It's likely that the timing have a lot more to do with the messy situation in Ukraine, and a general ramp up in testing of illegally acquired Russian equipment

It's likely that the timing have a lot more to do with the messy situation in Ukraine, and a general ramp up in testing of illegally acquired Russian equipment or a reactivation of cold war period sig int projects, then anything related to extra terrestrials. Add to that that the FBI is back in red scare mode and suddenly you have a situation where the authorities are willing to bend and break a few rules in order chase various paranoid conspiracy theories about how every non-aligned outlet is a secretly working for The Kremlin.