A senior CIA operations officer, James Erdman III, testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on 13 May that the agency deliberately obstructed a federal probe into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), monitored the investigators involved without their consent, and confiscated forty boxes of files destined for public declassification. Erdman led the Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG), operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) from March 2025 to April 2026, during the tenure of DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The DIG was tasked with investigating several areas, including UAPs, but Erdman claimed the CIA withheld critical information needed to identify breaches of analytic standards. Further, the CIA tracked DIG’s personnel communications and scrutinised their interactions with whistleblowers, resulting in one contractor’s immediate dismissal following a meeting with the DIG team. Erdman’s testimony paints a picture of significant internal resistance within the CIA hampering efforts towards transparency on UAP matters.
Key details from the hearing reveal that the CIA’s resistance extended beyond information withholding to active surveillance of DIG members, indicating a broader protective stance against disclosures. CIA communications director Liz Lyons dismissed the Senate session as political theatre, yet did not address the specific allegations of obstruction and monitoring. This is not an isolated incident; former State Department analyst Matthew Brown, who produced the Immaculate Constellation report on UAPs, described a separate experience where promised whistleblower protections were withheld, suggesting that internal agency personnel may have deliberately undermined whistleblower support frameworks. Both Erdman and Brown attributed the obstruction to personnel embedded within the intelligence community structure authorised by DNI Gabbard, rather than to Gabbard herself. Additionally, Erdman disclosed that following the termination of DIG activities in April 2026, the CIA reclaimed the JFK and MK Ultra files that were in the process of declassification by the ODNI, an action disputed over terminology of the CIA 'seizure' but accepted as the removal of significant material from Senate scrutiny.
The CIA's active obstruction of federal investigations fits a pattern that extends beyond file suppression Pattern of Disappearances Among US Defence Contractors Raises Questions Amid UAP Disclosure Delays documents the disappearance of US defence contractors linked to UAP research, a phenomenon that becomes considerably more legible once deliberate institutional interference is established as the baseline.
This controversy follows a longstanding pattern of secrecy and institutional resistance within US intelligence agencies regarding UAP investigations. The DIG's efforts to establish transparency have been met with resistance that recalls the controls exposed by the Church Committee in the 1970s, which uncovered illegal surveillance and covert operations. Erdman’s call for a new Church Committee highlights the gravity of the current situation, implying a need for a comprehensive congressional inquiry into agency behaviours around UAP and sensitive national security files. Congressional voices such as Congressman Eric Burlison have criticised the CIA’s credibility and signalled that further legal or legislative pressure may be necessary to secure genuine disclosure, beyond what has been termed ‘low-hanging fruit’ of UAP records. This case underscores the tension between intelligence agencies’ operational secrecy and congressional demands for accountability in handling phenomena with potential national security implications. The debate also reflects broader questions about whistleblower protection and the politicisation of UFO/UAP investigations in a government context historically reluctant to reveal full information.
Source: UFO News
