The truth is out there on UFOs as US officials face Congress grilling
THE US Congress will hold the first public hearing in decades into UFO sightings next week in the latest serious attempt by the government to establish the origins of the phenomena.
Pentagon intelligence officials will be grilled on what they know in the first session of its kind in over half a century.
Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said: “This will give the public an opportunity to hear directly from subject matter experts, and leaders in the intelligence community, on one of the greatest mysteries of our time.” He said the UFO hearing would “break the cycle of excessive secrecy and speculation with truth and transparency”.
Last year, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence who oversees President Joe Biden’s daily intelligence briefing, released a much-anticipated report into UFOs.
It examined 144 instances of “unidentified aerial phenomena’’ since 2004, some reported by US military pilots, but could only explain one of them with confidence. The report did not rule out the potential that China or Russia had developed super-advanced technology, or extraterrestrial origins. It did confirm that the sightings were not linked to clandestine US military tests.
UFO sightings have for decades been dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists and crackpots. But the issue is being taken increasingly seriously by politicians and the Pentagon, particularly in relation to sightings by military personnel, and near training bases.
In 2017 it was revealed that the Pentagon had been running a secret UFO unit, funded with $22million in “black ops money” from Congress. At the time, Luis Elizondo, the intelligence officer who ran it, told The Sunday Telegraph: “It’s pretty clear this is not us [the US].”
In the wake of last year’s inconclusive report, the Pentagon has now established a new team called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.
The witnesses at the hearing on Tuesday will include the intelligence official overseeing the new task force, Ronald Moultrie, under secretary of defence for intelligence and security. Also giving evidence will be Scott Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence.
They will be questioned by the House intelligence committee’s subcommittee on counter terrorism, counterintelligence, and counterproliferation.
It will be the first congressional hearing on UFOs since 1969 when the “Project Blue Book” investigation into the phenomena ended.
John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said it was a “very important matter” and added: “We are absolutely committed to being as transparent as we can with the American people.”