Anna Paulina Luna set off a fresh wave of online chatter late Tuesday night when she posted a photo on X showing herself holding a rifle with a holstered pistol at her side. The 37-year-old lawmaker wrote that being stationed in the Pacific Northwest had “some benefits” and added that it was not artificial intelligence.
The post spread fast because Luna has built a habit of turning her social-media feed into a spectacle, and this time she did it while Washington is already releasing UFO files at a pace that has kept the subject in the news. She is an Air Force veteran and former Oregon National Guard member who has made disclosure of classified material tied to unidentified aerial phenomena one of her calling cards in Congress.
Luna’s route into that world began long before she was elected. Vanity Fair reported that she enlisted as an airfield manager at 19 years old, working with pilots on flight plans and airfield inspections. She later said that during active duty in Portland, Oregon, one pilot told her about an airspace incursion and seemed convinced it involved a UAP. Luna said he was too spooked to discuss it further.
That anecdote has become part of the way she talks about the issue now. Luna leads Congress’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, and she has leaned heavily into the call for more transparency around unexplained phenomena. She has also said the files now being released are evidence that the government still does not have all the answers.
This month, the Pentagon began releasing UFO files at the direction of Donald Trump, and about 160 files have been made public so far. The material includes eyewitness statements, photos and videos of distant objects. The first batch included a Department of War description of an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object that emerged from a bright light in the sky, was reported in September 2023, measured 130-195 feet in length and disappeared instantly.
Luna has said she has never personally seen a UFO, and before her political career she largely pushed extraterrestrial questions out of her mind. She entered conservative politics after Charlie Kirk saw one of the viral videos she made as an influencer, and in 2018 she said he called her about joining Turning Point USA as national Hispanic outreach director. Her public profile has since been fueled by a mix of viral posts and her push for disclosure.
That leaves her in a familiar position: using attention to widen the audience for her message while saying the public should draw its own conclusions. Luna has argued that these files describe things the U.S. government cannot explain and that federal officials should not tell Americans what to believe. The files will keep coming out every few weeks, according to the White House, which means the debate she is helping drive is only getting started.
