Senator Rounds: "there are some things that we can't explain out there"
Senator Mike Rounds, a supporter of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act, responded to questions from NewsNation veteran reporter Ross Coulthart about UFOs.
Senator Rounds serves on 5 committees, among them :
The Senate Appropriations committee, alongside Sen. Gillibrand, “responsible for legislation allocating federal funds prior to expenditure from the treasury”.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, alongside Senators Gillibrand, Kelly and Kaine, that has juridiction over “Aeronautical and space activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems or military operations”, “the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force”, “Military research and development”, “National security aspects of nuclear energy”, and “Strategic and critical materials necessary for the common defense” among others.
The Select Committee on Intelligence, alongside Senators Warner, Gillibrand, Kelly and Heinrich, created in the wake of MKUltra reveals to “oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States Government”, and to “provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States”. “By law, the President is required to ensure that the Committee is kept “fully and currently informed” of intelligence activities—meaning that intelligence agencies are required, generally in writing, to notify the Committee of its activities and analysis. This includes keeping the Committee informed of covert actions and any significant intelligence failure.”
In a new interview published on June 30, 2025, Mike Rounds answered questions from journalist Ross Coulthart. The first question was about the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act, which would establish a declassification committee on UFOs under the President of the United States' authority. The bill was prevented from becoming a full law in the previous two NDAAs.
I've been informed that Senator Schumer would like to partner once again and that we would offer it again this year in the National Defense Authorization Act, which we'll begin working on here in the next few weeks. The answer is yes, we intend to move forward once again.
He explained the recurrence of the term "non-human intelligence":
Our intent was to make sure that there wasn't an assumption by folks who were following it that we were trying to hide anything. And our goal was to say, “look, if there is any of this…”, which, you know, a lot of folks out there have questioned whether or not after all these years there was contact that we had with entities, intelligence that was not of this earth and so forth.
We just thought rather than beating around the bush, let's just say, “look, if there's any of that out there, then let's disclose it. Let's make that available or at least collect it”.
And then at some point, based upon a commission's review of it to determine any national security concerns, to be able to share that information at the appropriate time.
It was not put in there because of any evidence that I had or that I believe Senator Schumer had that would suggest that we had a smoking gun, but rather, “let's have clarity”.
When asked about possible changes to the text, he explained:
I have no objections to submitting the legislation in its current form, but I would also work with my House counterparts to allay any concerns that they may have
What we didn't want to have happen was a demand for exposure on weapon systems, capabilities and so forth that might otherwise be found or reported out or disclosed in an inappropriate way.
Many people have talked now about the development of stealth, and I think now there's more and more discussion on the fact that there were some plans out there that allowed some of the stealth weapons to be unidentified for an extended period of time on purpose.
And the reason for it was because for national defense purposes. In those particular cases where we have items out there that might very well be ours, we may very well not want to be able, we may not want to disclose that information.
And it's appropriate to keep it private. The same if we know of other weapon systems by other countries, we may not want to disclose it, but we wanted a place where it could at least be collected and an independent organization could look at it and be able to disclose that which was not subject to national defense concerns.
Regarding the disclosure of a non-human intelligence contact event, he stated:
It really would be crazy for us to believe that we really were alone in the world or in the universe and that there is no other intelligent life form out there, but it would be a matter of how you would disclose it correctly and in what would be one of the greatest announcements in the history of mankind, that we are not alone.
I really don't believe that that is necessarily what's happened here. But we do know, and this is the part that is so sensitive to us, there are some things that we can't explain out there.
And that's the reason why I really got involved in this in the first place is, if we know that there are technologies there that appear to do things that physically we're just not sure how it's getting done.
Biggest concern I had was is, is it ours or does it belong to somebody else on this earth ? One of our adversaries, or is it really something that is out of this world?
Regarding the previous blocks encountered by the UAPDA, specifically the alleged opposition by Reps. Turner and Rogers, he dismissed them by declaring:
They had concerns that it might disclose very sensitive information about either our adversaries' capabilities or about our own capabilities. And without proof that it might be some other alternative out there, it could very well have damaged our own national security.
Without a clearly defined standard of proof explaining what constitutes evidence of non-human technology, it is interesting to note that the same argument could be used to keep all information sealed forever.
Furthermore, during half of the interview, Sen. Rounds repeated the same explanation; these excerpts have been removed for ease of reading. Regarding the last UAPDA beheading, he simply added, "the politics of it weren't there to get it included".
Regarding the new proposal to include the UAPDA in the NDAA, he said:
There have been some changes in the House with regard to leadership there within those particular committees. So there's an opportunity to once again, re-address it.
He emphasized, however, that when it comes to testimonies from UAP witnesses:
There was in some cases, there may have been some overt attempts to actually create some thought that there were items of UFOs that we just couldn't explain, and they were being used to actually hide some of the more advanced weapons systems that were developing at that time.
The development of our stealth systems and the development of our high speed aircraft, particularly some of our supersonic bombers at that time that we were looking at, and the high flying observation aircraft, the SR-71 as an example and so forth, those items I think have been identified in a number of different occasions as something that nobody else knew about because of the speed and altitude at which they were flying.
And when you're bringing them in or around some classified areas, a lot of people probably had the opportunity to observe them on a very short notice or, you know, intermittently, and I thought maybe there was something going on there.
The development of stealth technology also means the development of some very unique types of material that look out of this world. And some of those items that were recovered may very well have been part of the development of our stealth technology that we utilize today.
Furthermore, he was extremely guarded when asked bout a statement by Christopher Mellon regarding “the presence of intelligently controlled vehicles exhibiting technological capabilities we do not understand and cannot replicate”.
I think there is a probability that he could be correct. But what we don't know is how, as siloed as we keep some of our projects, it's entirely possible that one part of our organization and the Defense Department does not know what another part of the organization is doing.
But I would say, look, I've seen some of the materials, and I have not, and I've talked to folks who have tried to analyze it, and the individuals that I've talked to have shared that they do not have all the answers for a number of these recorded vehicles, for lack of a better term, these assets that we've seen out there.
Some of it we can't explain, and the problem is, is I can't tell you certain because I don't know whether it would belong to another country or whether it is an exquisite product that's been experimented with of one of our unique agencies that does not disclose what they're doing to anybody else.
Readers will appreciate the irony of this comment coming from one of the U.S. elected officials with the highest access to information.
Regarding complaints by House Representatives that they were denied access to information, he explained that they didn’t need to know. He also dismissed complaints from whistleblowers regarding the lack of protection, saying, "I don't know that the existing protections fail us." He also dismissed technical failures regarding UAP detection, explaining that different types of radars are used for different types of discoveries or observations.
This is an interesting comment coming from a member of both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Services Committee.