RFK Jr. Tells Rep. Luna a NASA Scientist and Special Operations 'Recovery Team' Veterans Said They Could 'Call Some of the Ships In'
On his official podcast, posted Oct. 8, 2026, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Rep. Anna Paulina Luna that during the presidential transition, a group including a 'very high level NASA scientist' and former SEALs and Green Berets briefed him on UFO recovery operations. Luna's reply: 'Can you prove it?'
Location Washington, D.C. (podcast); the briefing Kennedy described took place in Palm Beach, Florida

WASHINGTON (Oct. 8, 2026): The episode was mostly about food policy. Its title was “Bringing MAHA To Congress,” and for most of its 21 minutes, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida talked about the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Where it started
The original social media posts
-
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. @SecKennedy on YouTube
Bringing MAHA To Congress | Rep. Luna
The full episode, as posted on Kennedy's official channel. The UAP exchange starts at about 17:39.
-
u/insanisprimero on Reddit
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Rep. Luna that a private group briefed him on UFO crash retrieval programs during the presidential transition. "They actually figured out how to call the ships."..."They were under orders to destroy the UFOs, then recover the remains."
The clip that carried the exchange to r/UFOs, about four hours after the episode was published. The post's title paraphrases Kennedy; his words are quoted below from the episode.
1,550 points · 805 comments as of Oct 10, 2026
From the conversation
-
Anyone who says this is not a significant development is putting there blinders on. This is huge.
-
Summoning crafts with capabilities beyond our comprehension and shooting them down. What could go wrong?
-
Who, and why, would anyone brief him on anything UFO-related, who had any real information? It's a laughable proposition. At best, probably some UFO-buff friends of his.
-
Posts shown as originally published; we don’t verify individual comments. Retrieved . “Load the post here” fetches the original from YouTube or Reddit, which may set cookies.
Then, about 17 minutes in, Kennedy asked Luna whether she had friends on the other side of the aisle. Luna mentioned the House task force she chairs, “for the UAP stuff specifically.” Kennedy had a story of his own.
“It’s so interesting,” he said, “‘cause, you know, during the transition, I was living in Palm Beach, and this group, um, approached me to talk about UAPs.”
What we know
On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.
- The episode. Kennedy’s official YouTube channel posted “Bringing MAHA To Congress | Rep. Luna” on Oct. 8, 2026. Luna chairs the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, which has held hearings on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The quotes and times below are from a timestamped transcript of the episode published by Sentinel News on Oct. 9; the full episode is embedded above.
- The group. At about 18:41, Kennedy described the people who approached him during the transition, the period before he was sworn in as health secretary on Feb. 13, 2025: “It was a very high level NASA scientist and then a bunch of Navy SEALs and Green Berets who had been on recovery teams.”
- Luna’s gloss. “Crash retrieval programs,” Luna said. “To g- right,” Kennedy replied.
- “Call some of the ships in.” Kennedy continued: “Some of the stuff they talked about was crazy about how they were actually had figured out how to call some of the, uh, ships in and, and, you know, um, and then, uh, were under orders to destroy them and recover them.”
- Why he stayed quiet. “They wanted me to go public on that,” Kennedy said, “and I just thought I already got so many counts against me,” before trailing off into a mention of “conspiracy theories.”
- Luna’s challenge. Luna answered: “People will say a lot, but can you prove it? What is the actual data prover? Can you actually bring forward tangible evidence?” She went on to describe the task force’s “massive declass effort” and said, “Our job is not to tell you what to believe. It’s just to present you with evidence and ensure that there’s transparency.”
- Later briefings. At about 20:14, Kennedy added: “But I have had briefings once I got in there, and it’s pretty… A lot of this stuff is really, really crazy.” He didn’t say who briefed him after he took office, or on what.
What’s claimed
Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.
- Everything about the programs. The claims that crews could summon craft, that they had orders to destroy them and that they recovered the remains come from an unnamed group, as Kennedy relayed them. He didn’t name anyone, describe any evidence he’d seen or say whether he believed them.
- Who the group was. Kennedy didn’t identify the group. Sentinel News wrote that one of the few groups fitting the description is SkyWatcher, a company that says it can summon UAP and whose personnel, including Jake Barber, have said they took part in crash-retrieval operations. That’s the outlet’s suggestion, not Kennedy’s statement.
The reaction
The clip spread quickly. On r/UFOs, a post of the exchange by u/insanisprimero went up a little after noon Phoenix time on Oct. 8 and had 1,550 points and 805 comments by Oct. 10.
The thread split along familiar lines. “Anyone who says this is not a significant development is putting there blinders on. This is huge,” wrote u/ANewEra2020. Others went straight to what the claim implied: “Summoning crafts with capabilities beyond our comprehension and shooting them down. What could go wrong?” wrote u/drunkenmime. Several were skeptical of the source. u/Snoo-26902 called it “a laughable proposition” that anyone with real information would brief Kennedy, adding: “At best, probably some UFO-buff friends of his.” Another highly upvoted reply took aim at Luna’s response, which that reader felt moved on too quickly.
Context
What Kennedy described was a briefing by outside people during the transition, not a government briefing, and he gave no details of the briefings he said he’s had since taking office. Claims of secret crash-retrieval programs aren’t new. Former intelligence officer David Grusch testified about them before a House committee in 2023, and the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office said in 2024 that it had found no evidence such programs exist.
Luna’s task force has pushed the Pentagon for UAP records this year, and the Pentagon has been publishing declassified files under a program it calls PURSUE.
What’s next
Kennedy hadn’t elaborated publicly as of Oct. 10, and we found no response from NASA or the Pentagon to his remarks. Neither he nor Luna said whether the task force would ask the group to come forward.
For now, the claim is exactly as large as the clip: a cabinet secretary recalling a conversation with people he didn’t name, about programs nobody has documented, and a congresswoman asking the question everyone else was asking. Can you prove it?
Sources
- Bringing MAHA To Congress | Rep. Luna (opens in new tab) · Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on YouTube Published Oct. 8, 2026. The UAP exchange runs from about 17:39 to 20:30.
- RFK Jr. Says He Has Been Briefed on UAP: ‘Really Crazy’ (opens in new tab) · Sentinel News Baptiste Friscourt, Oct. 9, 2026. Includes a timestamped transcript of the exchange, the source of the quotes and times in this story.