena is strengthened by the definition of the term "UAP record"  in section 3 (22):

UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA RECORD

The term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena record’’ means a record that is related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, or non-human intelligence (and all equivalent subjects by any other name with the specific and sole exclusion of temporarily non-attributed objects) that was created or made available for use by, obtained by, or otherwise came into the possession of

(A) the Executive Office of the President;
(B) the Department of Defense and its progenitors, the Department of War and the Department of the Navy;

(C) the Department of the Army;
(D) the Department of the Navy;
(E) the Department of the Air Force, specifically the Air Force Office of Special Investigations;
(F) the Department of Energy and its progenitors, the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Energy Research and Development Administration;

(G) the Office of the Director of National Intelligence;

H) the Central Intelligence Agency and its progenitor, the Office of Strategic Services;

(I) the National Reconnaissance Office;

(J) the Defense Intelligence Agency;

(K) the National Security Agency;

(L) the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency;

(M) the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 

(N) the Federal Bureau of Investigation;

(O) the Federal Aviation Administration;
(P) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; 

(Q) the Library of Congress;
(R) the National Archives and Records Administration;

(S) any Presidential library;
(T) any Executive agency;
(U) any independent office or agency;
(V) any other department, office, agency, committee, or commission of the Federal Government;

(W) any State or local government department, office, agency, committee, or commission that provided support or assistance or performed work, in connection with a Federal inquiry into unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, or non-human intelligence; and
(X) any private sector person or entity formerly or currently under contract or some 

(Emphasis mine)

Again, this definition explicitly excludes "temporarily non-attributed objects" from the records. Additionally, it shows that the amendment refers to records that may have been created as far back as during WW2, given the mentions of the Manhattan Project and the progenitor of the CIA. This is potentially significant, as it may indicate that the sponsors of this amendment believe that records of objects behaving in the "physics-defying" ways described in the UAP definition can be found as far back as the 1940s. This would clash with a potential explanation of UAPs as advanced technological objects from a foreign country.  Finally, the definition also mentions the private sector, the role of which will be discussed soon. 

The term "non-human intelligence" is also mentioned once again. Its own definition is given in section 3 (12):

NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.—The term ‘‘non-human intelligence’’ means any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.

Withholding any comment for now, other definitions that are just as eye-catching include:

TECHNOLOGIES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

The term ‘‘technologies of unknown origin’’ means any materials or meta-materials, ejecta, crash debris, mechanisms, machinery, equipment, assemblies or sub-assemblies, engineering models or processes, damaged or intact aerospace vehicles, and damaged or intact ocean-surface and undersea craft associated with unidentified anomalous phenomena or incorporating science and technology that lacks prosaic attribution or known means of human manufacture.

 

 LEGACY PROGRAM

The term ‘‘legacy program’’ means all Federal, State, and local government, commercial industry, academic, and private sector endeavors to collect, exploit, or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence that predates the date of the enactment of this Act.

The inclusion of all these terms, and especially the parts on reverse engineering programs and on the examination of biological evidence of non-human intelligence,  indicates that the authors of the amendment give credence to the claims of whistleblowers such as David Grusch, as mentioned in Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin [LW · GW]. This tracks with recent statements by Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio which were reported in The Hill, namely that

multiple individuals with “very high clearances and high positions within our government have come forward to share “first-hand” UFO-related claims beyond the realm of what [the Senate Intelligence Committee] has ever dealt with.”

Intriguing Parts and Discussion

The entirety of section 2 is interesting, so I include it here in full. I have emphasized the parts that I consider as most important.

SEC. 02. FINDINGS, DECLARATIONS, AND PURPOSES

(a) FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS.

Congress finds and declares the following:

(1) All Federal Government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena should be preserved and centralized for historical and Federal Government purposes.

(2) All Federal Government records concerning unidentified anomalous phenomena should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure and all records should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history of the Federal Government’s knowledge and involvement surrounding unidentified anomalous phenomena.

(3) Legislation is necessary to create an enforceable, independent, and accountable process for the public disclosure of such records.

(4) Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records exist that have not been declassified or subject to mandatory declassification review as set forth in Executive Order 13526 (50 U.S.C. 3161 note; relating to classified national security information) due in part to exemptions under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.), as well as an overbroad interpretation of ‘‘transclassified foreign nuclear information’’, which is also exempt from mandatory declassification, thereby preventing public disclosure under existing provisions of law.

(5) Legislation is necessary because section 552
of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the ‘‘Freedom of Information Act’’), as implemented by the Executive branch of the Federal Government, has proven inadequate in achieving the timely public disclosure of Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records that are subject to mandatory declassification review.

(6) Legislation is necessary to restore proper oversight over unidentified anomalous phenomena records by elected officials in both the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government that has otherwise been lacking as of the enactment of this Act. 

(7) Legislation is necessary to afford complete and timely access to all knowledge gained by the Federal Government concerning unidentified anomalous phenomena in furtherance of comprehensive open scientific and technological research and development essential to avoiding or mitigating potential technological surprise in furtherance of urgent national security concerns and the public interest.

(b) PURPOSES.

The purposes of this title are:
(1) to provide for the creation of the unidentified anomalous phenomena Records Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration; and

(2) to require the expeditious public transmission to the Archivist and public disclosure of such records.

Point 4 is arguably the most interesting part of this section, given the previously stated definition of UAPs. According to this part of the text, there is credible evidence and testimony that the US Federal Government has in its possession records showing objects behaving in ways that cannot be explained by "commonly accepted" physical principles. Again, since UAPs do not include "temporarily non-attributed objects", we should expect the existence of classified records which show objects displaying instantaneous acceleration without apparent inertia, transmedium travel, positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles etc. By definition, these records should be clear / descriptive enough and should provide adequate data to rule out conventional explanations.

Another curious part of section 2 is paragraph (7). What are the urgent national security concerns which necessitate open scientific and technological research and development using knowledge related to UAPs? 

One way to look at it would be again to assume that UAPs are technological objects from the US's foreign adversaries. Seen in this light, this paragraph would essentially call for the open sourcing of information on foreign drones / craft in the hopes that the mainstream scientific community will be able to understand the physical principles on which they operate and thus nullify the advantage. While this sounds at least slightly reasonable at first glance, on second thought it makes way less sense. First, assuming that these objects belong to some adversary of the US (otherwise it wouldn't  make sense to publicize any information about them) we are left with the conclusion that one of the world's major powers has technology which should guarantee absolute air superiority. The question then becomes, why isn't this technology being used today, before the US can catch up? Russia would benefit from using it in Ukraine and China could use it to take over Taiwan. Also, why would the US publicly admit that they do not have such technology? Even if this admission was false with the purpose of furthering some unknown goal, there should be some more subtle and believable way of going about it. 

Another option is to reject the validity of anything said in paragraph (7). The whole document may be part of some elaborate psychological operation with unknown goals and thus we cannot trust anything written in it. This is definitely a valid possibility. However, it still begs the question why would anyone go to such lengths to talk about reverse engineering of exotic and potentially non-human technologies, recovery of biological evidence of non-human intelligence and other extraordinary stuff. Wouldn't it be possible to achieve the same goals using some other, more subtle means, with less potential to destroy faith in the democratic institutions of the US? Providing (fabricated) evidence of a seemingly decades-long coverup of UAPs, perpetrated by some shadowy part of the US government, which supposedly operated practically without oversight for close to half a century would be akin to throwing kerosene on the fire of currently existing conspiracy theories. Given such a precedent, many other conspiracy theories start to become much more believable. If this whole situation is indeed a psy-op, it begs the question of what could be so important so as to be worth such a sacrifice?

The third non-weird explanation for the existence of this document would be that the politicians have been misled, purposefully or not, by the available evidence and by the aforementioned whistleblowers. This is the prosaic explanation that I would consider most likely if I had to choose one. Still, this raises a couple of issues. First, these are high-ranking politicians who are potentially putting their career in jeopardy by giving credence to claims that are highly socially unacceptable and which leave them open to low-effort political attacks. I would expect that they would take extreme care to verify that the evidence they have seen is strong enough such that the probability of being wrong tends to zero. Second, both Schumer and Rubio are in the Gang of Eight, which means that they should be privy to highly sensitive intelligence information.  This fact both adds more weight to their sponsorship of the UAP Disclosure Act and also means that they should have access to enough high quality evidence to check the claims of whistleblowers, or at least parts of them, until they are sufficiently convinced of their veracity. As a counterpoint to this, from a recent opinion piece on The Hill:

According to Rubio, only one of two remarkable outcomes will ultimately explain recent developments, “Either what [the whistleblower] is saying is partially true or entirely true,” he said, “or we have some really smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government who are crazy and are leading us on a goose chase.”

“Most of these people,” Rubio continued, “have held very high clearances and high positions within our government. So, you ask yourself: What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification — these are serious people — have to come forward and make something up?”

Pressed for details, Rubio stated that individuals with “firsthand knowledge or firsthand claims” are “saying to us what you’ve seen out there in the public record, whether it’s about legacy [UFO] programs or about current events.”

According to Rubio, the whistleblowers’ statements are beyond “the realm of what any of us [on the Senate Intelligence Committee] has ever dealt with.”

Rubio also addressed claims that individuals involved with such alleged retrieval and exploitation programs are withholding information from the Pentagon’s new UFO analysis office. If the allegations are true, Rubio stated, “there’s a group of people who believe that they possess something that they don’t need to share with anybody, including elected officials, whom they view as temporary employees of the government.”

These statements seem to indicate that they lack the means to fully check the claims of the whistleblowers, but that the evidence provided is judged to be substantial enough to warrant the creation of the UAP Disclosure Act. Taking these statements together with everything mentioned in section 2, the update-worthy inference would be to go from "seemingly credible whistleblower says incredibly weird things and claims to be taken seriously by congress" to "congress takes whistleblower information seriously enough to propose new law at the weirdness level of the UAP Disclosure Act". The new question that arises is "why now?".

To try to infer an answer to this, let us return to the actual contents of the document. Coming back to section 2 (7), there is another possible way to read this part, which is more in line with the recent claims from whistleblowers. Specifically, Grusch mentioned that both the US and other foreign governments have located and retrieved crashed crafts related to UAPs. According to The Debrief article:

[Grusch] said he reported to Congress on the existence of a decades-long “publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material – a competition with near-peer adversaries over the years to identify UAP crashes/landings and retrieve the material for exploitation/reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.”

If we assume that Congress takes these claims seriously, then this would mean that such reverse engineering programs in the US were unsuccessful. The "avoiding or mitigating potential technological surprise" part could provide a potential justification for why this whole thing is happening now: The US has reason to believe that corresponding programs in one or more countries have made more progress or may be closing in on some breakthrough and it is thus seeking to nullify their advantage. It aims to achieve this by publicizing the topic along with the knowledge related to these technologies with the hope that "mainstream" scientists will manage to publicly reverse engineer said technologies and thus negate any advantage foreign adversaries may have. This theory should have the following observable result: The US should be itching to publicize such information as quickly as possible, with the constraint of not causing public panic. I am not sure if this can actually be said about the current situation.

 Putting this aside for now, some interesting parts also exist in section 4, which discusses what documents to collect along with other administrative stuff:

SEC. 04. UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA RECORDS COLLECTION AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION.

(a) ESTABLISHMENT
(1) IN GENERAL

(A) Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Archivist shall commence establishment of a collection of records in the National Archives to be known as the ‘‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection’’.

(B) In carrying out subparagraph (A), the Archivist shall ensure the physical integrity and original provenance (or if indeterminate, the earliest historical owner) of all records in the Collection.

(C) The Collection shall consist of record copies of all Government, Government-provided, or Government-funded records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence (or equivalent subjects by any other name with the specific and sole exclusion of temporarily non-attributed objects), which shall be transmitted to the National Archives in accordance with section 2107 of title 44, United States Code.

(This section includes more parts that I have omitted. Emphasis mine)

Again, the targeted records should relate to UAPs, technologies of unknown origin and  non-human intelligence. I think it is safe to assume that this signifies that the sponsors of this amendment have at least some evidence pointing to the existence of such records. 

Section 5 describes the collection and review process. It essentially requires all government offices to look for records of UAPs, to find all records classified or not that fit the description according to some identification aid and to send them to a Review Board (to be defined in a bit) and to the Archivist of the United States. This will lead to the creation of a collection of UAP records with a declassified and a classified part. As mentioned in section 5 (E) in page 27:

(E) Each unidentified anomalous phenomena record shall be publicly disclosed in full, and available in the Collection, not later than the date that is 25 years after the date of the first creation of the record by the originating body, unless the President certifies, as required by this title, that 

(i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and

(ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

Section 6 gives exact definitions for when the release of a UAP record can be postponed. It includes standard reasons such as hurting current intelligence activities or damaging national security in general. I am very curious about what UAP records they will actually be able to release given that Section 6 gives quite broad reasons for retaining the classified status of said records. 

Sections 7 and 8 discuss the Review Board:

IN GENERAL.—The President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint, without regard to political affiliation, 9 citizens of the United States to serve as members of the Review Board to ensure and facilitate the review, transmission to the Archivist, and public disclosure of government records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena.

The most striking parts of these two sections can be found in the required qualifications for the members of the Board:

(4) QUALIFICATIONS.—Persons nominated to the Review Board

(A) shall be impartial citizens, none of whom shall have had any previous or current involvement with any legacy program or controlling authority relating to the collection, exploitation, or reverse engineering of technologies of unknown origin or the examination of biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence;

(B) shall be distinguished persons of high national professional reputation in their respective fields who are capable of exercising the independent and objective judgment necessary to the fulfillment of their role in ensuring and facilitating the review, transmission to the public, and public disclosure of records related to the government’s understanding of, and activities associated with unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence and who possess an appreciation of the value of such material to the public, scholars, and government; and

(C) shall include at least

(i) 1 current or former national security official;

(ii) 1 current or former foreign service official;

(iii) 1 scientist or engineer; 

(iv) 1 economist;

(v) 1 professional historian; and

(vi) 1 sociologist.

The document bars from participating in the Review Board any person who may have taken part in legacy programs related to the reverse-engineering of technologies of unknown origin and to the examination of biological evidence of non-human intelligence. This is the first time that the term "Legacy Program" shows up in the main text after being defined in section 3. Again, this rule makes sense given the general gist of the document, but it makes one wonder how much evidence do the sponsors of the amendment have and to what extent does it actually support the existence of such legacy programs. I think it is safe to assume that they have whistleblower testimony, and if we take Rubio at his word, we are talking about multiple whistleblowers with high clearances. The question then becomes whether they have evidence apart from whistleblower testimony, such as video / pictures, materials or documents corroborating what they have heard from the whistleblowers.  Going back to section 2 (4), we have that 

(4) Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records exist that have not been declassified [...]

This paragraph indicates that they may indeed have evidence, separate from whistleblower testimony, when it comes specifically to the existence of UAP records. I expect that this evidence is quite strong, given previously known facts about UAP sightings. For example, in the 2021 Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Report indicates that

[...] the UAPTF (UAP Task Force) focused on reports that involved UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) largely witnessed firsthand by military aviators and that were collected from systems we considered to be reliable. These reports describe incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2021, with the majority coming in the last two years as the new reporting mechanism became better known to the military aviation community. We were able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.

144 reports originated from USG sources. Of these, 80 reports involved observation with multiple sensors.

[...] In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics. Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion

Note that the term UAP in the 2021 report is used differently since it relates to aerial phenomena only, and, at that moment in time, it also included "temporarily non-attributed objects". The change in terminology between the two reports is interesting in itself. 

Returning to the question of evidence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the 2021 report indicates that a large number of sightings involved multiple sensors, which makes it more likely that the observed object corresponded to some physical thing and not just to malfunction or sensor artifacts. In general, I believe it is highly likely that the credible evidence of UAPs mentioned in section 2 paragraph 4 includes clear footage of objects displaying the "physics-defying" characteristics described in the UAP definition, probably corroborated by data from multiple sensors.

What about evidence for recovered technologies or for recovered remains of non-human intelligence though?

Some indications towards an answer can be found in section 10, provided here in full:

SEC. 10. DISCLOSURE OF RECOVERED TECHNOLOGIES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN AND BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.

(a) EXERCISE OF EMINENT DOMAIN.—The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good. 

(b) AVAILABILITY TO REVIEW BOARD.—Any and all such material, should it exist, shall be made available to the Review Board for personal examination and subsequent disclosure determination at a location suitable to the controlling authority of said material and in a timely manner conducive to the objectives of the Review Board in accordance with the requirements of this title.

(c) ACTIONS OF REVIEW BOARD.—In carrying out subsection (b), the Review Board shall consider and render decisions— 

(1) whether the material examined constitutes technologies of unknown origin or biological evidence of non-human intelligence beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) whether recovered technologies of unknown origin, biological evidence of non-human intelligence, or a particular subset of material qualifies for postponement of disclosure under this title; and 

(3) what changes, if any, to the current disposition of said material should the Federal Government make to facilitate full disclosure.

(d) REVIEW BOARD ACCESS TO TESTIMONY AND WITNESSES.—The Review Board shall have access to all testimony from unidentified anomalous phenomena witnesses, close observers and legacy program personnel and whistleblowers within the Federal Government’s possession as of and after the date of the enactment of this Act in furtherance of Review Board disclosure determination responsibilities in section ll07(h) and subsection (c) of this section.

(e) SOLICITATION OF ADDITIONAL WITNESSES.—

The Review Board shall solicit additional unidentified anomalous phenomena witness and whistleblower testimony and afford protections under section 1673(b) of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (50 U.S.C. 3373b(b)) if deemed beneficial in fulfilling Review Board responsibilities under this title.

First of all, let me note the sheer weirdness of finding a section with such a title in an official document that is soon to be law. Putting this aside, the first paragraph seems to indicate that the sponsors of the amendment have reason to believe that private entities may hold material related to UAP. This is a staple of UFO lore, as it is argued that outsourcing the examination of such material to private companies will exempt all documents produced during such efforts from Freedom of Information Act declassification requests. However, the second paragraph seems to  indicate that the evidence for the existence of such private efforts is not that strong. I am unsure whether the emphasized sentence only refers to private efforts or to the existence of such material in general.

Nevertheless, I find it puzzling why this amendment would even mention non-human intelligence in the first place. From what I know, before Grusch came out, the issue was mostly focused on UAPs as unexplained aerial phenomena  with the more recent inclusion of transmedium vehicles. The amendment could just as easily be focused only on records of UAPs, without requiring any reference to non-human intelligence or legacy programs or any other of the more weird stuff. The sponsors could have played it safe without seemingly going off the deep end of the more "conspiratorial" parts of this phenomenon. Personally, this is the most important question at the moment: "What kind of evidence have they seen that makes them certain enough to look for legacy programs, technologies of unknown origin and connections to non-human intelligence?" 

Conclusion

Why take the UAP topic seriously at this point:

• Congress seems to take whistleblower testimony seriously enough to try to pass an amendment with "weird" language on a highly stigmatized topic. 
• The testimony seems to be coming from multiple witnesses with high security clearances.
• It appears highly likely that some or all of the sponsors and cosponsors of this amendment have seen at least clear footage of objects displaying the anomalous behaviors outlined in the UAP definition. The footage is likely corroborated by multiple sensors of different types and/or by witness testimony.
  • This would track with the fact that there are already reports of such footage existing, as mentioned for example in the 2021 UAP Report.
  •  Senators / congressmen with high clearances such as Rubio and Schumer should have access to such footage. This would explain why they are taking the subject so seriously.
• The terms "non-human intelligence", "technologies of unknown origin" and "legacy programs"  show up multiple times in the document, while they could easily be avoided and the amendment would still have a clear reason to exist. This indicates that evidence exists that connects the UAP topic to "ontologically shocking" themes.
  • This evidence should presumably be strong enough to convince high-ranking politicians that the aforementioned terms have clear reasons to be included in the amendment, despite the potential political costs of being associated with a topic that is so heavily stigmatized.

There are also indications that the topic will become more mainstream in the following months / years. There is already a public hearing scheduled for the 26th of July, by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, where David Grusch will be testifying, together with Ryan Graves and David Fravor. Additionally, a Senate hearing on the topic seems to also be in the works. And, of course, the declassification of UAP documents sometime next year, after the UAP Disclosure Act becomes law, should also generate some media attention, depending on the contents of the declassified material. 

Putting all of the above together, I strongly believe that the UAP topic should not be discounted without careful consideration. It also seems that the potential for "ontologically shocking" outcomes should now seriously be taken into account. 

I look forward to more discussion on the topic by the community.

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