Trump's UFO push meets “kabuki theater” as SETI widens the search
Inside the crucible of testimony.
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- President Trump directed agencies to waive some UFO nondisclosure agreements for witnesses cooperating with federal investigators.
- Critics say the move changes little because classified information still cannot be shared publicly under existing law.
- Astronomers are expanding the search for alien life beyond traditional radio frequencies using the ALMA telescope array.
- A new model suggests past SETI searches may have covered over 6.1 million stars, far more than previously estimated.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Critics dismiss President Donald Trump’s UFO whistleblower waivers as "kabuki theater," while astronomers quietly revolutionize the actual search for alien life.
President Trump has directed federal agencies to waive certain nondisclosure agreements for former government employees and contractors willing to cooperate with UFO investigations through the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) or the president's PURSUE task force.
With the new procedure, witnesses are welcome to step forward with testimony free from stress over violating any non-disclosure agreements. Under the new process, witnesses can share information with cleared government investigators without worrying about violating previous non-disclosure agreements.
The directive arrives after years of back-and-forth between congressional hearings, David Grusch’s whistleblower allegations, and four tranches of declassified Pentagon and FBI UAP files.
President Trump is delivering on his commitment to unprecedented UAP transparency.
undefined Aaron Lukas (@DepDNILukas) July 22, 2026
With nondisclosure agreements no longer standing in the way, current and former government employees and contractors with relevant UAP information can come forward through cleared channels.… https://t.co/2IVAKSC78e
An unnamed government official told Fox News they don't know whether new witnesses possess groundbreaking information, asserting – "you don't know what you don't know."
Perhaps more tellingly is the intention to protect whistleblowers:
"People who believe that they have information have expressed reluctance in coming forward. We are eliminating that source of reluctance," the spokesperson said.
But does this presidential announcement actually change anything for whistleblowers?
Critics say the order changes almost nothing
Trump’s NDA waiver raised an eyebrow with one figure in particular.
Experienced researcher Melinda Leslie dismissed the move as "performative kabuki theater," arguing the announcement has been widely misunderstood.
In Lesley’s opinion, nondisclosure agreements are not the issue. Under contract law, ex-workers of the government are prohibited from revealing classified information publicly, therefore, Trump's assurances might not guarantee impunity.
She argues witnesses have always been able to provide classified information through authorized government channels, meaning the directive changes little in practice.
Re NDA issue you're being played & being idiots. It's performative kabuki theater & that's all. It doesn't mean squat.
undefined Melinda Leslie (@LeslieMeli42749) July 23, 2026
Info via govt dept control.
Zero effect on corp NDAs (undefinedLegacy programundefined stuff all is)
Classified data still overrides
Against security clearances is still illegal
As ever, the Reddit r/UFO group discussed the issue at heart, with one commenter dubbing Leslie’s comments as “emotional,” before someone called out the “misogynistic take,” adding that “would-be whistleblowers who might be fooled into getting themselves convicted.”
Another Redditor spoke of the gamble of officially coming forward as a witness, describing the president's unpredictable nature. However, one replier disagreed, describing how the president's role allows him to give pardons.
But maybe we’ve been searching for aliens all wrong
As everything seems to be about UFO disclosure left, right, and center, astronomers proposed an alternative way of searching for extraterrestrial life.
Researchers presenting new work at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in the UK argue SETI has spent decades concentrating on the famous "water hole" frequencies between 1.42 and 1.66 GHz.
The conversation on this topic is live. Join in the discussion.
Instead, the team suggests searching the largely unexplored millimeter and submillimeter radio spectrum using ALMA, one of the world's most powerful radio telescope arrays.
The first survey found no technosignatures, but researchers say the project demonstrates an entirely new region of the radio spectrum is now open for SETI investigations.
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The study also revealed previous SETI searches may have covered far more stars than originally estimated.
By replacing Gaia catalogues with the Besançon Galactic Model, researchers increased the estimated number of stars surveyed from roughly 288,000 to more than 6.1 million.
It seems that the absence of a signal doesn’t mean there’s nothing out there. Reminiscent of Arvi Loeb, when he told Cybernews that “searching for electromagnetic signals – that's just like waiting for a phone call,” and that it’s better to “check your mailbox to see if there are any packages in it,” meaning that we simply can’t just wait for it to come to us.
