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House Oversight Committee Sky News
against loyal civil servants, military personnel and the public - all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos."
UFOs came to Washington again today
The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth" at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. at 11:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) on Wednesday (Nov. 13).
Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) is a relatively new catch-all term that includes sightings of unexplained objects or events that take place in the air, underwater, in space, or that travel between those domains.
Like previous congressional UFO hearings, today's event featured testimony from current U.S. military personnel who claim the American government has for decades hidden evidence of advanced technologies and otherworldly visitors from the public.
A multitude of anecdotes were presented about flying orbs coming out of the ocean, disc-shaped objects, and craft,
While such claims are nothing new, what is noteworthy about today's hearing are the pedigrees of some of the whistleblowers who testified, including a former U.S. counterintelligence officer, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a former NASA associate administrator.
All of them stressed the need for more government transparency, less stigma about the UFO topic and new policies to bring UAP data out of the "black" classified world and into the public domain.
A still from a video titled "Go Fast" recorded by a U.S. Navy aircraft reportedly showing a UAP that was discussed in the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth" on Wednesday (Nov. 13).
(Image credit: U.S.
Department of Defense) This isn't the U.S. government's first attempt to investigate the recent wave of UFO claims that began in 2017.
A similar hearing was held last year, in which a whistleblower told Congress the U.S. government is hiding evidence of 'non-human intelligence.'
The Pentagon also created the All-Doman Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022 to investigate UAP reports and government data about UFOs, but critics, including some government officials, are skeptical of the office's aims and methods.
Other representatives stressed the need for transparency and data analysis today, a common theme of other recent UAP studies.
Luis Elizondo
Luis Elizondo, a former U.S. counterintelligence officer who has been vocal about such claims in recent years, told the assembled representatives at the hearing that,
We are,
Elizondo, who claims to have previously investigated UFOs as part of a secret Pentagon program, suggested that the U.S. government create a,
During questioning, Elizondo was asked if some of the "advanced technologies" that have been seen monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe could be operated by aliens or private companies.
Elizondo also stated point-blank to Rep. Mace's questioning that the U.S. government has programs to retrieve crashed UAP and reverse-engineer them, but avoided giving any specifics in an unclassified public setting such as the hearing.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) then questioned Elizondo, asking the former counterintelligence agent about a document he signed that limits him from speaking publicly about crash retrieval programs.
Like other witnesses, Elizondo stated that the alleged excessive government secrecy around UFOs harms national security.
In response to questioning from Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Elizondo stated that, if UAP sightings turned out to be technologies operated by adversarial nations, it would be,
Journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the media outlet Public, displays redacted reports during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as he stresses the need for more transparency in UFO investigations. To his right are Michael Gold and to his left are Luis Elizondo, other witnesses who testified today at the House Oversight Committee hearing.
Image credit: House
Oversight Committee
Tim Gallaudet
Retired U.S. Navy rear admiral Tim Gallaudet offered similar testimony as Elizondo.
The retired rear admiral also stressed the national security and airspace safety concerns related with UAP sightings, calling them "extensive."
When Rep. Garcia asked Gallaudet and other witnesses what UAP might represent, the retired rear admiral said he believes they are evidence of a,
Michael Gold
Former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships Michael Gold also testified at today's hearing, and previously served on NASA's UAP study team.
Gold's testimony was more grounded; for example, he stressed the need for NASA to contribute its authority and expertise toward analyzing what UAP data it might already possess and helping dispel the stigma associated with the UFO topic.
Gold added that NASA has a massive archive of data that could possibly contain evidence of UAP, and suggested that artificial intelligence/machine learning algorithms could help sort through the agency's trove of data to help shine light on the UFO phenomenon.
In addition, the former NASA associate administrator said the agency should develop specialized instruments that might be able to gather useful data about UAP.
Michael Shellenberger
Journalist Michael Shellenberger also testified today, telling the representatives that there's a,
Shellenberger stated that there is a secret program within the U.S. government known as "Immaculate Constellation" whose sole purpose is to collect UFO and UAP reports from military personnel and sensor data and quarantine them away from the rest of the government and military.
While he noted that a Pentagon spokesperson has stated no such program exists, Shellenberger recounted prior examples in which the Department of Defense has initially denied knowledge of UAP-related information only to later change its stance and either admit the information exists or release it to the public.
A still from footage shot by an MQ-9 reaper drone showing an unidentified spherical object soaring through the air shown to the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services during an April 2023 hearing. (Image credit: U.S. Dept. of Defense)
Non-human Biologics and Non-human Intelligence
To conclude the meeting, Rep. Mace asked each of the witnesses to define what non-human biologics or non-human intelligence mean to each of them.
Conclusions
In today's hearing, as in other UFO hearings, there was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.
One of the core tenets of these whistleblower testimonies is that much of the credible UFO data is classified and can't be revealed to the public based on the military capabilities that some of that data could reveal.
Whistleblowers have attested for years that, because advanced or classified sensors and satellites sometimes capture footage or photos of unexplained phenomena or advanced craft, those photos or videos are likewise classified by the U.S. government in order to not reveal America's full surveillance or sensing capabilities.
Such was the case in 2023 when U.S. military aircraft shot down a mysterious object off the coast of Alaska.
The American government has yet to release any imagery from the event, but a Canadian freedom of information request unveiled a photograph earlier this year of a balloon-like object.
In today's hearing, as in other UFO hearings, there was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.
One of the core tenets of these whistleblower testimonies is that much of the credible UFO data is classified and can't be revealed to the public based on the military capabilities that some of that data could reveal.
Whistleblowers have attested for years that, because advanced or classified sensors and satellites sometimes capture footage or photos of unexplained phenomena or advanced craft, those photos or videos are likewise classified by the U.S. government in order to not reveal America's full surveillance or sensing capabilities.
Such was the case in 2023 when U.S. military aircraft shot down a mysterious object off the coast of Alaska.
The American government has yet to release any imagery from the event, but a Canadian freedom of information request unveiled a photograph earlier this year of a balloon-like object.
2nd UFO Hearing held by U.S. Congress - Witnesses include fmr. Military -
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