John Ratcliffe

Former DNI, now CIA Director, who said in 2021 that some multi-sensor UAP cases stayed unexplained after prosaic causes were ruled out.

Current role: Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (confirmed 23 January 2025)

Former roles:

Director of National Intelligence (2020–2021)
U.S. Representative, Texas 4th district (2015–2020)

Background

Former federal prosecutor and Texas congressman who served as Director of National Intelligence in the final months of the first Trump administration, when Congress requested the report that became ODNI's June 2021 Preliminary Assessment on UAP. Out of office in 2021 he became the most senior former intelligence official to say publicly that some multi-sensor cases could not be explained. The Senate confirmed him as Director of the CIA on 23 January 2025 by 74 votes to 25, making him the first person to have led both ODNI and the CIA. As CIA Director he has not spoken publicly on UAP, but the agency is a named contributor to the 2026 PURSUE file releases and the recipient of congressional records requests.

On the record

2023-07-30 – Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo – "I believe there should be more transparency on this issue, but not full transparency". He said the Biden administration "made the decision to really not reveal much" and that "the government should have done a better job." Elsewhere that month: "The government has more information than its sharing". Daily Wire · Newsweek
2021-06 – after the release of ODNI's Preliminary Assessment – "Look, the bottom line is, unidentified aerial phenomena — many, many cases we're able to explain it away for reasons like visual disturbances, or weather phenomenon, or foreign adversaries and their technologies, or even our own experimental technologies with certain aircraft and vehicles, but what this report really underscores … is that there are a number of instances — and the specific number remains classified — but a number of instances where we've ruled all of that out." He added: "And there are technologies that we don't have and frankly that we are not capable of defending against — based on those things that we've seen, multiple sensors, in other words, where not just people visually see it but where it's picked up on radar, where it's seen on satellites." Yahoo News · ODNI report (PDF)
2021-03 – Fox News, with Maria Bartiromo – "There are a lot more sightings than have been made public", "Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things", "But there are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things that we have seen." On the pending report: "We weren't able to get it down into an unclassified format that we could talk about quickly enough." The Debrief

Timeline of involvement

2020-05 – becomes Director of National Intelligence
2021-01-20 – leaves ODNI with the change of administration
2021-03 – Fox News interview previewing the UAP report
2021-06-25 – ODNI publishes the Preliminary Assessment on UAP, and he comments on it
2023-07-30 – calls for "more transparency" after the House Oversight hearing
2025-01-23 – confirmed as CIA Director, 74–25
2026-05-08 – CIA listed among the agencies contributing files to the first PURSUE release
2026-07-08 – Rep. Burlison writes to him and FBI Director Patel seeking records on the 1996 Varginha incident
2026-09-04 – Rep. Burlison says he is pressing the White House to widen PURSUE to the CIA and contractors (Ask a Pol)

Relevant links

Part of the Key People in Disclosure series. Verified 2026-10-10. Spotted an error? Reach out.