The U.S. government has a documented history of using "UFO" as a convenient explanation for classified technology — allowing witnesses to misidentify advanced programs rather than correcting the record. The analytic question is whether all UAP evidence can be explained this way, or whether a residual signal survives every conventional filter. We construct six diagnostic tests to separate signal from cover. Applied to the evidence chain, five of six tests return results inconsistent with the cover-story-only hypothesis. The sixth is inconclusive.

Congress possesses authorities it has not used to establish independent oversight of alleged UAP retrieval and reverse-engineering programs.. The question is not whether Congress can break through. The question is whether the current institutional incentive structure permits the members who want to break through to reach the members who control the procedural levers.