US intelligence and defence agencies now have less than six months to reveal everything they know about UFOs.
The recent US$2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and spending package US President Donald Trump recently signed off reportedly included a clause requiring the Pentagon, FBI and other groups to spill the beans on "observed airborne objects that have not been identified", as well as supply "detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data", within 180 days.
It was included at the request of Republican Senator Marcho Rubio, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"We have things flying over our military bases and places where we are conducting military exercises, and we don't know what it is and it isn't ours, so that's a legitimate question to ask," Rubio said last year, when the idea of forcing spooks to hand over the information was first floated.
The aim doesn't appear to be to let the public know if E.T. has phoned - let alone visited - our home, but rather whether the US' rivals such as Russia and China have never-seen-before technology.
"An assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries," is how the clause, buried in the almost 6000-page Bill, describes it.
The information will be delivered to Rubio's committee, not necessarily to the public.
"Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it," he said last year. "But we need to find out."
The Defense Department told the New York Post it was aware of the new law - but wouldn't elaborate further.
"We are aware that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence committee report on the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2021 included a requirement for the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, to submit a report on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) within 180 days of enactment," said spokesperson Sue Gough.
Rubio has yet to comment on the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021's passing.
Trump has previously said he's "not a believer" in alien visitations to Earth.
