Recently, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., announced she and other lawmakers had secured “full-funding” for a new U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) office specifically created to research Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings.
The announcement follows years of Gillibrand and other lawmakers like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., trying to allocate full-funding for the government office designed to study sightings of what are more commonly known as UFOs.
In a press release put out by her office last week, Gillibrand – also the chair of the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee – announced “she had secured full funding for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act.”
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The release described that Gillibrand and Rubio collaborated on the creation of the office in order to help DoD with “resolving UAP sightings, improving data sharing between DoD and the Intelligence Community on UAP sightings, addressing national security concerns, and reporting health effects people may experience in relation to UAP events.”
According to the release’s description the office has access to DoD and Intelligence Community UAP data and is required to provide Congress with briefings and reports on UAPs.”
The office was created in response to a rise in UAP sighting in American over the last few years.
A report from the Director of National Intelligence that came out in January claimed that UAP sightings have surged in the last two years.
More than 366 UAP sightings during that time frame have been reported to AARO.
Until very recently, getting the office fully-funded and operational has eluded Gillibrand, Rubio, and other lawmakers who supported its creation.
Though the lawmakers secured funding for the creation of the office in the National Defense Authorization Agreement – the National Defense Budget – for the 2022 fiscal year, they weren’t authorized for adequate funding for that year and the next.
In a press release from February, Gillibrand office noted that “FY23 funding falls short of what AARO needs to fulfill its mission and maintain American air supremacy.”
The release featured a letter endorsed by Rubio, Gillibrand, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and other lawmakers asking recommending the NDAA secure the necessary funding.
In the latest release confirming that adequate funding had been secured for AARO for 2024, Gillibrand touted the decision, saying, “With aggression from adversaries on the rise and with incidents like the Chinese spy balloon, it’s critical to our national security that we have strong air domain awareness over our homeland and around U.S. forces operating overseas.”
“Fully funding AARO is essential to our national security; the office provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma around this issue of high public interest,” the lawmaker added.
