Joe Biden served as President of the United States. During his presidency, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) topic intersected with his administration through legislation, a military shoot-down controversy, and congressional whistleblower testimony. Earlier in his career, Claiborne Pell, a senator, served as an advisor to Biden.1
In December 2021, the US Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with its UAP language untouched on 2021-12-15, sending the bill to Biden for signature.2 Luis Elizondo said that Harry Reid had vowed to keep fighting his cancer until Biden signed the UAP legislation into law.3 Biden signed the second UAP bill into law two days after Christmas, on 2021-12-27,4 and Reid died peacefully in his sleep the following day, 2021-12-28.5
A year later, on 2022-12-15, the Senate approved the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)) with UAP language and sent it to Biden to sign.6 Biden signed it into law on 2022-12-23, containing Section 1673, headed “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Reporting Procedures”;7 this fell on the Friday before the 2022 Christmas holiday shutdown.8 The legislation had been spearheaded by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Marco Rubio and was signed into law by Biden in December 2022.9
During the February 2023 Balloongate controversy, Biden ordered the shoot-down of an object detected near Deadhorse, Alaska, on 2023-02-10, because it was flying at approximately 12,200 metres and posed a possible threat to air traffic.10 It took Biden a week to concede that the most plausible explanation for the shoot-down objects was that they were simply stray amateur or scientific balloons,11 and he authorised expenditure of over $1.5 million to shoot the objects down.12 John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said that Biden had created an interagency team to investigate unidentified objects in US airspace following the three objects shot down that month.13 The team was tasked with studying the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose safety or security risks.14 Kirby also said that Biden had mandated the first presidential daily intelligence briefing session devoted to UAP since June 2021.15 According to In Plain Sight, an unnamed journalist asked Kirby why Biden had recently ordered objects shot down but had not ordered any shoot-downs throughout 2021 or 2022, despite an ODNI report of 247 UAP reports.16 Ross Coulthart said that, according to his Defense sources, an anonymous United States Navy (USN) commander came forward to the White House with information that further undermined the confidence of Biden’s advisors in the Pentagon’s capacity for candour during the Balloongate controversy.17
In late December 2023, Biden signed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act into law.18 Whitley Strieber said that the Biden administration did everything possible to derail increasingly strident demands from the United States Congress for more UFO disclosure.19
Biden’s administration also featured in congressional whistleblower testimony on UAP. David Charles Grusch brought forward people with close personal participation in the UAP subject, reaching up to the cabinet and White House level, to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community under the Biden administration, saying he had not personally handled the material himself.20 Thomas Monheim served as Inspector General of the Intelligence Community under the Biden administration.21 Grusch said he was told unofficially, through a back channel, that Jake Sullivan and the White House Office of the Counsel to the President instructed Monheim and his staff to stop their investigation because it was running into White House classified Special Access Program (SAP) material.22