Imagine this: A private landowner discovers something buried deep beneath the surface of their property. It’s not oil, gold, or a rare fossil, but something entirely foreign. A piece of machinery, perhaps. Advanced. Intact. Entirely unexplainable. It appears to be manufactured, but not by any known earthly process. It does not match the signatures of Russian, Chinese, or even American technology. It is exotic, inexplicable, and possibly not of human origin at all.
What happens next? Does the landowner get to keep it? Auction it to the highest bidder? Lease it to a defense contractor or a foreign state? Does the government step in, invoke national security, and confiscate the technology of unknown origin, without due process or compensation, never to be seen again?
This scenario is no mere thought experiment. The U.S. Senate has now, for the third time, introduced the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA), legislation designed to pierce through 80 years of secrecy, disinformation, and scientific suppression surrounding the subject of UAP, or UFOs. One of its most vital and controversial provisions is its explicit affirmation of the applicability of the right of eminent domain.
Opponents of the UAPDA have zeroed in on this provision. They argue it threatens property rights and creates a dangerous precedent for federal overreach. But these objections collapse under scrutiny. In truth, the eminent domain clause is the linchpin that makes lawful UAP disclosure possible. Without it, we risk continuing a shadow system of secret seizures, constitutional violations, and scientific stagnation.
Let’s be clear: eminent domain is not a novel or unchecked power of our local, state, and federal governments. Instead, it is a deeply rooted legal principle in American constitutional law. What the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment provides is not the denial of that right, but a granting of that right and its regulation through due process, and which goes on to assert one of the required aspects of due process is the taking of property solely for public use with just compensation. The UAPDA need not define “just compensation.” The legal requirement for fair compensation in any lawful taking under eminent domain is already firmly established in precedent and practice. Importantly, the exercise of eminent domain can be contested in court, providing a clear check on government power, unlike covert seizures under the guise of national security, which offer no such judicial review or recourse. The UAPDA merely renders a specific process already governed by over a century of constitutional law.
Hellbound and Down 