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On April 27, 2020, the United States Department of Defense officially confirmed the authenticity of three declassified videos made by pilots from the United States Navy aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt between 2004 and 2015. The videos, which were released without authorization to The New York Times in 2017 and published ("Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program," The New York Times, Dec. 16, 2017) became known as the Pentagon UFO videos.
The confirmation launched a legitimate scientific research topic and solidified the case for UAP, formerly known as UFO, and ending seven decades of official United States account of the phenomena as weather balloons, aircrafts, flocks of birds, air inversions or swamp gas. Because of the involvement of the US Senate, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided an unclassified Preliminary Assessment to the public. (The classified version of the Assessment, obtained after a FOIA request can be found here)
On May 17, 2022, the United States House of Representatives Intelligence Committee held a historic public hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. This lead to the introduction of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Amendment for the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed by President Biden on December 23, 2022. The amendment aims to ensure transparency concerning information the Pentagon collects on UAP.