At a recent congressional hearing, the public fixated on a leaked video appearing to show a U.S. missile striking an unidentified object off Yemen in 2024. Whatever the object was, one pressing question is why it took a leak — rather than government disclosure — for the public to see it.

I spent more than 30 years inside the U.S. intelligence community, including serving as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and later as a consultant to the military. During those years, I witnessed a troubling pattern: Incidents of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP (formerly known as unidentified flying objects), were detected by cutting-edge radar and other systems but routinely dismissed, buried or classified beyond justification. In 2017, I helped bring footage of three UAP encounters to the public. Those clips, recorded on advanced infrared cameras by Navy aviators, forced the Pentagon to admit that UAP are real.

From left: Air Force veteran Jeffrey Nuccetelli, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins, journalist George Knapp and Air Force veteran Dylan Borland testify about unidentified aerial phenomena before the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 9. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Since then, academia, startups, civil society groups, the U.S. government and foreign governments have attempted to better understand UAP. Lawmakers are holding hearings and classified briefings. But progress remains halting. After the release of the Navy videos, the intelligence community reclassified almost everything concerning UAP, slowing disclosure to a trickle.

Rather than honor its pledge to Congress to support UAP transparency, the Pentagon continues a slow drip. I don’t have a precise number (even that’s probably classified), but among the thousands of publicly acknowledged UAP reports and videos, there are undoubtedly many that are no more sensitive than the three I shared with the public. Other UAP records may go back 80 years and pose no conceivable threat to national security if they were made public.

How can the government assert that nearly everything about UAP should be classified? Once made public, the three Navy UAP videos strengthened national security by drawing attention to unexplained intrusions into U.S. airspace. Instead of working with Congress to enhance our domain awareness, the intelligence community created new UAP classification rules, cloaking such videos going forward.

Unfortunately, secrecy is often wielded not to protect the nation but to mask inconvenient truths. I have seen many documents that were overclassified by zealous security officials. But excessive secrecy erodes public trust, deprives scientists of crucial data and undermines congressional oversight.

It may also be illegal. Federal law requires the government to transfer its UAP records to the National Archives for public release. Yet the collection so far remains piddling. A presidential executive order forbids classifying records to “prevent embarrassment” or “conceal violations of law.”

“If there is significant doubt about the need to classify information,” the order continues, “it shall not be classified.”

Meanwhile, the bipartisan UAP Disclosure Act, a landmark bill that once passed the Senate, would establish a new declassification guide for UAP. An amendment to the defense bill, the bipartisan UAP Disclosure Act, if enacted, would establish a comprehensive framework to shepherd disclosure. I hope Congress passes both pieces of legislation.

But legislation is not the only tool. This is why the UAP Disclosure Fund, a nonprofit organization where I am the board chair, is taking action. We are filing a battery of requests under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain UAP records from the government. If necessary, we will litigate these requests in federal court.

These requests include those for records the government acknowledges exist but has not released.

For example, according to a now-public memorandum entitled “Flying Discs” housed in the National Archives, in 1948 the Air Force ordered round-the-clock fighters equipped with “gun camera, and such armament as deemed advisable, in order to secure photographs” of these phenomena. Where are these photographs?

We are also calling for more recent reports that can be released without compromising sensitive technologies and documents that could reveal how UAP data has been analyzed — or suppressed.

We need progress now. In a democracy, public debate makes better policy, but that isn’t happening when it comes to UAP. If some of these objects are foreign surveillance platforms, every moment of undue secrecy weakens our defense. If they represent natural phenomena, understanding them is critical to aviation safety. If they represent other phenomena we do not yet understand, disclosure is the first step toward serious scientific study.

Transparency is not just a virtue — it’s a necessity. Withholding information also fuels conspiracy theories and cynicism, undermining faith in our institutions. When Congress and the public struggle to pry even basic answers from the Pentagon, what message does that send to the American people?

This isn’t about chasing sensational headlines. It’s about an informed citizenry and honest government. With thoughtful transparency and rigorous investigation, we can begin to understand these phenomena — and restore the trust that secrecy has squandered.

Christopher Mellon is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and chairman of the board of the UAP Disclosure Fund.