THE AGE OF DISCLOSURE: 34 Government Officials Break Silence on Non-Human Intelligence
A documentary featuring senior U.S. officials is revealing what some claim is an 80-year cover-up of non-human technology and bodies.
(Link to the “Age of Disclosure” documentary: https://amzn.to/49AQ4HT)
Something is happening in Washington, and it has nothing to do with partisan politics. Former military officials, intelligence community members, and elected representatives from both sides of the aisle are sitting for interviews, going on record, and making statements that would have been career-ending just a decade ago. They’re saying that humanity is not alone in the universe. They’re claiming the U.S. government has recovered non-human technology and biological remains. They’re alleging that our adversaries are in a secret race to reverse-engineer these materials. All of this is now captured in a documentary that premiered at SXSW in March 2025 and was released nationwide on November 21, 2025.
Dan Farah’s Three-Year Journey
Dan Farah spent three years making “The Age of Disclosure” in secrecy, interviewing 34 senior members of the U.S. Government, military, and intelligence community. Three years of tracking down sources, convincing them to go on camera, and piecing together testimony that paints a picture of something extraordinary happening in our skies.
The film premiered at SXSW on March 9, 2025, and received an Oscar-qualifying run in select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. beginning November 21, with a concurrent release on Amazon Prime Video. The timing is significant when you consider how much momentum the UAP conversation has gained in recent years. Congressional hearings are happening. Whistleblowers are coming forward. The stigma that once made this topic radioactive is starting to crack.
Farah is making his directorial debut after previously producing the science fiction film “Ready Player One” and the fantasy series “The Shannara Chronicles”. Going from science fiction to documentary work about non-human intelligence represents quite a shift. Farah went from telling fictional stories about other worlds to documenting what some believe are real encounters with technology not made by human hands.
Among the interviewees are high-ranking politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, as congressional hearings about UAPs and the proposed UAP Disclosure Act have seen major bipartisan support… people with security clearances, military backgrounds, and reputations to protect.
The film’s central figures include Jay Stratton, former Defense Intelligence Agency official and director of the government’s UAP Task Force, and Luis Elizondo, former Department of Defense official. Elizondo has become one of the most recognizable faces in the UAP disclosure movement, and his story is complicated enough that it deserves its own examination.
The Luis Elizondo Question
Luis Elizondo is the former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), an unpublicized U.S. government program created in 2007 committed to the investigation of UAPs. That’s the official description. The reality of who Elizondo is and what role he actually played has become one of the most contested questions in the UAP discussion.
Elizondo was allegedly recruited to AATIP in 2009, where he was reputedly tasked with investigating the national-security implications of military UAP encounters. His background before AATIP included counterintelligence work and protecting American aerospace technology. According to the Department of Defense, the AATIP program ended in 2012 due to budget cuts, though Elizondo claimed that while the effort’s government funding ended, the program continued with support from Navy and CIA officials even after his resignation in 2017.
In 2017, Elizondo became a public figure in the UFO world. Elizondo released several short videos of military jets encountering unidentified objects as part of a campaign while working for To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science. To The Stars was founded by Tom DeLonge of Blink-182, which added another layer of strangeness to the story. A punk rock musician and former intelligence officials teaming up to push for UAP disclosure sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie, except it actually happened.
The Navy confirmed the authenticity of the videos, stating only that they depict what they consider to be “unidentified aerial phenomena”. Those videos became some of the most analyzed footage in UAP history. Military pilots encountering objects that moved in ways that seemed to defy physics. Objects with no visible means of propulsion. Objects that could drop from 80,000 feet to sea level in seconds.
The problem is that Elizondo’s claims about his role have been challenged. Elizondo’s role within AATIP has been questioned, and there is a lack of confirming evidence that he was involved in the program, with government spokespeople issuing alternating and conflicting accounts of his role. The Pentagon has given different answers at different times about what Elizondo actually did.
In 2017, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White confirmed Elizondo as an AATIP leader to Politico, but in June 2019, Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood added to The Intercept that Elizondo “had no responsibilities” with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI, up until the time he resigned. Those are two completely contradictory statements from official Pentagon sources.
So who’s telling the truth? Senator Harry Reid sent a letter in 2021 to NBC News stating that as one of the original sponsors of AATIP, he could state as a matter of record Elizondo’s involvement and leadership role in the program. Reid was one of the senators who pushed for AATIP’s creation in the first place. He earmarked the money for it. If anyone would know who ran the program, it would be him.
The ambiguity around Elizondo’s role hasn’t stopped him from becoming the face of UAP disclosure efforts. He’s testified before Congress. He’s written a memoir. He’s appeared in documentaries. Now he’s one of the key voices in “The Age of Disclosure.” Whether you believe his claims about his government role or not, his influence on the public conversation about UAPs is undeniable.
November 2024: Another Congressional Hearing
On November 13, 2024, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a joint subcommittee hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth” at 11:30 am in the Rayburn House Office Building. This wasn’t the first congressional hearing on UAPs, and it probably won’t be the last. The November hearing brought new testimony and new witnesses to the public record.
The witnesses included Tim Gallaudet, Rear Admiral U.S. Navy (RET.) and Chief Executive Officer of Ocean STL Consulting; Luis Elizondo, author and former Department of Defense official; Michael Gold, former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships; and Michael Shellenberger, founder of Public. Each brought different expertise and different perspectives to the table.
Gallaudet’s testimony stood out because of the specificity of what he described. In his written testimony, Gallaudet stated that confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for him in January 2015… describing a specific incident.
He described being part of a pre-deployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast that culminated in the famous “Go Fast” video, in which a Navy F/A-18 jet’s sensors recorded an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in the U.S. arsenal. The Go Fast video is one of three Navy videos that have become central to the UAP discussion. Pilots tracked these objects. Radar systems picked them up. The footage exists.
Then something strange happened with that footage. Gallaudet said he was among a group of commanders who received an email containing the video, which was sent by the operations officer of Fleet Forces Command, but the very next day, the email disappeared from his account and those of the other recipients without explanation. Someone higher up the chain of command made that video vanish from official military email systems. The video itself would eventually be released to the public years later, but in 2015, someone wanted it buried.
An early exchange between Elizondo and Rep. Nancy Mace, who led the hearing as chairwoman of the subcommittee on cybersecurity, IT and innovation, suggested that the U.S. is intent on learning more about UAPs, including efforts to recover any objects that might crash. Mace asked direct questions about crash retrieval programs.
When asked if programs were designed to identify and reverse-engineer craft, Elizondo responded that they would have to have a conversation in a closed session, explaining he signed documentation three years ago that restricts his ability to discuss specifically crash retrievals. That’s a careful answer. He didn’t say such programs don’t exist. He said he’s legally prohibited from talking about them in public.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz questioned Elizondo about the document he signed with the Defense Department, noting that he specifically said the document meant he couldn’t talk about crash retrieval. The fact that the document exists and specifically mentions crash retrieval implies there’s something to retrieve.
Michael Shellenberger brought a different kind of evidence to the hearing. Shellenberger’s Public news site recently published a story alleging that the U.S. government is operating an active and highly secretive program called Immaculate Constellation through the Department of Defense. According to Shellenberger’s reporting, this isn’t a program from decades ago. It’s happening now.
Shellenberger shared a document with lawmakers that he described as a whistleblower report about the program, saying it uses high-quality imagery and other sophisticated tools to capture data about UAPs. The document he provided to Congress described a systematic effort to collect and analyze UAP data while keeping that information away from congressional oversight.
The Vice President Gets Curious
Vice President JD Vance has made multiple public statements about his interest in UAPs, and his comments reveal someone who’s genuinely trying to make sense of the phenomenon. Speaking with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine on her podcast “Pod Force One” in October 2025, Vance shared his perspective on the subject. He explained that the topic often came up in conversations with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, noting that both men have long shared an interest in unidentified anomalous phenomena. They talked about it back when they were both senators together.
Vance approached the subject through his Christian faith, which led him to interpret the phenomenon differently than some of his colleagues might. He framed his view through faith rather than fear, stating that he is a big believer that there are things out there that we can’t explain. He suggested that if another person sees something identified as non-human, he might see an angel or a demon, indicating his belief that there are spiritual forces working on the physical world that many don’t see or understand.
That’s an interpretation you don’t often hear from government officials. Most frame UAPs purely as a national security concern or a scientific mystery. Vance was willing to say publicly that maybe what we’re dealing with isn’t extraterrestrial at all. Maybe it’s something that exists in a spiritual dimension that occasionally manifests in physical form.
On the “Ruthless” podcast in August 2025, Vance revealed his fascination with the subject in more direct terms. He mentioned that he planned to use part of the August congressional recess to dive into the UAP issue, jokingly offering to take the show’s hosts to Area 51 once he got to the bottom of it. He acknowledged he hadn’t solved the mystery yet but noted the administration was only six months in at that point.
The Vice President’s interest appears to extend beyond casual curiosity. He stated that he can’t allow himself to become so busy that he doesn’t get to the bottom of this, emphasizing that he will pursue answers. That’s a significant commitment from someone in the second-highest office in the country. Vance is saying that understanding UAPs is important enough that he’s willing to dedicate time and political capital to it.
What Farah’s Documentary Actually Claims
The film alleges an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life. That timeline would take us back to 1945, right around the time of the first alleged crash retrievals that UFO researchers have claimed happened in the southwestern United States. The key voices in “The Age of Disclosure” explain that elements of the U.S. government are engaged in a high-stakes, secret Cold War race with adversarial nations like China and Russia to reverse-engineer technology of non-human origin.
The documentary frames this as an arms race. The first nation to successfully understand and replicate this technology gains a massive strategic advantage. It’s not just about understanding where these objects come from. It’s about figuring out how they work and building our own versions.
Farah pointed out that many high-ranking figures believe the government has taken an antiquated approach to the disclosure of information about UAPs. The secrecy that made sense in 1947 doesn’t necessarily make sense in 2025. The world has changed. The public conversation has changed. The government’s approach to secrecy hasn’t kept pace.
When asked about why the government wouldn’t share this information, Farah explained that there’s beneficial technology that could emerge from it, but this technology could also be used by bad actors to cause significant destruction. That’s the double-edged sword of disclosure. If this technology exists and can be understood, it could revolutionize energy production, transportation, maybe even our understanding of physics. It could also be weaponized.
The documentary reveals highly compartmentalized and top-secret programs within the U.S. Government, so secretive that the President of the United States isn’t always aware of their full extent, that have been conducting research on recovered UAP material, including biological bodies of humanoid life-forms. The documentary claims there are programs so classified that even the President doesn’t have full access to them. These programs are allegedly studying recovered materials and biological remains.
The nuclear connection keeps coming up in UAP reports. The film examines UAP activity in and around nuclear sites and military bases, sometimes interfering with nuclear capabilities. Former military personnel have described incidents where nuclear missiles were temporarily disabled while UAPs were present. Russia has reported similar incidents at their nuclear facilities.
The experts Farah assembled are in agreement that this behavior reads as a coordinated effort on the UAPs’ part to do reconnaissance and research on U.S. capabilities, perhaps out of their own feeling of existential threat, having assessed humans as unreliable and capable of destroying themselves. If you were a non-human intelligence observing Earth and you saw these hairless apes building weapons capable of destroying their entire planet, you might want to keep tabs on those weapons too.
The Race Nobody’s Talking About
In interviews about the documentary, Farah characterized the alleged reverse-engineering race between nations as similar to the Manhattan Project. The comparison is apt in several ways. The Manhattan Project was conducted in extreme secrecy. It brought together the brightest scientific minds of its generation. It involved technologies that seemed impossible at the time. It fundamentally changed the global balance of power.
The first country that successfully decodes this technology could establish technological dominance for generations, similar to how the U.S. became the definitive superpower after developing atomic weapons first. Nuclear weapons gave America strategic superiority for years. Whatever nation cracks the code on UAP propulsion technology first would have an even greater advantage. We’re talking about technology that apparently moves without visible means of propulsion, that can perform maneuvers that would destroy any conventional aircraft, that can operate underwater and in space with equal ease.
China and Russia aren’t sitting on the sidelines. They’re conducting their own UAP research programs. They’re recovering their own materials. They’re having their own encounters. The documentary suggests that this international competition is one reason why disclosure has been so difficult. Nobody wants to show their hand. Nobody wants to reveal how much they know or what capabilities they might be developing.
The Skeptics Push Back
The film received mixed reviews from critics, with Metacritic assigning it a score of 52 out of 100 based on four critics, indicating “mixed or average” reviews. The critical response has been divided between those who find the testimony compelling and those who see the documentary as well-produced speculation.
In a November 2025 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, scientist Charley Lineweaver said the whole film is full of people who are not scientists talking about a topic that he considers very scientific but dismissed it as “baloney”. Lineweaver’s criticism reflects a common skeptical position. These are military and intelligence personnel, not scientists with PhDs in physics. They’re describing observations and claiming access to classified programs, but they’re not providing the kind of data that would convince the scientific community.
Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg called the film a “sensationalistic wolf” in understated sheep’s clothing and noted that “almost nothing in The Age of Disclosure is ‘new,’ per se” but that the quality of its production values set it apart from similar films. Fienberg acknowledges that Farah made a professional, polished documentary. Polish doesn’t equal proof.
Fienberg stated that “nothing is proven”, and thus nothing can be refuted. That’s the fundamental problem with classified information. The witnesses say they’ve seen extraordinary things but can’t share the evidence because it’s classified. That creates an unfalsifiable claim. Believers will say the secrecy proves there’s something to hide. Skeptics will say the lack of evidence proves there’s nothing there.
Despite the critical skepticism, the documentary has generated significant public interest. The initial trailer dropped in January 2025 leading up to the film’s SXSW premiere and quickly reached more than 20 million views across YouTube and social media. Twenty million people watched a trailer about alleged government cover-ups of non-human technology. The public appetite for this information clearly exists.
During his Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Farah addressed the skepticism surrounding the topic. He pointed out that if someone said there’s a constant terrorist threat penetrating the airspace over nuclear weapons sites, no one would laugh at that. He suggested that joking about UAPs is similarly inappropriate given what the witnesses are claiming. The witnesses aren’t describing lights in the sky that could be anything. They’re describing structured craft operating in restricted airspace around the most sensitive military installations in the world.
Could Trump Be the Disclosure President?
During the Fox News interview, Farah suggested that President Donald Trump could be the first president to speak openly about this unexplained phenomenon. He stated that he thinks it’s only a matter of time before there’s a sitting president who steps to the microphone and tells all of humanity that we’re not alone in the universe and that the United States intends to lead the way.
Trump has been asked about UAPs before and has given characteristically vague answers. He’s said he’s been briefed. He’s said he’s heard some interesting things. He’s stopped short of making any definitive statements. Farah believes Trump might be willing to go further than previous presidents.
Farah pointed out that Marco Rubio, now serving as Secretary of State, is one of the most informed people in the United States regarding this topic. Rubio has been involved in UAP hearings for years. He’s pushed for greater transparency. He’s publicly stated that there are objects operating in restricted airspace and we don’t know what they are. Having someone like Rubio in a senior position in the administration could make disclosure more likely.
The bipartisan nature of Congressional interest in UAPs has been evident in multiple hearings, with representatives from both parties pressing for greater transparency. This isn’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. Both parties have members who believe the government is hiding information about UAPs and that information should be shared with Congress and the public.
What Happened to AATIP?
In 2020, the Pentagon acknowledged the existence of a program similar to AATIP called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (UAPTF). After AATIP officially ended in 2012, the work didn’t stop. It just moved to a different program with a different name and different oversight.
The unclassified, but previously unacknowledged, program was made public during a June 2020 hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the program has been giving classified briefings to congressional committees and aerospace executives for over a decade. The fact that aerospace executives are receiving classified briefings about UAPs suggests that the government believes the private sector might have a role to play in understanding this technology. It also suggests that the government is concerned about whether adversaries are developing similar technologies.
The UAPTF has since evolved into other organizational structures within the Pentagon. The government continues to collect data on UAP encounters. Pilots continue to report sightings. Radar systems continue to track objects that shouldn’t be able to move the way they do. The phenomenon isn’t going away, and the government’s response to it continues to adapt.
The New Jersey Drone Mystery
The December 2024 drone sightings over New Jersey added another layer to the ongoing discussion. SUV-sized drones were seen over the skies, terrifying some residents and prompting the Trump administration to release a report on the phenomenon. These weren’t small commercial drones. They were large, they flew at night, and nobody seemed to know who was operating them.
In late January 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed their findings, stating that after research and study, the drones flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized by the FAA for research and various other reasons. That explanation satisfied some people and left others with more questions. Authorized by the FAA for what research? Operated by whom? Why weren’t local authorities informed if these were legitimate operations?
The New Jersey incident shows how quickly the public reacts when they see things in the sky they can’t explain. Social media exploded with theories. Local news covered it extensively. Congress demanded answers. The government eventually provided an explanation, but trust in government explanations of aerial phenomena isn’t exactly at an all-time high.
The Cost of Coming Forward
Farah noted in interviews that some high-level politicians were afraid of how participation in the film might taint their reputation or impact them politically. The stigma around this topic is real. Being associated with UAPs can still damage a career, even as the conversation becomes more mainstream.
Some intelligence officials legitimately believed that their lives would be in danger if they participated in the film, and after long conversations with their significant others, they decided it wasn’t worth it. That’s not paranoia about internet trolls or career concerns. That’s fear of physical danger.
Farah said this was eye-opening, noting that the more you go down this path, it becomes clear that this alleged 80-year cover-up has been enforced with threats. If the cover-up is real, it has been maintained through a combination of classification, compartmentalization, disinformation, and in some cases, intimidation.
Whistleblowers who have come forward have described being followed, having their careers derailed, and facing legal threats. David Grusch, who testified before Congress in 2023, described facing retaliation for his disclosures. The government has laws protecting whistleblowers, but those laws don’t always work as intended when dealing with classified programs.
The Unanswered Questions
The documentary represents a paradigm shift in how UAPs are discussed publicly. Thirty-four government officials went on camera, put their names and reputations on the line, and said that we’re dealing with something real. Whether the claims made by those officials will lead to concrete disclosures remains to be seen.
Congressional hearings continue, with both parties pushing for greater transparency. The National Defense Authorization Act for 2024 included provisions requiring greater transparency around UAP encounters. The National Archives is establishing a collection of unidentified UAP records that can be publicly disclosed. The machinery of government disclosure is moving, albeit slowly.
The question is no longer whether these objects exist in our skies. The Pentagon has confirmed that. The Navy has confirmed that. The question has evolved into who controls them, where they come from, and what their purpose might be. Those are harder questions to answer, especially if the government doesn’t know the answers itself.
If Dan Farah is right, if the 34 people he interviewed are telling the truth, then we’re living through one of the most significant moments in human history. We’re on the cusp of learning that we’re not alone, that we’ve never been alone, and that our government has known this for decades.
If the skeptics are right, then we’re watching an elaborate exercise in confirmation bias, where sincere but mistaken people are interpreting ambiguous data through the lens of extraordinary claims. Where classified programs exist, but they’re studying terrestrial threats, not non-human technology. Where the videos show real objects, but those objects have mundane explanations that just haven’t been made public yet.
The truth, as it so often does, probably lies somewhere in the complicated middle. There are objects in our skies that trained military observers can’t identify. There are encounters that our sensors record that don’t match known aircraft performance characteristics. Whether those objects represent non-human intelligence, secret terrestrial technology, or something else entirely remains the central question.
References
* The Age of Disclosure – Wikipedia
* ‘The Age of Disclosure’: UFO Documentary Gets Release Date, Trailer – Variety
* ‘The Age of Disclosure’ Review: Dan Farah’s Polished Doc About UFOs – The Hollywood Reporter
* SXSW 2025: Dan Farah’s “The Age of Disclosure” Stuns Crowd With Shocking Alien Doc – The Credits
* Aliens Are Real, U.S. Government Officials Have Admitted – Variety Interview
* Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program – Wikipedia
* Luis Elizondo – Wikipedia
* UFOs & National Security with Luis Elizondo – The Washington Post
* Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth – House Committee on Oversight
* UFOs and UAPs should be studied by the U.S., experts tell congressional hearing – NPR
* Explosive new documentary probes ’80-year global coverup’ of UFO secrets – Fox News
* JD Vance says UFOs, aliens could be ‘spiritual forces’ – Fox News
* JD Vance says he’s ‘obsessed’ with eerie UFO videos – Fox News
NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.
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