US law adds 'submerged' and 'transmedium' objects
Section 1683 of the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2022, signed in December 2021, defined the phenomena to be studied as including submerged objects and 'transmedium' objects that pass between space, air and water.
2021 CE · 38.89, -77.01 · status: official
The account
The provision, which Nextgov called the most significant UFO legislation since the 1960s, ordered a permanent office to take over from the Navy's UAP Task Force. In July 2022 the Pentagon set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and said its remit would include objects under water or moving between media. It was the first time US law treated the 'USO' idea as an official category. The definition was revised by the following year's act, which renamed the phenomena 'unidentified anomalous phenomena'.
The sceptical view
Naming a category is not evidence that such objects exist; it obliges the military to log and analyse reports, and no publicly released case has yet shown an object travelling between air and water.
Connections in the atlas
- Knuth et al., 'The New Science of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena'
- 'Tic-Tac' dives beneath the sea
- FY2023 NDAA: AARO in law & whistleblower route
- USS Russell 'pyramids' & USS Omaha 'sphere' (confirmed 2021)
- 'UAP: Exposing the Truth' hearing
- Tim Gallaudet