Congress will hold its first public UFO hearing in 50 YEARS today: Two top intelligence officials will testify on 'unidentified aerial phenomena' and their potential national security risks

  • On May 17 at 10 a.m.,  a House subcommittee will hear from two top defense officials on reports of 'unidentified aerial phenomena'
  • Last June, Congress requested a report on 'unidentified aerial phenomena,' and DNI offered an assessment focusing on 144 incidents dating back to 2004 
  • The report said data was 'largely inconclusive' but most of the incidents definitely involved 'physical objects'
  •  In 18 of the incidents, spotters 'reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics'

A House subcommittee is prepping to hold its first hearing open to the public on UFOs in more than 50 years on Tuesday, with two top intelligence officials set to testify. 

On Tuesday at 9 a.m. the House Intelligence Committee's Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee will delve into details on reports of 'unidentified aerial phenomena.' Such high-level conversations have for the past half century been reserved for closed-door meetings among high-ranking military officials. 

'The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks — especially those we do not fully understand,' the panel chair, Rep. André Carson, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, and Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, will testify before the panel. 

Last June, Congress requested a report on 'unidentified aerial phenomena,' another term for UFO, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) offered a preliminary assessment focusing on 144 incidents dating back to 2004. DNI was only able to explain one. 

The report said data was 'largely inconclusive' but most of the incidents definitely involved 'physical objects.'  Many of the sightings were reported by military pilots. 

'The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks ¿ especially those we do not fully understand,' the panel chair, Rep. André Carson, said in a statement

'The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks — especially those we do not fully understand,' the panel chair, Rep. André Carson, said in a statement

In 18 of the incidents, spotters 'reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics,' including objects that seemed to be flying 'without discernible means of propulsion.'

'Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion,' the report said. 'In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency energy associated with UAP sightings.'

After the woefully insufficient report, the Pentagon created a new office to study such incidents - the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). 

While such unidentified objects could be foreign military aircraft or possibly secret domestic aircraft, today's hearing suggests that the phenomena has become so big that U.S. defense officials can no longer keep it from the public. 

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, asked about the hearing last week, said:  'We are absolutely committed to being as transparent as we can with the American people and with members of Congress about our perspectives on this and what we're going to try to do to make sure we have a better process for identifying these phenomena, analyzing that information in a more proactive, coordinated way than it's been done in the past, and that we also are doing what we need to do to mitigate any safety issues as many of these phenomena have been sighted in training ranges and in training environments.'

Asked if there was any concern the UAPs could be foreign adversaries, he said: 'We don't have a view on that,' but added that the Pentagon was working to form a more organized reporting system. 

'It's been sort of ad hoc in the past, in terms of a pilot here and a pilot there seeing something and the reporting procedures haven't been consistent,' he added. 

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the purpose of the hearing was to shed light on 'one of the great mysteries of our time and to break the cycle of excessive secrecy and speculation with truth and transparency.' 

This file video grab image obtained April 28, 2020 courtesy of the US Department of Defense shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots that have circulated for years showing interactions with 'unidentified aerial phenomena'

This file video grab image obtained April 28, 2020 courtesy of the US Department of Defense shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots that have circulated for years showing interactions with 'unidentified aerial phenomena'.

In 2017, Lue Elizondo, a senior staffer at the Pentagon, rose to fame after he helped leak to the New York Times extraordinary videos from US fighter jets of tic tac-shaped UFOs moving with incredible speed and agility near aircraft carriers off the East and West coasts in 2004 and 2015

In 2017, Lue Elizondo, a senior staffer at the Pentagon, rose to fame after he helped leak to the New York Times extraordinary videos from US fighter jets of tic tac-shaped UFOs moving with incredible speed and agility near aircraft carriers off the East and West coasts in 2004 and 2015

The last time Congress had such a hearing was in 1970, when the Air Force closed down Project Blue Book, a public investigation into UFOs spearheaded by then-House Republican minority leader Gerald Ford. 

In 2017, Lue Elizondo, a senior staffer at the Pentagon, rose to fame after he helped leak to the New York Times extraordinary videos from US fighter jets of tic tac-shaped UFOs moving with incredible speed and agility near aircraft carriers off the East and West coasts in 2004 and 2015. 

Elizondo ran a secret government UFO monitoring program in Reid's department until 2017, but left the $22million government program after what he has termed excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the project.

Elizondo, a former UFO secret program chief in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD), has said he quit the Pentagon and helped leak the 'tic tac' videos because his military bosses refused to acknowledge his severe security concerns over these powerful 'craft' violating US airspace. 

Elizondo said last June when the report detailing 144 incidents was released to Congress that it was just the tip of the iceberg, that it was important to consider all possibilities, including extraterrestrial or trans-dimensional origin. 

'This is something that could involve outer space, interspace, or the space in between, and that's why we've always said keep all options on the table,' he said on Fox News last June.

'The more we learn about this remarkable universe we live in, the more we realize our current understanding of the construct of the cosmos is constantly changing and evolving with new information and new knowledge that we get,' added Elizondo.

'People jump to speculation that it's from the Pleiades or something like that, when in fact one of the hypothesis when I was in AATIP was this could be as natural to Earth as we are, but we are just at a point where technologically we aren't advanced enough we can collect information on it and begin to try to figure out what it is,' he said.

'There's been another hypothesis that these things are possibly from underwater and as outlandish as it may seem, there is some anecdotal evidence that supports all of these observations, so what we want to do is try to get as much data on the table as we can before we start eliminating,' said Elizondo.

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