Congress Wants Answers on UFOs

A congressional panel examining UFOs began hearing testimony Wednesday that will include a former intelligence official who claims the U.S. government has possession of aircraft of a nonhuman origin.

The witnesses scheduled to testify also include two former U.S. Navy fighter pilots who have said they saw “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP, a phrase the federal government uses to refer to what are commonly known as unidentified flying objects.

“The lack of transparency regarding UAPs has fueled wild speculation and debate for decades, eroding public trust in the very institutions that are meant to serve and protect them,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman, (R., Wis.). “There lies a pressing demand for government transparency and accountability that cannot be overlooked, and that’s been a problem that’s been around for 50 years.”

Witness David Grusch, a former member of a Pentagon panel on UAP, has said the federal government has withheld information about the recoveries of aircraft of nonhuman origin from Congress and the public.

The Pentagon’s UAP task force, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, hasn’t been able to substantiate claims that any federal programs have possessed or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial materials, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense said. 

“The Department is fully committed to openness and accountability to the American people, which it must balance with its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods,” the spokesperson said.

The other two witnesses are former U.S. Navy fighter pilots Ryan Graves, executive director of the UAP-focused advocacy group Americans for Safe Aerospace, and retired Cmdr. David Fravor.

“These sightings are not rare or isolated,” said Graves, who served in the Navy for over a decade. “Military aircrews and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.”

Graves said his aircrew saw UAP during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va. Two jets encountered “a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere” and the object came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft, he said. It was estimated to be 5 to 15 feet in diameter, he said.

The mission was terminated, Graves said. The squadron submitted a safety report, but there was no official acknowledgment of the incident, he said.

The encounters with UAP became so common that the aircrew would discuss the risk of the objects during preflight briefings, Graves said. 

Wednesday’s hearing, by a House Oversight subcommittee, is Congress’s latest push for transparency around UAP. Lawmakers have been putting more pressure on the federal government to share what it knows about the phenomena, which have long fascinated the public. 

Provisions in the Senate’s version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act would require federal agencies to hand over records related to UAP to a panel with the power to declassify them. The provisions have bipartisan support. 

Federal officials have begun releasing some information about UAP. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report in 2021 that reviewed dozens of reports of mysterious flying objects between 2004 and 2021. The report found several examples of objects that lacked visible forms of propulsion or that appeared to use technology beyond the known capabilities of the U.S. or its adversaries. 

U.S. defense officials released videos of such objects last year during the first Congressional hearing on the subject in more than half a century. One video, taken from the cockpit of an aircraft, showed a spherical object flying to the right of the aircraft. Military officials were unable to explain what the object was.

Sean Kirkpatrick,

Most of the UAP share some traits, Kirkpatrick said. They tend to be round, measuring 1 to 4 meters across. They can travel at supersonic speed or be stationary, and don’t have any visible propulsion mechanisms.   

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has established a separate panel tasked with reviewing nonclassified data on UAP. The team plans to issue a report on its findings this summer. 

Write to Joseph De Avila at [email protected]