On 17 May 2022, members of the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held congressional hearings with top military officials to discuss military reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs). [1] It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years.
The last public congressional hearing on unexplained aerial phenomena was held in 1969. Congressional hearings had initially begun in 1966, when then-congressman Gerald Ford called for an Air Force report and for congressional hearings to discuss Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) sightings following a string of sightings. Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force program that collected, investigated, and analyzed reports of unidentified flying objects, was disbanded that same year, partly because it determined that the UFOs evaluated did not seem to pose any threat to national security.
In 2017, secretive attempts by the Pentagon to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena were reported on by national media. [2]
In 2020, a COVID-19 relief and government funding bill signed by President Donald Trump included a stipulation that US intelligence agencies deliver congressional intelligence committees with an unclassified report covering UAPs within 180 days. [3]
An unclassified report was released in June 2021 by the US Director of National Intelligence. It concluded that UFOs related to 144 incidents dating back to 2004 largely defied explanation, and called for further investigation and analysis. [4]
On 23 November 2021, the Pentagon announced the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) to succeed the Navy's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. [5]
In December 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 signed by President Joe Biden included provisions for the establishment of a permanent agency to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena, codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3373. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 was signed in March 2022 and its main relevant provisions were codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3373a.
Rep. André Carson (D-IN), chairman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing. He raised the concern that UAPs posed a potential threat to national security and should be treated as such, and that the "stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis." He criticized the Pentagon for failing to name a director to head the newly established Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group and for failing to provide any updates. Carson pledged to "bring the organization out of the shadows.” [6]
The hearings included testimony from Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald S. Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. Bray stated that the number of "frequent and continuing" reported sightings had grown to about 400 since last year's mandated report. [7] [8] [9] He cast out the notion that the UFOs had extraterrestrial origins, testifying that no organic/inorganic material or unexplainable wreckage indicated so. [6] [10] Bray added that there had been no attempts at communication with the objects, and that despite at least 11 "near-misses", no collisions between unidentified aircraft and U.S. aircraft had been reported so far. [11] [12]
It was revealed that other countries had similar reports on UFOs, and that a number of them communicated with U.S. intelligence agencies, although Moultrie told lawmakers that they did want "potential adversaries to know exactly what we see or understand." [6] He also mentioned the need for cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration as well as other government agencies. [9] Moultrie stated that most UFOs could be identified through "rigorous" analysis and investigation, but pointed out a number of incidents that defied explanation, such as a 2004 sighting where aircraft carrier pilots in the Pacific came across a hovering unidentified object that appeared to have rapidly descended tens of thousands of feet. [7] [13] [14]
Lawmakers were shown declassified images and footage of UFOs, including a video of a UFO observed by a Navy fighter-jet pilot in 2021, a "spherical object" that "quickly passes by the cockpit of the aircraft." Another video captured triangular objects (speculated to be drones) floating off the coast as seen through night-vision goggles. [6] [7] [15]
A number of lawmakers, including Rick Crawford (R-AR), expressed concerns about potential Russian or Chinese hypersonic weapons programs. [6] [16] He warned that a failure to identify such threats was "tantamount to intelligence failure that we certainly want to avoid". [16]
The standardization of the civilian reporting process was also discussed, as the majority of reports in the military's database are from military officers.
The public portion of the hearing, held in the morning and lasting less than 90 minutes, was followed by private classified session in the afternoon. [16] [6]
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), attended the hearing despite not being a member of the committee. He criticized the Pentagon's transparency and their dismissiveness of the notion that the UFOs could be extraterrestrial aircraft. [6]
Leading paranormal investigator and UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer stated that he "didn't expect much from the hearings" and that he was not disappointed. He also derided the "ridiculous" footage shown at the hearing, saying: "They show this as some of their best evidence, and we are supposed not to laugh?" [17]
An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
Ufology is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins. While there are instances of government, private, and fringe science investigations of UFOs, ufology is generally regarded by skeptics and science educators as an example of pseudoscience.
Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was initially directed by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and followed projects of a similar nature such as Project Sign established in 1947, and Project Grudge in 1949. Project Blue Book had two goals, namely, to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.
The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by extraterrestrial intelligence or non-human aliens, or non-occupied alien probes from other planets visiting Earth.
Black triangles are UFOs reported as having a triangular shape and dark color, typically observed at night, described as large, silent, hovering, moving slowly, and displaying pulsating, colored lights which they are able to turn off.
The Robertson Panel was a scientific committee which met in January 1953 headed by Howard P. Robertson. The Panel arose from a recommendation to the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) in December 1952 from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) review of the U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects, Project Blue Book. The CIA review itself was in response to widespread reports of unidentified flying objects, especially in the Washington, D.C. area during the summer of 1952.
Identifying unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is a difficult task due to the normally poor quality of the evidence provided by those who report sighting the unknown object. Observations and subsequent reporting are often made by those untrained in astronomy, atmospheric phenomena, aeronautics, physics, and perception. Nevertheless, most officially investigated UFO sightings, such as from the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, have been identified as being due to honest misidentifications of natural phenomena, aircraft, or other prosaic explanations. In early U.S. Air Force attempts to explain UFO sightings, unexplained sightings routinely numbered over one in five reports. However, in early 1953, right after the CIA's Robertson Panel, percentages of unexplained sightings dropped precipitously, usually being only a few percent in any given year. When Project Blue Book closed down in 1970, only 6% of all cases were classified as being truly unidentified.
George T. Knapp is an American television investigative journalist, news anchor and talk radio host noted for promotion of UFO conspiracy theories.. Knapp's work has been recognized with Edward R. Murrow Awards, Peabody Awards, and twenty-four Pacific Southwest Regional Emmy Awards.
Project Condign was a secret unidentified flying object (UFO) study undertaken by the British Government's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) between 1997 and 2000.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was an unclassified but unpublicized investigatory effort funded by the United States Government to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). The program was first made public on December 16, 2017. The program began in 2007, with funding of $22 million over the five years until the available appropriations were ended in 2012. The program began in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
Luis Elizondo is a media personality and former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and former employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
The Pentagon UFO videos are selected visual recordings of FLIR targeting from United States Navy fighter jets based aboard aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2004, 2014 and 2015, with additional footage taken by other Navy personnel in 2019. The four grainy, monochromic videos, widely characterized as officially documenting UFOs, have received extensive coverage in the media since 2017. The Pentagon later addressed and officially released the first three videos of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in 2020, and confirmed the provenance of the leaked 2019 videos in two statements made in 2021. Footage of UAPs was also released in 2023, sourced from MQ9 military drones.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is an office within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense that investigates unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and other phenomena in the air, sea, and/or space and/or on land: sometimes referred to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" or "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAP). Its first director was physicist Sean Kirkpatrick, and its current acting director is Tim Phillips who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
Ronald S. "Ron" Moultrie is an American intelligence official serving as the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security in the Biden administration. He assumed office on June 1, 2021, after he was confirmed on May 29 by the Senate.
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, also known as the UAP Report and colloquially named the Pentagon UFO Report, is a United States federally mandated assessment, prepared and published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on June 25, 2021, summarizing information regarding unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs) which include unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Substantial public attention had been given to the mandated June 25 report, fueled by statements by former high level officials in the U.S. government, including former president Barack Obama, who stated in June 2021 "...there's footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don't know exactly what they are."
The Galileo Project is an international scientific research project to systematically search for extraterrestrial intelligence or extraterrestrial technology on and near Earth and to identify the nature of anomalous Unidentified Flying Objects/Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UFOs/UAP).
Sean Michael Kirkpatrick is an American laser and materials physicist and was the first director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the United States Department of Defense. Kirkpatrick is also an adjunct assistant professor of physics at the University of Georgia.
In 2023, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and former intelligence official David Grusch was interviewed by various media outlets and testified in a U.S. House of Representatives congressional hearing. Grusch claimed that he had conversations with unnamed officials that led him to believe that the U.S. federal government maintains a secretive UFO recovery program and is in possession of "non-human" spacecraft along with their "dead pilots". In 2022, Grusch filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) to support his plan to share classified information with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also filed a complaint alleging retaliation by his superiors over a similar complaint he made in 2021.
The NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team (UAPIST) was a panel of sixteen experts assembled in 2022 by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and chaired by David Spergel to recommend a roadmap for the analysis of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) by NASA and other organizations.
Investigation and analysis of reported UFO incidents under the federal government of the United States has taken place under multiple branches and agencies, past and current, since 1947. In spite of decades of interest, there remains no evidence that there are any purported UFOs with extraordinary provenance and, indeed, those identified all have been shown to be natural phenomena, human technology, misapprehensions, delusions, or hoaxes.