WHO
Current + former personnel
Government employees and contractors with relevant UAP information are expressly within the process described by the memo.
ODNI memorandum ES 2026-00818 ordered the Intelligence Community and Department of War to implement a UAP reporting waiver for prior nondisclosure agreements, agreements, oaths and commitments when current or former personnel speak through authorized AARO or PURSUE channels. It is a real government policy artifact. But the authorized-reporting safe harbour already existed in federal law. The memo’s importance is that it operationalizes the channel across the Intelligence Community and adds PURSUE to that architecture — not that it suddenly legalizes public disclosure or proves any UAP allegation.
ES 2026-00818
“Preliminary Guidance for Implementation of NDA Waiver”
Signed 31 July 2026 by Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas.
UNCLASSIFIED · one page of operative text plus a distribution page.
Publicly released 1 August 2026 through Rep. Eric Burlison’s office with administration authorization.
The memo provides preliminary guidance for releasing UAP information into government review channels — specifically AARO and the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, PURSUE.
Its practical target is not the public. It is people inside or formerly inside government and contracting structures who may possess UAP-related information but believe previous secrecy commitments prevent them from reporting it to authorized government investigators.
The instruction is therefore best understood as a reporting-channel and NDA-waiver mechanism, not a declassification order for every UAP record and not a blanket cancellation of classification law.
Government employees and contractors with relevant UAP information are expressly within the process described by the memo.
NDAs, agreements, oaths and commitments are to be treated as waived where they would block authorized reporting to AARO or PURSUE representatives.
The waiver is tied to speaking with authorized AARO or PURSUE representatives. It does not convert classified information into material that may be posted, leaked or briefed publicly.
50 U.S.C. § 3373b, created by the FY2023 NDAA, already established the secure AARO mechanism for authorized UAP disclosures. The statutory safe harbour is broader than the July 2026 memo.
For an authorized AARO disclosure, the statute says the disclosure is not subject to the reporter’s NDA; is deemed compliant with rules or orders under Executive Order 13526 and the Atomic Energy Act; and is not a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 798 or other law relating to disclosure of information. It also prohibits personnel reprisals for making an authorized disclosure.
By contrast, ES 2026-00818 expressly talks about waiving NDAs, agreements, oaths and commitments when speaking with authorized AARO or PURSUE representatives. It does not independently repeat the statute’s broader overrides or anti-reprisal language.
The most accurate reading is therefore: the statute supplies the stronger legal safe harbour for AARO; the 2026 memo supplies executive/IC implementation, workforce notice and a new PURSUE route.
NDA override, classification-order compliance, Atomic Energy Act compliance, Section 798 / other disclosure-law protection, and statutory anti-reprisal rules for authorized disclosures.
Directs IC components to clear NDA-style barriers, name PURSUE designees, tell their workforces, and route UAP information into AARO/PURSUE review.
Neither instrument authorizes unrestricted disclosure to journalists, podcasts, social media or the general public.
The distribution page sends the instruction across 18 intelligence/community leadership recipients and directs IC members to coordinate with ODNI within 30 days of receipt.
Each relevant component was to identify a representative/designee through whom PURSUE-related reporting and coordination could occur.
Personnel were to be told that earlier secrecy commitments could not be used to prevent authorized UAP reporting to the President’s designees, AARO or PURSUE.
The memorandum promised further reporting procedures and broader implementation guidance. That future machinery is distinct from the initial waiver instruction itself.
ES 2026-00818 says it is acting “consistent with Presidential Direction,” but the memo itself is signed by the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, not the President. The public PURSUE site preserves President Trump’s February 19 transparency statement, while the July memo provides the attributable implementation order.
That distinction matters because some competitor pages mislabel ES 2026-00818 as a presidential memorandum or say the President personally abrogated all UAP NDAs in the document. The primary text does not support that description.
The correct chain is: presidential direction → ODNI implementation memorandum → component-level designees and reporting procedures.
AARO’s current site still provides the authorized UAP reporting mechanism, and the official PURSUE portal remains active. The Department of War published PURSUE Release 05 on 7 August 2026 and says additional tranches will continue on a rolling basis.
What I still could not locate publicly as of 9 September 2026 is an ODNI master list of component PURSUE designees or the detailed IC reporting procedures promised in ES 2026-00818. The memo never says those internal designations or procedures must themselves be published.
The correct status is therefore waiver memo public; AARO channel live; PURSUE release pipeline live; component-level implementation not publicly visible in full. That is not evidence that agencies missed or ignored the instruction.
AARO’s Historical Record Report Volume 1 said it had not discovered official UAP-specific NDAs of the extraordinary kind alleged in some reverse-engineering accounts, aside from standard national-defense secrecy language.
The July 2026 memo does not prove those alleged special NDAs existed. Its wording is broader and procedural: whatever prior NDA, agreement, oath or commitment a potential reporter believes constrains them, the executive branch wants that instrument not to block an authorized AARO/PURSUE conversation.
So the 2024 historical finding and the 2026 implementation memo are not opposites. One audits allegations about special UAP secrecy agreements; the other clears the authorized reporting path for people already subject to ordinary secrecy obligations.
Strongest current analysis of the memo versus 50 U.S.C. § 3373b: the statute is broader, carries anti-reprisal protections and overrides legal restraints the memo does not independently enumerate.
Strong on control number, signer, release provenance, distribution page and the distinction between review/declassification and automatic public release.
This version separates statutory safe harbour, presidential direction, ODNI administrative guidance and current PURSUE/AARO implementation — while explicitly rejecting competitor descriptions that turn the ODNI memo into a blanket presidential abrogation of secrecy.
ES 2026-00818 is significant because it converts presidential UAP-transparency direction into attributable Intelligence Community implementation guidance. But the legal reporting safe harbour itself is older and, in important respects, broader: Congress built it into 50 U.S.C. § 3373b in 2022.
Its limits are equally important. Reporting is not public disclosure. Review is not automatic declassification. And the existence of a waiver process tells us nothing by itself about whether the allegations people may bring through that process are true.
The next evidential milestone is implementation: whether the promised procedures become visible, how PURSUE designees function inside components, what information reaches AARO/PURSUE through the waiver, and what — if anything — ultimately survives review and reaches the public record.