Photo: Albert Antony / Unsplash
A subcommittee of the House of Representatives held a historic public hearing on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”, better known as UFOs, a moment unique for an issue that has been controversial and has long been relegated to the margins of public policy.
The hearing was broadcast live and was convened by the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and against proliferation of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, a panel headed by the Democrat, André Carson, representative of Indiana.
“This audience and our oversight work have a simple idea at the core: Unidentified aerial phenomena are a potential threat to national security. And they should be treated that way,” Carson said.
“For far too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has stood in the way of good intelligence analysis. The pilots avoided reporting or laughed at them when they did. DOD officials either relegated the issue to the back room or swept it under the rug entirely, fearful of a skeptical national security community,” the Indiana representative said.
“Today, we know better. The UAP have no explanation, it is true. But they are real. They must be investigated. And any threat they represent must be mitigated”, he said.
Likewise, they will appear before the subcommittee Ronald Moultrie, deputy secretary of defense for intelligence and security, and Scott Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence. Following the public hearing, the board also held a closed-door, classified briefing.
This is the first hearing that was seen by the Congressional public on UFOs in many years. It follows the 2021 release by the United States intelligence community of a long-awaited report on mysterious flying objects that have been glimpsed in restricted military airspace in recent decades.
The report examined at least 144 reports of what is known as “Unidentified aerial phenomenon”, only one of which the researchers were able to explain at the end of the studies carried out. The experts found no evidence that the sightings represented extraterrestrial life or major technological advances by an enemy such as Russia or China, but admit that it may be a possibility.
For representatives and military and intelligence personnel who work closely with unexplained aerial phenomena, the biggest concern with the sightings is not that extraterrestrial life is visiting earth, but that enemies like Russia or China could be presenting next generation technology in the US
In November of last year, the Department of Defense reported of the creation of the Synchronization Group for the Management and Identification of Airborne Objects.
In a statement, the department announced at the time that the goal of the new program would be to synchronize efforts across the government to “Detect, identify and attribute objects of interest” in restricted airspace “To assess and mitigate any threat linked to national security ”.
At a previous hearing, Carson said that “The American people expect and deserve that their leaders in government and intelligence seriously evaluate and respond to any potential risks to national security, especially those that we do not fully understand.”
“Since I arrived in Congress, I have focused on the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena as a threat to national security and as a public interest. of great importance to the American public. And I am pleased to chair the first open hearing of the Intelligence Committee on these events. It will give the American people a chance to learn what there is to know about the incidents. And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this critical matter,” the subcommittee chair said.
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