The following timeline lists all known congressional actions and legislation regarding UFOs, which the Congress prefers to call Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAP.
Since the beginning of the “flying saucer” era of the 1940s and ‘50s, Congress has been sporadically involved in the topic, and individual members have made isolated requests for UFO-related information. Only in recent years has Congress begun to work in a more concerted and systematic way to collect data and analyses in order to explain what is causing the phenomenon. The timeline below begins in 2007, the start of this modern era of UFO investigations.
New entries will be added as they occur or are uncovered in newly released documents.
September 7, 2007
The Senate approves the 2008 Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which will provide $250 billion for military and domestic programs. Senators Reid, Stevens, and Inouye have inserted a provision that directed funds to a potential five-year UFO study within the Defense Department, which would be called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP). This was a “black project” that was not known to the public or the rest of Congress until 2017. Reid wrote in The New York Times in 2021: “We wanted to take a close, scientific look at the technological implications of reported U.F.O. encounters.”
September 22, 2008
Bigelow Aerospace (BAAS) is awarded the AAWSAP contract. It was budgeted for $10 million in its first year, and $12 million in its second year. Jim Lacatski is Program Manager, and Colm Kelleher is Deputy Administrator. The AAWSAP team immediately begins investigating UFO sightings and other anomalous events.
AAWSAP also hired former Marine fighter pilot Colonel Douglas Kurth, who was a witness to the 2004 Tic Tac encounter, which was one of the first cases the team investigated. A video of the Tic Tac UAP–titled FLIR–would become one of the three UAP videos that the Pentagon officially releases in 2021. According to The New York Time’s first report on the leaked videos, FLIR shows “a whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane, chased by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Nimitz off the coast of San Diego.”
June 2009
Senator Reid filed a request with the Secretary of Defense that the AAWSAP team be established as a “Restricted-Special-Access-Program” (SAP). Reid’s letter argued that the team had made “substantial progress,” but for a full understanding of the “unconventional aerospace-related findings” under investigation by AASWAP, “a high degree of operational security and read-on discretion is required.” The Pentagon denied this request in November 2009.
Reid was motivated to request SAP status for AAWSAP because his own request to view UFO-related materials had also been denied by the Pentagon. He told The New Yorker in 2021:
“I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved [UFO] materials. And I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve that. I don’t know what all the numbers were, what kind of classification it was, but they would not give that to me.” At the time, Reid was Senate Majority Leader and member of the Gang of Eight, which reviews all sensitive national security information.
December 2010
The AAWSAP contract expires and the office is closed.
Also in 2010, Luis Elizondo, working in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)), launches a smaller UFO investigative unit called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), charged with studying the national security implications of UAP.
Early 2010s
Senators Rubio and Gillibrand, sitting on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees respectively, begin receiving classified reports of military encounters with UAP.
June 2013-March 2015
Naval aviators attached to the USS Roosevelt and Carrier Strike Group 12 are having almost daily encounters with UAP during training maneuvers. These occur along the East Coast from Virginia to Florida where the group is operating (Naval Air Station Oceana is based in Virginia Beach, and has jurisdiction over the Mid-Atlantic region). Two of the three UAP videos officially released in 2021 by the Pentagon–GOFAST and GIMBAL–were filmed during these encounters.
According to an internal Navy email from June 2019, the “2014 to 2015 timeframe” is when formal reporting on “these objects” began. Congress is presumably made aware of at least some of these reports.
December 16, 2017
The New York Times reports on the $22 million dollar AAWSAP UFO study, and Luis Elizondo’s ongoing involvement. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon was instrumental in breaking the story, as well as making the three UAP videos public. Mellon had also served as a staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee (1989-1996), and Legislative Assistant on defense matters for Senator William Cohen when Cohen was on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee (1985-1989).
April 4, 2018
During an interview, the Conway Daily Sun asks Senator Jeanne Shaheen to comment on the recent spate of news stories about UFOs in U.S. airspace that was kicked off by The New York Times four months earlier. Her reply: “You know, we have not had anything around UFOs that I have seen in either the Armed Services Committee or any other committee that I’m on. I have to say, I’m a little more worried about Russia [and China] than I am UFOs these days.”
March 1-4, 2019
The Navy has more encounters with UAP in its Oceana training ranges. Photos and videos are taken of UAP that are shaped as triangles, acorns, and spheres.
June 11, 2019
The Senate Armed Services Committee introduces the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020 with a classified Annex related to UAP. The legislation directs the USD(I&S) to stand up a UAP Task Force “to investigate UAP activity.” The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is to lead the investigations.
Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) filed the classified section. It was signed into law December 20, 2019. This was not known to the public until internal Navy emails were released in 2022 through the Freedom of Information Act.
June 19-20, 2019
Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee receives a UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence that he had requested. An ONI briefing team also provides a UAP briefing to four members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The fact that these briefings took place is widelyreported in the media.
Warner releases a statement through a spokesperson: “If pilots at Oceana or elsewhere are reporting flight hazards that interfere with training or put them at risk, then Senator Warner wants answers. It doesn’t matter if it’s weather balloons, little green men, or something else entirely — we can’t ask our pilots to put their lives at risk unnecessarily.”
June 28, 2019
The Office of Naval Intelligence prepares for a series of congressional briefings on UAP to take place in July: “There are quite a few members of Congress who want updates.”
July 15, 2019
A UAP swarm of at least 14 objects converges over the USS Omaha off the coast of San Diego. Omaha crew film a spherical UAP as it floats down to the waterline and submerges into the ocean. This video was eventually leaked and made public nearly two years later in May 2021.
July 16-26, 2019
Office of Naval Intelligence briefing teams provide back-to-back sessions on Capitol Hill updating members of Congress on UAP. The briefings were scheduled earlier in the month, according to this July 1 email:
September 25, 2019
During a briefing with the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Senator Rubio, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, brings up “the UAP question.”
Naval Intelligence becomes very interested what took place during the session, according to this email from the following day:
October 8, 2019
The Office of Naval Intelligence briefs Congress on UAP, using a detailed PowerPoint presentation:
October 21, 2019
Several Senate Armed Services Committee staffers are invited to the Pentagon for a UAP briefing. According to reporting by The Debrief:
“Attendees at the meeting told The Debrief that they were provided information on two previous DoD-backed UFO programs: the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) and the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program (AATIP). They were also briefed on ‘highly sensitive categories of UFO investigations.’”
October 23, 2019
Staffers for the Senate Armed Service Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee receive a briefing on “unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) detections” from ONI, OUSD(I), and Federal Aviation Authority.
In addition to receiving the same AAWSAP/AATIP history staffers received two days earlier, these committees are also briefed by Dr. Eric Davis, a physicist contracted with the Defense Department who also worked on AAWSAP. Little is known about the content of his briefing, exceptthat it concerned “retrievals of unexplained objects.” Davis later revealed that he told the Senate staffers that UAP were “off-world” vehicles.
Christopher Mellon has since explained that he brought Davis to Capitol Hill, and that Davis “provided specific information lending credence to sensational reports that an official US government program is actively seeking to exploit recovered technology that was fashioned by some other species or perhaps advanced AI machines. Much of the information Dr. Davis provided remains highly classified.”
On August 13, 2020, Eric Davis wrote an email in which he responded to a question about whether he believed the Tic Tac were extraterrestrial. He responded: “Those craft are off-world as I’ve told two Senate committees’ staff and DoD agencies.” [Source pg 18]
December 5, 2019
The House Armed Service Committee is briefed on UAP.
December 12, 2019
The Senate Intelligence Committee receives a UAP briefing from OUSD(I). The briefing was requested by Chairman Richard Burr and Vince-Chair Mark Warner.
March 11, 2020
Naval Intelligence presents a UAP briefing “on the hill.”
April 27, 2020
The Pentagon officially authenticates and publicly releases the three UAP videos, FLIR, GOFAST, and GIMBAL. The press release states:
“The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. … The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.’”
Also in April, Scott Bray of the Office of Naval Intelligence disseminates new classification rules that pertain specifically to UAP encounters.
May 1, 2020
Naval Intelligence provides Congress with an update on the creation of the UAP Task Force: “The briefing will provide an overview of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and the task force that has been established in order to manage the issue on behalf of the United States Government.”
The presentation likely contained UAP video and a presentation by one or more navy aviators.
Jeremy Corbell has reported that this or a different May 1 slide deck presentation was intended to be shared with military personnel: “Those familiar with the briefing articulated to me that the goal was to de-stigmatize the UAP problem and to promote more intelligence collection regarding UAP incursions and encounters with active military deployments.”
Corbell’s sources told him this presentation contained 10 videos and 10-12 photos of UAP, including the USS Omaha sphere, and the Oceana encounters.
May 14, 2020
The New York Times first reports on Navy encounters with UAP over Oceana and Mid-Atlantic Navy training ranges from 2013 to 2019.
May 18, 2020
Senator Rubio is named chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to Politico:
It represents a significant elevation for Rubio, who after a failed 2016 presidential campaign is once again seeing his star rise. With the appointment, Rubio becomes a member of the so-called “Gang of 8,” the group of congressional and intelligence committee leaders from both chambers who regularly receive the most sensitive classified briefings.
June 12, 2020
The Senate Intelligence Committee requests a UAP briefing from ONI and OUSD(I).
June 17, 2020
Senator Rubio, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, adds UAP mandates to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The report begins:
“The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations. However, the Committee remains concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena, despite the potential threat.”
The legislation passed the Senate on July 23, and was signed into law December 27, 2020. This triggers the writing of a detailed preliminary report on UAP by the UAPTF, due to Congress by the end of June 2021.
June 23, 2020
Scott Bray of the Office of Naval Intelligence provides requested UAP briefing to 10 senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee:
August 4, 2020
The Pentagon officially launches the UAP Task Force, as mandated by Congress in 2019. It is led by the Navy under the direction of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD(I)). The press release states:
“The Department of Defense established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”
September 22, 2020
The UAPTF briefs various House members. Scott Bray presents the briefing.
“We have to try to know what it is. Maybe there’s a logical explanation. Maybe it’s foreign adversaries who made a technological leap?”
Rubio also held up the prospect that agencies will need more time to complete the report. “I’m not sure they are going to come in on time,” he said. “I’m not sure by June 1 they have reached a hard conclusion about what they are dealing with and there may be more questions, or new questions, than full answers …”
“I can tell you it is being taken more seriously now that it ever has been.”
May 16, 2021
60 Minutes airs an in-depth report on congressional interest in UAP. Senator Rubio is prominently featured speaking out on the topic:
“I want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in … until we get some answers. Maybe it has a very simple answer. Maybe it doesn’t.”
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP Preliminary Report.
June 25, 2021
The UAPTF submits its report, titled Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, to Congress. The report states that 143 UAP have been identified by the military since November 2004, when the Tic Tac encounter occurred. All are unexplained. There are vague references to “breakthrough aerospace capabilities” and “unusual flight characteristics” of UAP. The report describes how some “UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion.” These statements are often hedged by claims that lack of data and “sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception” might explain UAP.
A 9 page summary is made public while Congress gets a 17 page report plus appendices. The classified version contains more evidence, while the public version has none. The conclusions are generally the same in both, but redactions suggest the classified conclusions are more pointed, and there may be some more specific conclusions that we cannot infer through the redactions.
“We look forward to reviewing the report and will host a classified briefing for the Members of the House Intelligence Committee later this year based on its findings and to build on the Member briefing held last week. As we continue to receive updates, we will share what we can with the American people as excessive secrecy will only spur more speculation.”
August 4, 2021
Senator Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduces the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 with the following UAP language requiring new reporting mechanisms:
Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act and not less frequently than quarterly thereafter, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, or such other entity as the Deputy Secretary of Defense may designate to be responsible for matters relating to unidentified aerial phenomena, shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress quarterly reports on the findings of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, or such other designated entity as the case may be.
All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the previous 90 days.
All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a time period other than the previous 90 days but were not included in an earlier report.
September 1, 2021
In a closed-door “mark up” session, the House Armed Services Committee approves its version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. It includes a UAP amendment authored by Representative Ruben Gallego. Among other provisions, the approved amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to:
Establish an office to carry out the mission currently performed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (in coordination with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence);
Submit an annual report on unidentified aerial phenomena; and
Terminate the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.
Provide “an update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.”
On the same day, Representative Gallego’s office releases this statement:
“It is in the national security interest of the United States to know what is flying in our skies. Whether emerging tech from strategic competitors and adversaries or aerial phenomena from unknown origins, our military must have a full intelligence picture and the tools to respond quickly to these potential threats. My amendment creates a permanent office at DoD to comprehensively evaluate these UAPs, and I’m proud to announce its inclusion in the House version of the NDAA,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations.
September 10, 2021
The House Armed Services Committee sends the final House version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to the full House of Representatives. It is publicly available on September 11.
Douglas Dean Johnson is the first to report on the UAP provisions, and publishes a blog post titled “U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee proposes expanded UAP-related mandates, including annual updates on any efforts ‘to capture or exploit’ UAP.”
On September 13, The Debrief reports that the Gallego amendment is “the first to call for the establishment of an office within government solely for the study of UAP.”
September 23, 2021
The 2022 NDAA passes the full House. The UAP language from the Gallego amendment is unchanged.
“I think there has been kind of a partial pastime of curiosity seekers that are within the Department of Defense but there has not been any professional initiative across the defense enterprise… so that we can actually make some deliberate and knowledgeable decisions.”
“I decided to actually put action to words,” Gallego said. “We had a briefing on this phenomenon. One of the things that came out of that briefing, without breaking too many walls here, was that there just needed to be better data collection. There needs to be standardized data collection across the services.”
November 4, 2021
Senator Kristen Gillibrand adds an UAP amendment to 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which would establish a new office to investigate UPA titled the “Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office” and require annual public reports on UAP activity through 2026.
UAP-Congress-watcher Douglas Dean Johnson writes that the Gillibrand Amendment “would go considerably further than the Gallego provision already approved by the House, or the much narrower provisions proposed by the House and Senate intelligence committees, to require the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community to create new institutional arrangements and devote substantial resources to investigating and analyzing UAP, and to draw on UAP-related expertise from outside the government.”
November 17, 2021
Senator Gillibrand gives first interview on her UAP legislation:
“If it is technology possessed by adversaries or any other entity, we need to know. Burying our heads in the sand is neither a strategy nor an acceptable approach.”
“We’ve not had oversight into this area for a very long time. I can count on one hand the number of hearings I had in 10 years on this topic. That’s fairly concerning given the experience our service members have had over the last decade. Having no oversight or accountability up until now to me is unacceptable.”
“I don’t see opposition to this on any level.”
November 23, 2021
As a response to the Gillibrand Amendment, the Pentagon announces that the UAP Task Force will become the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The Debrief reached out to Senator Gillibrand’s office for comment:
“While we appreciate DoD’s attention to the issue, the AOIMSG doesn’t go nearly far enough to help us better understand the data we are gathering on UAPs.” Lizzie Landau, Press Secretary at the Office of Senator Gillibrand, told The Debrief.
December 7, 2021
The final, negotiated language of the 2022 NDAA is made public. Later that day Douglas Dean Johnson publishes the first and most comprehensive account of the NDAA’s UAP sections. Those sections require:
Annual comprehensive reports on all UAP activity that occurred in the previous year; must also cover attempts to capture and exploit UAP, health effects of UAP encounters, and UAP near U.S. nuclear assets; to be released on October 31 through the year 2026
Biannual briefings on the most recent UAP activity
The creation of a new office to replace the UAPTF
That the term UAP be defined as trans-medium, inclusive of the ability “to transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water.”
The House passes the NDAA at almost 11 p.m. that evening. A week later, on December 15, the Senate approves the final bill with no changes. President Biden signs it into law on December 27.
March 2022
Congress passes theConsolidated Appropriations Act. It requires the new UAP office to report to Congress quarterly rather than twice a year, as stipulated by the 2022 NDAA. It also stipulates that the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base be involved with the new UAP office’s investigations. NASIC was the home of the Pentagon’s long-running UFO office, Project Blue Book, until it was closed in 1969.
The law requires that all Department of Defense and federal Intelligence Community components share UAP information with NASIC, as well as the Pentagon office on the issue…
“Someone on the intelligence committees thought they (NASIC) should be very much in the loop,” said Douglas Dean Johnson, a Maryland blogger and retired consultant who followed the legislation since its beginnings last summer…
Though Congress formalized a role for NASIC, members are saying little. A spokeswoman for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence declined comment and referred questions to the office of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who once was relatively outspoken on the subject, saying last year he wanted the government to take the subject of UFOs/UAPs “seriously.” Ansley Bradwell, press secretary for Rubio, declined to comment.
May 2, 2022
In April the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees received the first UAP briefing required by the 2022 NDAA. Some members, including Senators Rubio and Gillibrand and Representative Burchett, used a Politico article to publicize their displeasure with the content of the briefing and the slow speed at which the new UAP office is being stood up:
“Lawmakers receiving the latest secret briefings on UFOs say national security agencies still aren’t taking seriously the reports of highly advanced aircraft of unknown origin violating protected airspace… some leading sponsors of recent legislation want more analysts and surveillance systems dedicated to determining the aircrafts’ origin — and not just more reports of their existence.”
Last week one Pentagon insider commented to Liberation Times that Congress was upset with the slow progress of AOIMSG, commenting:
“Congress is extremely upset with how unhurried DoD has been with regards to standing up and empowering AOIMSG. Senators and their staffers are wanting answers about what UAP are and where they are from.
“These same Senators have seen the classified videos of UAP displaying performance capabilities well beyond anything in our arsenal and they want answers.”
May 17, 2022
The House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation holds the first public congressional hearing on UFOs in over fifty years.
Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence) testify about their progress standing up the new UAP office, AOIMSG. They stress these main points:
stigma around the topic is no longer tolerated in the military and there is a clear reporting protocol for all service members who witness UAP
most data on UAP cannot be shared publicly because it would reveal sources and methods
the inexplicable nature of most UAP is due to the fact that there is “too little data to create a reasonable explanation”
many UAP sightings can be attributed to mid-identification of conventional objects, and that most are likely drones “such as quadcopters and unmanned aerial systems.”
Committee members ask many questions, including about the apparent ability of UAP to fly without discernible means of propulsion; historical UFO cases; rumors of black-buget crash retrieval projects within DOD. In his opening statement, Representative Casron, chair of the subcommittee, complains about the slow pace of standing up the new UAP office and naming a director:
“We fear sometimes that the DOD is focused more on emphasizing what it can explain, not investigating what it can’t.”
June 23, 2022
The Senate Intelligence Committee passes its version of the 2023 Intelligence Authorization Act in closed-door session. The bill is posted online on July 14.
Among other provisions, the legislation requires the Government Accountability Office to compile a comprehensive historical report on the intelligence agencies’ involvement with UFOs since January 1, 1947, when the US government collected its first UFO reports. The report must:
“itemize a complete historical record of the intelligence community’s involvement with unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena, including successful or unsuccessful efforts to identify and track… and any intelligence community efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide unclassified or classified misinformation about unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena or related activities.”
The legislation calls for the reformation of AOIMSG into a new office called the Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office. The new Office will continue to be led by DoD, with a Deputy Director named by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Section 704 of the legislation creates a process for “any Government or Government contractor activity or program related to unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena” to be shared with Congress through the new office, with protection from legal liability or reprisals:
“The system established under paragraph (1) shall provide for the immediate sharing with Office personnel and supporting analysts and scientists of information previously prohibited from reporting under any nondisclosure written or oral agreement, order, or other instrumentality or means…” In his summary of the 2022 UAP legislative process, Douglas Dean Johnson writes: “It appears that this array of new congressional UAP-related proposals were initiated within the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the SSCI, which have coordinated to a degree with their counterparts on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). The proposals are advancing with bipartisan support in both houses.”
July 13, 2022
Representatives Gallagher and Gallego propose a UAP amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2023. It contains an immunity provision for witnesses of “any event relating to unidentified aerial phenomena… any government or government contractor activity or program related to unidentified aerial phenomena.” It passes on a voice vote. The full 2023 NDAA passes the House on July 14.
July 20, 2022
The House Intelligence Committee passes its version of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 behind closed doors. This bill contains one UAP-related provision, which is similar to the Senate’s Government Accountability Office study of UFO history going back to 1947.
Douglas Dean Johnson notes: “However, in the HPSCI-approved version, there is one additional item on the list of things that the GAO must review, this being ‘efforts to recover or transfer related technologies to United States-based industry or National Laboratories…’”
Also on July 20, in a report submitted with the Senate’s IAA, the Senate Intelligence Committee further stipulated that the new office is not to waste its or Congress’s time reporting on misidentified conventional objects:
“Temporary nonattributed objects, or those that are positively identified as man-made after analysis, will be passed to appropriate offices and should not be considered under the definition as unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena.”
On the same day as these releases, in response to Congress’s wishes, the DOD announces the establishment of a new UAP office called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick is named as director.
August 25, 2022
At a congressional town hall in New York City, Senator Gillibrand speaks about Dr. Kirkpatrick and the new UAP office:
“[H]e understands he’s supposed to work with the private sector and all the people who have all the data and information. He’s also asked to go back and look at all the archival data…. And they’re taking it seriously, they’re not going to hide it. Because there is so many of us now in the intel committee, and armed services, that we’re going to stand by the service members who’ve documented this. They have video, they have radar, they have heat sensors, they have everything. They have it. I’m not going to let it go. I’m one hundred percent committed.”
December 15, 2022
The Senate passes the 2023 NDAA, unchanged from the House version that passed on December 8. President Biden signed the legislation into law on December 22. The UAP sections, summarized and excerpted below:
SEC. 1673. UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA RE18 PORTING PROCEDURES
This section mandated secure reporting procedures for “(A) any event relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, and (B) any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.”
The above information must be disclosed “to personnel and supporting analysts and scientists of the [AARO] Office (regardless of the classification of information contained in the disclosure or any nondisclosure agreements).” The only exception this is if “the observed object and associated events and activities” are part of a special access program (SAP), and crucially the SAP in question, “as of the date of the disclosure, has been explicitly and clearly reported to the congressional defense committees or the congressional intelligence committees.” Otherwise, reporting to AARO must occur within 72 hours. Also, the Defense Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence must provide clear public guidance on how to avail themselves of this reporting mechanism. Such an individual “shall not be subject to a nondisclosure agreement” and shall not be subject to any reprisals such as “the revocation or suspension of security clearances, or termination of employment.” This process is official termed “authorized disclosure.”
SEC. 6802. MODIFICATION OF REQUIREMENT FOR OFFICE TO ADDRESS UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA.
Designates the UAP office as the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.” The Director and Deputy Director will be appointed by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence. Some of the duties include:
“Developing procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents, including adverse physiological effects, regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena across the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.”
“Evaluating links between unidentified anomalous phenomena and adversarial foreign governments, other foreign governments, or nonstate actors.”
‘‘Evaluating the threat that such incidents present to the United States.”
The following two passages require the production of a full intelligence analysis of UAP data: “The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall designate one or more line organizations that will be primarily responsible for scientific, technical, and operational analysis of data gathered by field investigations conducted pursuant to sub section (d) and data from other sources, including with respect to the testing of materials, medical studies, and development of theoretical models, to better understand and explain unidentified anomalous phenomena.”
“The Director of the Office, acting in coordination with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, shall supervise the development and execution of an intelligence collection and analysis plan to gain as much knowledge as possible regarding the technical and operational characteristics, origins, and intentions of unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to the development, acquisition, deployment, and operation of technical collection capabilities necessary to detect, identify, and scientifically characterize unidentified anomalous phenomena.”
AARO must also develop a science plan that will produce “scientific theories to–(1) account for characteristics and performance of unidentified anomalous phenomena that exceed the known state of the art in science or technology, including in the areas of propulsion, aero dynamic control, signatures, structures, materials, sensors, countermeasures, weapons, electronics, and power generation; and (2) provide the foundation for potential future investments to replicate or otherwise better understand any such advanced characteristics and performance.”
Historical Record Report is required:
Produced by the Director of AARO
Released 540 days after passage [July 2024]
“a written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena”
“focus on the period beginning on January 1, 1945”
“any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress”
“any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or related activities”
Some key requirements of the Annual Report:
“Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, and annually thereafter for four years” [Week of June 19]
“All reported unidentified anomalous phenomena-related events that occurred during the one-year period.”
“Identification of any incidents or patterns regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena that indicate a potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a breakthrough aerospace capability.”
“An update on any efforts under way on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified anomalous phenomena.”
“health-related effects”
“submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex”
New definitions:
The term ‘transmedium objects or devices’ means objects or devices that are—(A) observed to transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water; and ‘(B) not immediately identifiable.
The term ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ means— (A) airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable; (B) transmedium objects or devices; and (C) submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting that the objects or devices may be related to the objects described in subparagraph (A).”
December 16, 2022
Pentagon press roundtable on the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), transcript. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of AARO, conducts his first press interview, with Ronald Moultrie, at the Pentagon.
February 16, 2023
Sixteen members of the Senate Armed Services Committee request that AARO be fully funded. Senators Gillibrand and Rubio drafted the formal request.
“AARO provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma. AARO’s success will depend on robust funding for its activities and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. As such, we respectfully request your assistance in securing the necessary funding and organizational support for AARO’s success and longevity.”
“The amount outlined in the classified attachment is crucial to AARO’s scientific plan, and the lack of funding for these capabilities presents a serious impediment to AARO’s mission.”
February 21, 2023
Some members of Congress attend a classified briefing on a military base in Florida where they are shown video and data of four UFOs flying along side an American fighter pilot. Matt Gaetz and Tim Burchett in attendance. [source: Twitter video clips]
April 21, 2023
Top US intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA director William Burns, and Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), convened at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for a national security briefing on Friday. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was also in attendance, and both U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-CT) described the event as “historic.”
The purpose of the briefing was to ensure that intelligence officials are knowledgeable about activities occurring at Wright-Patterson, which houses the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) and National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). Both centers were among the items addressed during Friday’s briefing. Congress’ recently expanded mandate for NASIC in the arena of UFOs, or “UAPs” as they’re often called today, short for “unidentified aerial phenomena.”
Wright-Patterson is located in Congressman Turner’s home district, which he has represented since 2003. [Source: MARCA News]
April 19, 2023
Senator Gillibrand convenes a Senate hearing on AARO, questioning director Sean Kirkpatrick. [transcript]
April 27, 2023
Senators Warner and Rubio submit a letter to Secretary of Defense Austin expressing concerns over AARO mandates not being implemented.
June 7, 2023
Representative Burchett revealed on Steve Bannon’s podcast: “he ‘has a commitment’ from both House speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer to hold a hearing on UAPs, though he says it’s not a top priority for party leaders. ‘We’re only going to get about one bite at the apple,’ Burchett said.” [Wired]
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wi.) submitted to the House Rules Committee a proposed UFO-related amendment (no. 287) to the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2670). D. Dean Johns writes it is similar to the Senate version: “The amendment would curtail future funding of unreported special-access programs, and mandate reporting of and making available of government-linked “non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material” to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).”
July 11, 2023
Senate Armed Services Committee reports out NDAA 2024.
July 14, 2023
Senators Schumer and Rounds introduce a “UAP Disclosure Act”:
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) are leading an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would mandate government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) carry the presumption of disclosure. The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023 is modeled on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and will create a UAP Records Collection.
July 26, 2023
House Oversight committee hearing on UAP. David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and David Fravor speak as witnesses. Bipartisan round of questioning focuses on the need for transparent from the DOD and IC regarding UAP.
July 27, 2023
Senate passes a joint NDAA-IAA 2024 package, with “multiple and far-reaching provisions related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP/UFOs).” It includes the Schumer-Rounds “UAP Disclosure Act”; established government ownership of any recovered alien craft or “biological” material; provides more funding for AARO; cuts funding for any non-disclosed UFO program; additional whistleblower protections. The bill now goes to the House.
July 27, 2023
Four members of the House call on the Speaker to create a Select Committee to investigate the “United States government’s response to UAPs”
September 21, 2023
House Oversight Committee members briefed on the NASA UAP panel final report by two NASA representatives. It was a closed door session. Representative Burchett attended and released a video of his thoughts.
October 26, 2023
Several members of the House attended a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF. Presenters were from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DOD OIG). Members included: Moskowitz, Ocasio-Cortez, Burchett, Burlison, Luna, Perry, among others. Several reported afterward that all the members were frustrated with the lack of answers, and the assertion that these members do not have sufficient clearance to access the requested information.
In a statement posted to X by NewsNation’s Joe Khalil, the DOD OIG said, “The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General is not responsible for determining the classification of the information in our oversight work, nor do we determine the level of security clearances for congressional leaders,” adding, “The DoD OIG is committed to being as transparent and communicative as possible with our congressional leaders, and welcome and further opportunity to discuss our body of work.”
“They were now beginning to put on a squeeze by threatening to call a congressman— and nothing chills blood faster in the military.”
–Edward J. Ruppelt, Captain, U.S. Air Force (retired), 1955
The following list contains every known public statement and action made by members of the U.S. Congress regarding UFOs since 2018.
We now know that Congress has been the main driver behind a movement to compel the military branches and the intelligence community to share more of what they know about UFOs with Congress and also with the public. Members of the U.S. House and Senate began to work in concert towards this effort around 2018, shortly after the New York Times revealed the Pentagon’s secret UFO office in December 2017.
The purpose of this archive is to reveal the mindset of currently serving members of Congress toward UFOs by cataloging what they have been willing to say publicly on the topic. This list will also put in context ongoing public statements they make, and it can help us interpret their next moves. Reading their statements in sequence shows that what they tell journalists about UFO transparency often ends up being written into law months later.
The Senate and House armed services and intelligence committees have crafted and unanimously passed UFO-transparency laws four years in a row. The number of congresspeople speaking out about UFOs is increasing, yet the vast majority has made no UFO public statements at all. Unlike in past eras of congressional involvement in UFOs, current efforts cannot be chalked up to the eccentric views of a few politicians. This archive documents the views of many currently serving members of Congress, all of whom are committed to finding answers about the unexplained phenomenon they call UAP. Their statements are deliberate and often strategic.
For the members of Congress who have gone public about UFOs, I have assigned each of them a rating that labels how far they are willing to go in expressing their thinking with the public. This too will be important to track, since UFO disclosure will ultimately require our political leaders to tell the public what they think UFOs are. The three broad categories range from national security concern over UFOs, open skepticism of the topic, and open discussion of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Here is a description of each rating.
Disclosure Advocate
The congresspeople assigned to this rating have taken public acts or made public statements that support the cause of UFO transparency, but have not explicitly stated what they think UFOs are. These statements follow a general pattern: UAP (their preferred term) are real, we don’t know what they are, but we need to find out, and the federal government is obligated to share what data it has on this topic.
It should be noted that Senator Gillibrand has consistently said since 2021 that there is no significant opposition within Congress to UAP transparency.
Members assigned this rating:
November 2023 – 42
UFO Skeptic
This rating is reserved for congresspeople who have made statements indicating they do not believe UFOs are not real, and are instead misidentifications of conventional objects, hallucinations, hoaxes, or secret technology. They call themselves skeptics. They may also tap into long-standing UFO stigma tropes in order to dismiss the topic.
Some in this group may take steps to actively curtail the public discussion around UFOs, while others support efforts for UAP transparency as a means of ending the speculation.
Members assigned this rating:
November 2023 – 10
Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Advocate
Ultimately, political leaders have to consider that government UFO disclosure will at some point in the future require them to explain to the public that UFOs may indicate evidence of non-human visitation. A notable minority of Congress is willing to do that now, and are trying out lines for what will be the most unusual political moment of their careers. Their statements move beyond the talking points about unknown objects in restricted airspace and national security, and into the realm of extraterrestrials and other forms of non-human intelligence. Such statements, few in number now, are the first tentative steps toward public confirmation of alien visitations of the Earth.
The congresspeople assigned to this rating have demonstrated a comfort discussing with the public the possibility that UFOs are alien spacecraft visiting the Earth from distant worlds. They have used words like aliens, extraterrestrial, non-human intelligence, other worlds, other solar systems, and light years away. Some in this group, but not all, have shared that it is their personal belief that the Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials.
Members assigned this rating:
November 2023 – 13
The archive below is separated by House and Senate because differences in responsibilities and power between those two bodies often lead to different types of statements. Each member is grouped under their transparency rating. Membership on an intelligence or armed services committee is also indicated. You can use the links to jump to the politician you are curious about, or read all the statements in sequence. This archive will be updated as more statements are made.
“Well I don’t believe they’re coming from foreign adversaries. If they were, why that would suggest that they have a technology in a whole different sphere than anything we understand, and frankly China and Russia just aren’t there. And neither are we by the way, so I’m not worried about it from a national security standpoint. If for some reason these came from another system, if you will, another alien society, which I frankly would find hard to believe, but I guess all things are possible. That would be fascinating, interesting. I know there are, they say, trillions of galaxies out there, so who knows what might have developed somewhere else. That would make me more fascinated, not fearful.” [Source: CNN]
Tweet: BREAKING: I’m introducing new legislation to declassify government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena and UFOs as an amendment to the NDAA, modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.
June 14, 2023
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) are leading an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would mandate government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) carry the presumption of disclosure.
“For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time they get some answers,” said Leader Schumer. “The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public. I am honored to carry on the legacy of my mentor and dear friend, Harry Reid and fight for the transparency that the public has long demanded surround these unexplained phenomena.” [Source: press statement]
Tweet: “I am honored to carry on the legacy of my mentor and dear friend Harry Reid and fight for the transparency that the public has long demanded surrounding these unexplained phenomena.”
July 18, 2023
Senator Schumer gives a floor speech after the Senate approval of the NDAA: “I am pleased the NDAA will include my amendment on policing transparency on UAPs or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. UAPs generate a lot of curiosity for many Americans, and with that curiosity sometimes comes misinformation. So my amendment will require the National Archive and Records Administration to create a collection of records from across government agencies that can be declassified for the public’s use… These records will cary the presumption of immediate disclosure, which means they can only be made classified with good reason…. Harry Reid was passionate about this issue, and so were Senators Stevens and Inouye.”
December 13, 2023
Sen. Schumer engages in a colloquy with Sen. Rounds about the passage of the 2024 NDAA and the House stripping provisions from the UAP Disclosure Act.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) are lead sponsors of an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would mandate government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) carry the presumption of disclosure.
“Our goal is to assure credibility with regard to any investigation or record keeping of materials associated with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” said Rounds. “Relevant documents related to this issue should be preserved. Providing a central collection location and reputable review board to maintain the records adds to the credibility of any future investigations.”
July 20, 2023
Senator rounds responds to Matt Laslo’s question about the term “non-human intelligence” used in his UAP disclosure amendment:
Rounds: “Well, pretty simple terms, aren’t they?”
Laslo: “But, could that be AI?”
Rounds: “Could be, Could be.”
Laslo: “So it’s that broad?”
Rounds: “It was not by accident. Let’s put it that way. I wish I could say more, but that’s just, I mean, we tried to keep it as simple as possible.”
Rounds said he has seen “no evidence personally” that extraterrestrial craft are visiting the planet but said, “I know that there’s a lot of people that have questions about it.”
“It’s just like with JFK and the [1963] assassination. We set up separate archive for that or central collection place for all that data, which I think gave the American people a sense of security that there was a location where it was being held. This is following that same approach,”
Asked about whether he personally believes military personnel and sensors are encountering extraterrestrial visitors, Rounds said: “I don’t think you can discount the possibility just simply because of the size of the universe.”
“I don’t think anybody should say that they know for certain either way,” he said. “If we simply refuse to acknowledge there’s even a remote possibility, then we’re probably not being honest.”
“Some of the items we simply can’t explain,” he said of the Naval videos of UAPs.
Week of July 24
Senator Rounds: “I had one classified briefing with Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.”
December 13, 2023
Sen. Rounds engages in a colloquy with Sen. Schumer about the passage of the 2024 NDAA and the House stripping provisions from the UAP Disclosure Act.
December 13, 2023
Senator Rounds discusses his failed UAP Disclosure Act with Matt Laslo:
“It’s not what we wanted, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Rounds exclusively tells Ask a Pol. “It brings attention to the need for additional transparency. I would really like to have a commission, and if we can negotiate on the commission that’s fine, in terms of who is on it. “I think an independent commission is still the best way to go.”
“I have talked to them [House Chairman Mike Turner], and I know there was some concerns. But I don’t know if the concerns were such that it would stop it. So I honestly don’t know where the actual stop was at within the process.”
“AARO is a part of DOD. Well, this goes beyond DOD. This requires attention. and cooperation by other agencies as well. And that’s the reason we wanted to separate it out [with the UPADA commission], because we want it to be all encompassing. AARO is working, but AARO is just for DOD. And while they’re collecting items, they’re not really disseminating items. So we would like to have some transparency, but we also want to make darn sure that we protect our national security interests as well.”
Senate Armed Service Committee (Chairman 2018-2021; Ranking Member 2021-Present)
June 11, 2019
Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe and Ranking Member Senator Jack Reed file a classified section of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. It requires the Pentagon to form a UAP Task Force that will “investigate UAP activity.” The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is to lead the investigations. This is the first known UAP language inserted into an NDAA, and was signed into law December 20, 2019.
June 22, 2020 (week of)
Senator Inhofe, as an Ex Officio member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, submitted this request for UAP information from Scott Bray of the Office of Naval Intelligence:
June 23, 2021
After receiving a classified briefing on the upcoming UAP Preliminary Report, Inhofe gave this interview to Politico:
“There are so many un-credible people in that subject matter,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) lamented in a brief interview.
Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was looking forward to the release of the report, which he said was critical “for no other reason than to discredit a lot of the things that shouldn’t be credited.”
“See, I’m a lot older than anybody else here … and yet I remember, when I was a little kid — it goes way, way back,” Inhofe, 86, said of still-brewing theories about extraterrestrial life. [Source: Politico]
Senate Armed Service Committee (Ranking Member 2015-2021; Chairman 2022-Present)
June 11, 2019
Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe and Ranking Member Senator Jack Reed file a classified section of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. It requires the Pentagon to form a UAP Task Force that will “investigate UAP activity.” The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is to lead the investigations. This is the first known UAP language inserted into an NDAA, and was signed into law December 20, 2019.
June 28, 2021
Senator Reed issues a statement on the release of the UAP Preliminary Report.
“Unexplained aerial phenomena are a real concern that must be taken seriously. Any time we have objects operating in our airspace, some of which have been fast-moving, they need to be identified, whether they’re advanced technology drones, experimental aircraft, or some other aerospace system. It’s always important to increase our understanding when it comes to unexplained encounters with our military assets. So this is a real national security issue and something that needs to be closely examined by the U.S. military and intelligence community, and Congress must exercise proper oversight.
“As this report makes clear, at this time we simply lack the information necessary to determine what these objects are and what they are doing. So, we need to get that information. Let’s keep watching the skies, studying, and learning. If the government acquires evidence of things it can’t explain, let’s examine it from every angle and be forthright with the American people.” [Source:Statement]
Senator Reed also spoke with a Rhode Island reporter for WPRI Channel 12 news:
Reed: I thought the report was a very thoughtful first step to think about these things. It was inconclusive. They don’t have any compelling evidence that there is…uh… that there is some type of… thinking beings behind these things. However, they have listed several possibilities. One is natural phenomena. Two, it could be some type of test by a nation state of a sophisticated technology we’re not aware of. But we have to stay focused on this and try to develop the kind of analysis and detection devices that can confirm what this phenomenon is.
WPRI: Some people say this is kind of a joke, you know, aliens, UFOs or whatever. But you treat it pretty seriously in your statement over the weekend.
Reed: Well you know the observations were made by navy pilots who were fairly sophisticated in terms of what’s up in the air besides themselves, and you know they saw phenomena that that confused them that was not, it wasn’t like just the sun glinting off a metal piece in here someplace else. So they I think their evidence–and its visual as well as recollections–suggest that you know this is something we have to look into. It may turn out to be a natural phenomenon but we’ve learned something.” [Source: WPRI Interview]
New Hampshire journalists for The Sun ask Senator Shaheen about the December 2017 revelation of the Pentagon’s secret UFO office:
“You know, we have not had anything around UFOs that I have seen in either the Armed Services Committee or any other committee that I’m on.”
The Sun asked Shaheen if she would look into UFO cases since there are implications for national security.
“I have to say, I’m a little more worried about Russia than I am UFOs these days,” she said adding China. [Source: Conway Daily Sun Interview]
2019
From June through October 2019, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee received UPA briefings from the Office of Naval Intelligence and other agencies that included pictures and videos of UAP, as well as aviator testimony. The Sun asked Shaheen about these briefings:
Back in 2019, the Sun asked Shaheen if she had been briefed and she confirmed she had. “It was a classified briefing so I’m not allowed to talk about it,” said Shaheen in 2019. “But if you were to ask me personally do I believe there are UFOs, I think that there are events that have happened that have not been explained adequately.” [Source: Conway Daily Sun]
June 2, 2022
“I’ve seen some of the classified information that I can’t talk about, but I personally think there are unexplained phenomenon that we haven’t yet figured out what’s going on.” [Source: Conway Daily Sun]
February 16, 2023
Senator Shaheen co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Senator King and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee receive a UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence, presented by Scott Bray. In an internal Navy email reporting on outcomes of the briefing, King is classified as a “UAP Advocate.” [Source: Navy emails]
Senator Klobuchar was asked about UAP while campaigning for the 2020 Presidential primary in New Hampshire:
Daymond Steer: “Last time we met, I asked you about David Fravor, the New Hampshire man who was a pilot…”
Klobuchar: “Yes, and I’ve since looked into that.”
Steer: “You’ve looked in to it?”
Klobuchar: “Yes.” [Laughter drowns out comments.] “Yes, with the UFOs.”
Steer: “Yes. Right.”
Klobuchar: “Exactly. I’ve read some articles about it. And, you know, I think we don’t know enough. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what happened, not just with that sighting, but with others. And, I think one of the things a President could do is to look into what’s there; in terms of what does the science say; what does the military say? Here’s the interesting part of that answer, is that some of the stuff is really old, these sightings. So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public? So, earnest journalists like you, who are trying to get to the bottom of the truth would be able to see it?”
Klobuchar: “I also realize she got a briefing, which I thought was. I also read that article.”
Moderator: “A little bit of back story is that Daymond asked Hillary that question…”
Klobuchar: “She didn’t tell you what came out of it. That is my point. She would have violated the rules of…”
Steer: “But she promised to look into it.”
Klobuchar: “Yes. Exactly. But what a President could do is to be able to figure out, can we release some of the information now, publicly?” [Source: Conway Daily Sun]
February 16, 2023
Senator Klobuchar co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Senator Bennet was asked about UAP while campaigning for the 2020 Presidential primary in New Hampshire:
“Let me say it this way, I have to be extremely careful because I’m on the Intelligence Committee, so nothing I’m saying has anything to do with anything I’ve learnt on the Intelligence Committee. Our guys are seeing unidentified stuff and they don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what it is. I don’t think they are saying it is necessarily from outer space but it is unexplained stuff that’s off the southeast coast of the United States. We are trying to learn more about it and the air force is trying to learn more about it.” [Source: Conway Daily Sun]
July 25, 2021
KUNC, an NPA affiliate in Colorado, resorts on recent unexplained drone sightings in the state:
This leaves U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado “greatly concerned.”
Bennet sits on the Select Committee on Intelligence, which led efforts to get the UAP report released. It describes sightings, mainly by military pilots, that some think might be advanced technology. Though that’s different from the descriptions of the “drones” made by people in Colorado, both mysteries deserve answers, Bennet said.
“Getting to the bottom of these phenomena,” his office said in a statement to KUNC, “is a national security imperative. [Source: KUNC Interview]
February 16, 2023
Senator Bennett co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Senator Rubio begins to be shown reports on military/UAP encounters. Rubio joined the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2011.
September 25, 2019
What the Defense Intelligence Agency referred to as “the UAP question” is raised during a briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rubio poses several key questions. He also requests a follow up briefing that would go into more detail about the UAP issue.
June 17, 2020
Senator Rubio, who was appointed Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, adds UAP mandates to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The report begins:
“The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations. However, the Committee remains concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena, despite the potential threat.”
This legislation triggers the writing of a detailed preliminary report on UAP by the UAPTF, due to Congress by the end of June 2021.
June 23, 2020
Senator Rubio, as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally requests a UAP briefing by the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Pentagon’s OUSD(I). Scott Bray presents the briefing. In an internal Navy email reporting on outcomes of the briefing, Rubio is classified as a “UAP Advocate.” [Source: Navy emails]
July 16, 2020
Senator Rubio makes his first public statements about UAP in this interview with Florida-based investigative reporter Jim DeFede.
DeFede: Are we alone [in the universe]?
Rubio: [chuckle] Here’s the interesting thing for me about all this, and the reason why I think this is an important topic. And that is, we have things flying over our military bases and places where we are conducting military exercises, and we don’t know what it is, and it isn’t ours. So that’s a legitimate question to ask. I would say that if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better than if we’ve seen some technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians, or some other adversary that allows them to conduct themselves in this activity.
But the bottom line is there are things flying over your military bases, and you don’t know what they are, because they’re not yours, and they exhibit potentially technologies that you don’t have at your own disposal, that to me is a national security risk, and one that we should be looking into. And so that’s the premise that I begin with.
DeFede: …you’re not using the phrase Unidentified Flying Objects. You have another euphemism for it, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.
Rubio: I didn’t come up with that. That’s the one that the military uses internally, and ultimately that’s the one we used. The Office of Naval Intelligence–this has impacted the Navy for the most part. I’ve seen reports on this now for the better part of a decade. Other countries have seen similar reports. But our perspective is, there is someone flying in our airspace that no one else is allowed to fly in, and we don’t know who it is, and it isn’t something we have. We need to know what that is. I don’t know why we wouldn’t want to know what it is. Maybe there is a completely boring explanation for it, but we need to find out. That’s really what we’re asking about. And we’re asking them to make public, as much as possible, that information. None of that really fits into the mold of classified per se.
DeFede: So what’s your gut? Are we alone in the universe, or is there something else out there?
Rubio: I don’t have a gut feeling about it. It’s a phenomenon. It’s unexplained. I just want to know what it is. And if we can’t determine what it is, then that is a fact point we need to take into account. I wouldn’t venture to speculate beyond that. [Source: DeFede Interview]
Rubio: For me the whole thing was this, and that’s why we put that language in there, people want space aliens, for me, there’s stuff flying over military installations, and no one knows what it is, and it isn’r ours. So for me, that’s logical, you want to know what it is, that’s common sense, if stuff is flying over the top of our most sensitive installations, it’s not our and no one knows what it is, you should find out what it is and tell us.
TMZ: “Who is the bigger threat right now? People say China’s a big threat, but shouldn’t we also be worried about what’s outside in the universe?”
Rubio: “Ahh I wouldn’t… Take it one step at a time, you know what I mean. I’m not saying that’s what it’s all about. Like I told you, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to what it is, but it’s stuff that is there. ”
TMZ: “Everyone thinks we’re the smartest out there in the Universe. Are the aliens possibly smarter than what we are right now?”
Rubio: “Uh…well, if they made it all the way here they probably are, yeah. They’re probably more advanced. If they can get here and we can’t get there, that tells you they’re more advanced. But I don’t know there are aliens, I don’t know if they’ve ever visited here, I’m not, you know. When you talk about that stuff, everybody gets, you know, gets stigmatized about it, nobody wants to sound weird. My thing is very simple: We don’t know what that stuff is that’s flying over the top of our installations. Let’s find out. Maybe it’s another country and that would be bad news, too.”
TMZ: “But let’s just say, hypothetically, if somebody comes down, there’s aliens, should Biden and should the government, should we try to be friendly with these folks? Or should we look at them as…”
Rubio: “Oh, I don’t know, man. I’m thinking, we have so many problems going on as it is, that would be one a heck of way to top the last year and half.”
March 24, 2021
Senator Rubio speaks with Fox News about the pending release of the UAP Preliminary Report:
“We have to try to know what it is,” the Florida Republican said. “Maybe there’s a logical explanation. Maybe it’s foreign adversaries who made a technological leap?”
Rubio also held up the prospect that agencies will need more time to complete the report. “I’m not sure they are going to come in on time,” he said. “I’m not sure by June 1 they have reached a hard conclusion about what they are dealing with and there may be more questions, or new questions, than full answers …”
“I can tell you it is being taken more seriously now that it ever has been.” [Source: Fox News]
May 16, 2021
“I want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in … until we get some answers. Maybe it has a very simple answer. Maybe it doesn’t.” [Source: 60 Minutes]
December 9, 2021
Senator Rubio releases a statement on the passage of the UAP amendment in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.
“It is my hope that the creation of a new joint Defense Department and Intelligence Community office focused on UAPs will provide the resources, analytics and attention needed to determine what is loitering around our military training ranges,” Rubio said. “The DoD and IC need to ensure a more uniform collection strategy is in place and that we continue to destigmatize reporting on UAPs, particularly from military aviators. Significantly, we also maintain the transparency and accountability that my provision in last year’s Intelligence Authorization Act report provided, by ensuring ongoing unclassified reporting.” [Source: Link]
May 2, 2022
In April the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees received the first UAP briefing required by the 2022 NDAA. Some members, including Senators Rubio and Gillibrand and Representative Burchett, used a Politico article to publicize their displeasure with the content of the briefing and the slow speed at which the new UAP office is being stood up:
“Rubio is definitely frustrated,” said one of the senator’s aides, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They are not moving fast enough, not doing enough, not sharing enough. The administration is aware of the concerns. It is not at the level it needs to be.” [Source: Politico]
“We are making important progress in our ongoing efforts to understand these activities and what threat they may pose to America’s national security. The report highlights 510 UAP national security incidents reported since 2004, a significant increase from the 144 in the 2021 report. It highlights the reason for standing up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to lead the whole-of-government effort.
“However, more needs to be done across the Defense Department and Intelligence Community to utilize existing sensors to collect and analyze more data on UAPs. I am committed to ensuring we get to the truth for the American people.”
February 12, 2023
Senator Rubio tweets about recent shoot-downs of balloons.
“The last 72 hours revealed to the public what has happening for years, unidentified aircraft routinely operating over restricted U.S. airspace This is why I pushed to take this seriously & created a permanent UAP task force two years ago.”
“The issue of unidentified objects over U.S. air space isn’t about [space alien face emoji]
“It’s always been about how someone is flying something over places they aren’t allowed And they are neither new nor limited to the U.S. What has changed is that now we finally started tracking them”
February 14, 2023
Senator Rubio records a statement before classified briefing on balloon shoot-downs:
“This is pretty extraordinary. This is not just a curiosity or any weird stuff about UFOs and aliens. For the first time in 65 years the United States has shot something down over our airspace, not once but four times, and three of those four things we have no idea what they are, and people deserve to know what they are. … We need to understand why we did it, and what these things are, where they come from, who owns them, who made them, and why are they here. Perhaps the explanation is easy, and maybe not.
This is a topic I’ve been on for a long time. This is not new. It may sound new, but it really isn’t. We have been seeing objects flying over restricted airspace in the United States for a long time now. No one took it seriously because immediately it was about UFOs and flying saucers and aliens, and that’s not my concern. My concern is that some other country has developed a capability to monitor and enter our airspace and that we are not prepared to identify it because … we’re looking for airplanes, we’re looking for missiles, we’re not looking for objects that don’t fit that criteria. And strategic surprise is the way a lot of wars start and it’s they way a lot of wars and conflicts are lost.”
Senator Rubio also tweeted this link to the DNI’s 2022 UAP report:
“Last year @DoD_AARO had 171 unexplained UAP reports, many eerily similar to descriptions of the ones this past weekend & some with “unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities”
After the classified briefing, Senator Rubio said this in a press interview:
WE KNOW WHAT THE SPY BALLOON WAS. THE OTHER THREE INSTANCES, AS THEY ARE DESCRIBED, BOTH PUBLICLY AND IN THERE, ARE NOT NEW. WE HAVE HEARD THE EXACT SAME DESCRIPTIONS IN HUNDREDS OF CASES, SO OBSERVING UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS OVER U.S. AIRSPACE, PARTICULARLY OVER SENSITIVE AREAS OF THE COUNTRY IS NOT NEW. WHAT WE HEARD AND THEIR SOUNDS JUST LIKE THE STORIES WE HAVE HEARD REPEATEDLY. THAT IS WHY AN AGENCY WAS CREATED TO STUDY ALL OF THIS FROM A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE. MY CONCERN NOW IS THAT THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS NOT SHARING THAT INFORMATION WITH THOSE SCIENTISTS SO THAT YOU CAN COMPARE THE DATA WE HAVE ON THESE FROM THE ONES WE HAVE RETROACTIVELY IN THE PAST. SOME OF WHICH HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED. SO THAT WE HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING. I THINK THERE IS A STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH IT, because of space aliens and all that stuff. This is now about that. THIS IS ABOUT AN ADVERSARY DEVELOPING CAPABILITIES THAT THEY KNOW WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR. because our systems are set up to see missiles and airplanes. They are not set up to see smaller objects at lower altitudes. …
We have hundred and hundreds of these over the years. The report that was issued by the Department of National Intelligence earlier this year LISTS OVER 500 SUCH CASES, DOZENS THIS YEAR ALONE. THE QUESTION HAS TO BE, WHY ARE THEY SETTING UP A NEW TASK Force? MAKE THIS DATA AVAILABLE, SO YOU CAN CROSS-REFERENCE IT AND COMPARE IT TO THE OTHER HUNDREDS OF CASES THAT WE HAVE. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL BEGIN TO GET ANSWERS. I IMAGINE SOME OF THESE WILL HAVE EXPLANATIONS, OTHERS WILL BE MORE COMPLICATED. I IMAGINE SOME WILL BE CRAFTS THAT ARE LAUNCHED BY A COMPANY OR INDIVIDUAL, AND OTHERS MAY NOT BE. THEY MAY BE NATION STATES THAT HAVE DEVELOPED SOME RUDIMENTARY CAPABILITY that can COLLECT INTELLIGENCE or test aerospace defense of the United States I AM SPECULATING. THAT IS WHY WE WANT THIS TO BE HANDLED FROM A DATA AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE. But it begins by using what Congress created for them, and so far it appears they’re not using that. …
WHAT BOTHERS ME THE MOST IS THAT EVERYONE IS ACTING LIKE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME we’ve ever seen these things, and so we reacted that way. NO, IT ISN’T. WE HAVE HUNDREDS OF HUNDREDS OF CASES REPORTED BY MILITARY PERSONNEL, WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR years. And THERE IS A PROCESS SET UP TO ANALYZE THESE. And this data should be a part of that process immediately. Not a year from now. Not six months from now. Righty away, SO WE CAN CROSS COMPARE TO THE PREVIOUS INSTANCES AND GET SOME ANSWERS FASTER THAN WE WOULD OTHERWISE….
The alien origin? I don’t know what we could do about that. I would almost hope it is, at some point. Because if this is the Chinese or the Russians or someone’s invented a capability that we can’t monitor, that sounds like a big problem. …
I THINK WHAT THEY SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT IS THAT THE GOVERNMENT has THE PROCESS IN PLACE TO ANALYZE THESE THINGS IN A WAY THAT ALLOWS US TO GET CLOSER TO UNDERSTANDING WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH. I AM CONCERNED THAT IS NOT THE PROCESS THAT IS IN PLACE. THAT WE HAVE NOW CREATED A BRAND new process HEADED BY THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WHEN WE ALREADY HAVE AN EXISTING PROCESS that is staffed with scientists and experts WHO HAVE ALREADY COLLECTED ON HUNDREDS OF PREVIOUS INCIDENCES almost identical to this one AND can use this data from this incident to compare to those and begin to get us closer to answers about whose flying this stuff here and what is it doing here.
February 16, 2023
Senators Rubio and Gillibrand draft a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing:
“AARO provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma. AARO’s success will depend on robust funding for its activities and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. As such, we respectfully request your assistance in securing the necessary funding and organizational support for AARO’s success and longevity.”
“The amount outlined in the classified attachment is crucial to AARO’s scientific plan, and the lack of funding for these capabilities presents a serious impediment to AARO’s mission.”
“In addition to securing necessary funding, we request a briefing from your offices on your agencies’ plan to implement the dual reporting of AARO to the leadership of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. … The briefing should cover the balance between Intelligence Community and Department of Defense involvement, including how Title 10 and Title 50 authorities will be delegated to, and exercised by, the Director of AARO. We see it as essential that AARO’s activities are not viewed or managed as solely an intelligence activity.”
April 27, 2023
Senators Rubio and Warner submit a letter to Defense Secretary Austin, complaining about slow implementation of some AARO mandates: transferring management of AARO to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director National Intelligence; the appointment of an AARO deputy director; a request that Congress be informed of all of AARO’s witness interviews; a secure public-facing website to collect more witness testimony; AARO’s communication strategy for more robust public engagement.
June 14, 2023
Senator Rubio co-sponsors the Schumer/Rounds UAP Disclosure Act: “There is a lot we still don’t know about these UAPs and that is a big problem. We’ve taken some important steps over the last few years to increase transparency and reduce stigmas, but more needs to be done. This is yet another step in that direction, and one that I hope will spur further cooperation from the executive branch.”
Question: “What do you think of the notion that there are SAPs hidden from Congress?”
“Those claims have been made for years, and that’s certainly something we’d be very disturbed by—and that’s what the gist of the whistleblower’s [David Grusch] claim is, that there are programs that should have been notified to Congress that were not. So we’re gonna be interested in that no matter what the topic is. We’ve heard those claims in the past. This is the first one that’s gone through this process.”
“I know we have spoken to him [David Grusch] and are familiar with much of his testimony… he has talked about it in quite detail. And the gist of any whistleblower testimony is that the intelligence agencies are doing something wrong. And in his case, and this has been publicly reported, the argument is that what they’re doing wrong is they are not appropriately disclosing to Congress money that has been spent on programs and the like.”
“I want to caution everybody that under the law, you have to have firsthand knowledge. That doesn’t mean the person isn’t telling the truth… so I can say that someone told me that someone did something wrong and I have good reason to believe it because I heard it from a lot of different people and they are saying the same thing. But unless you yourself have firsthand knowledge of it, sometimes you get caught in a technicality. That doesn’t mean that the things he is saying are not useful to Congress.”
“There are one of two things here that are true. Either what he is saying is partially true or entirely true, or we have some really smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government who are crazy and are leading us on a goose chase. One of these two things is true. Either what they’re telling us is true or we’ve got some people in important positions that are doing this for some reason. So either one is a problem. We’ve got to figure this out. We can’t ignore it.”
“I don’t think you go from being the commander of a naval fighting wing off an aircraft carrier to being some lunatic that’s out to mislead the government.”
“My biggest fear is that some adversary has made a technological leap that would be really bad news and that we have been caught flat footed on it.”
“This is a tough thing to dig into. There’s a stigma associated with it, right? I mean, nobody wants to be known as the UFO guy.”
“If that is accurate, what you’re basically saying is that within the government of the United States, there’s a group of people who believe that they possess something that they don’t need to share with anybody, including elected officials who they view as temporary employees of the government. And, you know, in essence, some sort of an internal military complex that’s their own government and is accountable to no one. So it would be a huge problem if it’s even partially true. …anytime agencies of the federal government are unsupervised and do whatever they want, it’s generally not a good outcome for the country.”
I will say there are people that have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years. I would imagine some of them are potentially some of the same people that perhaps he’s referring to. I want to be very protective of these people. A lot of these people came to us even before these protections were in the law for whistleblowers to come forward. And a lot of them–Or have firsthand knowledge or firsthand claims of certain things. Some are public figures, you know, and you’ve heard from them in the past. Others, you know, have not shared publicly…. Some of these people still work in the government and frankly, a lot of them are very fearful, fearful of their jobs, fearful of their clearances, fearful of their career. And some, frankly, are fearful of harm coming to them. … all of them have in many cases, understandings of different elements of this firsthand. They may have heard some of the other pieces…. I think the more we know, the better we are prepared to go down the right roads or the right paths or ask the right questions. But we’re still sort of in that phase where this is new to a lot of people. And there’s still a lot of people that I think are starting to edge towards coming forward and we hear may be coming forward but are still trying to see how it plays out for the people that came forward first.”
“Well, don’t find them either not credible or credible because we have no basis. Understand, some of these claims are things that are beyond sort of the realm of what any of us has ever dealt with. What I think we owe them is just a mature understanding, listening and trying to put all these pieces together and just sort of intake the information without any prejudgment or jumping to any conclusions in one direction or another. I will say I find most of these people at some point, or maybe even currently have held very high clearances and high positions within our government. So you ask yourself, like what incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification — these are serious — have to come forward and make something up. And on the other hand, like I said, extraordinary claims, it’s something that requires a lot of work and and to back up. And so I don’t know the answer to it. I think when you’re in a fact finding mission, you’re trying not to prejudge anything. You’re trying to take in information and you’re trying not to rule anything out or jump to any conclusions because this is new to everybody, frankly.”
“And I think the gist of it is if, in fact, these claims that are out there are true, that information needs to be provided to the task force that we set up to both protect whatever national security equities are in place and at the same time gain access to all of this. Now, if the answer that comes back is no such material exists, then obviously that goes par for the course because you’ve already seen some of the public statements. But I think when it’s in the law, career people, people that are in the service of our government have to make a decision. Do I just basically ignore the law and the consequences that come with it? So I think we’re simply responding to some of the things that we’ve seen come out in the public record and ensuring that we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this entity we’ve created called AARO actually has access to information or materials, if in fact they exist. “
July 11, 2023
Senator Rubio interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News, “Is there any truth to any of this?”
Rubio: “We don’t know. … We have people that have very high clearances, both today and in the past, who have done really important work for our government, who have come forward with some claims about the US in the past having recovered some exotic materials, and then reverse engineered those materials to make advances in our own defenses and technology. … Either they are telling the truth, and that is something that obviously would be the biggest story in human history, or we have people in really important positions in the government who are crazy.
“We have a number of people including that gentleman [David Grusch] who have come forward both publicly and privately to make claims. One of two things are true. Either A, they’re telling the truth or some version of the truth or B, we have a bunch of people with high clearances and really important jobs in our government are nuts. Both are a problem.”
“Without speculating or adding to intrigue about this whole topic, there’s no doubt that in this field, generally, there’s more than what we know. We’re trying to get to a process where at least some people in Congress do know.”
“Most certainly there are elements of things, whether historic or current, that potentially Congress has not been kept fully informed of — and that would be a problem. There’s really no function of the executive that shouldn’t require congressional oversight at some level.”
August 2, 2023
Reporter scrum question on David Grusch testimony: “I don’t believe it departed much from other claims. Yeah, look, I’m familiar with what he’s put out there. … To be clear, he’s not claimed he has first hand knowledge. He’s claiming other people have told him that.
“We’re not ignoring it. We’re just trying to deal with it in a very different way. You have to bifurcate this issue. The stuff that they’re seeing over restricted airspace, which everyone admits is real and needs to be addressed. And then the stories about historic programs, I mean, I don’t know, if that’s even true that’s gonna take a long time to unpack. And I’m not ignoring that either.”
Q: Are you getting asnwers on this stuff?
“No. We’re getting a lot of information, Im not sure we’re getting a lot of answers yet, but these things take time.”
Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee receives a UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence that he had requested.
After the exiting the classified briefing, Warner spoke with the press:
“I think some of the press reports [about UAP] are accurate. I think people are taking this issue much more seriously. I’m not going to get into any of the contents of the briefing. It was a classified briefing. One of the key takeaways I have is the military and others are taking this issue seriously, which I think in previous generations may not have been the case.” [Source: video]
The next day, June 20, CNN published a statement from Warner’s office:
“If pilots at Oceana or elsewhere are reporting flight hazards that interfere with training or put them at risk, then Senator Warner wants answers. It doesn’t matter if it’s weather balloons, little green men, or something else entirely — we can’t ask our pilots to put their lives at risk unnecessarily,” Rachel Cohen, the spokeswoman for Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, told CNN. [Source: CNN quote]
April 14, 2021
“I say this with some trepidation. I remember as a kid being interested in UFOs, and at that point it was kind of viewed as a crank-pot theory. And I think though for a long time, the military, as people saw things, they didn’t investigate them. One of the things that has changed–I’ve received a classified briefing on this so I can only give you the topline–the military has seen enough things, where they’re actually now encouraging pilots to report. If there are objects flying over military installations, that could pose a security threat.
“We, working with Senator Rubio, we put into law a requirement that the Defense Department make a report. And this report on one level needs to be declassified and revealed to the American public. So if there is something out there, let’s seek it out. It probably is a foreign power. But I think the past approach that the military had, which was, the pilot saw something that, they kind of say, whatever you do, don’t report it, it’s going to look bad on your record. They’re now saying, if you’re seeing things, there is actual visual, recorded evidence, we got to sort this out.” [Source: WGHP FOX8]
June 25, 2021
Senator Warner releases a statement on the UAP Preliminary Report:
“I was first briefed on these unidentified aerial phenomena nearly three years ago. Since then, the frequency of these incidents only appears to be increasing. The United States must be able to understand and mitigate threats to our pilots, whether they’re from drones or weather balloons or adversary intelligence capabilities. Today’s rather inconclusive report only marks the beginning of efforts to understand and illuminate what is causing these risks to aviation in many areas around the country and the world.” [Source: Statement]
August 4, 2021
Senator Warner, as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduces the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 with the following UAP language:
Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act and not less frequently than quarterly thereafter, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, or such other entity as the Deputy Secretary of Defense may designate to be responsible for matters relating to unidentified aerial phenomena, shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress quarterly reports on the findings of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, or such other designated entity as the case may be.
All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the previous 90 days.
All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a time period other than the previous 90 days but were not included in an earlier report.
“Today’s report reflects a step forward in understanding and addressing risks to aviators. Overall, I am encouraged to see an increase in UAP reporting – a sign of decreased stigma among pilots who are aware of the potential threat that UAPs can pose. I’m proud to have passed language in the FY23 Intelligence Authorization Act that will empower the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to rigorously investigate and bring resources to bear on this challenge. I look forward to seeing continued cooperation between the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and other key government partners as we work to focus resources on UAP reports that remain uncharacterized and unattributed.”
February 14, 2023
After the classified briefing on balloon shoot-downs, Senator Warner gave a press interview:
ONE OTHER THING, FINALLY, OVER THE LAST YEAR PLUS UNDER THE AARO PROGRAM, THERE IS NOW A SOPHISTICATED EFFORT. so that if PILOTS ARE SEEING UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS AND THERE IS A REPORTING PROCESS AND a scientifically driven ANALYSIS. I CAN TELL YOU, THERE WERE YEARS OF THESE KIND OF REPORTS OFF THE COAST OF VIRGINIA. ADJACENT TO WHERE OUR FLEET IS BASED. THE VAST MAJORITY OF THOSE ENDED UP BEING BALLOONS. IN TERMS OF WHERE THERE MAY ALSO STILL BE A GAP IS, THERE REALLY IS NOT, TO MY UNDERSTANDING, THAT FORMAL OF A PROCESS THAT if a UNIVERSITY, a private institution SENDS OFF SOME KIND OF RESEARCH BALLOON, HOW THAT IS APPROPRIATELY REGISTERED AND HOW THAT APPROPRIATELY pings the FAA or other ENTITIES AND HOW THAT INFORMATION THEN IS relayed to APPROPRIATE defense INDIVIDUALS. I THINK THERE IS MORE TO LEARN, I THINK WE WILL HAVE A LOT MORE INFORMATION WHEN WE SEE THE RECOVERY OF some of these materials.
“For years, pilots were frankly discouraged from reporting things because it might then hurt your career. The military made a very smart decision four or five years ago, because things were showing up on radar, visual sightings, and whatnot. And they said, no, report. Now, in the last two and a half years, under a project called AARO, there is now a group that is funded, and we have a very serious scientist, Sean Kirkpatrick, who is going through a much more rigorous approach to examine, discover and try to clarify what these items [UAP] may be.”
February 16, 2023
Senator Warner co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Nation states spy on each other. I am not surprised that China is trying to observe what’s happening in America, number one. Number two, I, along with Sen. [Marco] Rubio on our committee, we’ve moved very aggressively to make sure that the United States military, Air Force and the Navy, treat seriously spotting of what’s called unidentified aerial phenomena — UAPs — and what we used to call UFOs. It didn’t get a lot of attention, but there have been lots of sightings of UAPs off the coast of Virginia for example, off of where our Navy is based out in Norfolk.
Where I was frustrated was just the amount of attention that the Chinese gained when this balloon, which was visible by cell phones, just leisurely floated across the whole mainland in the United States.
April 27, 2023
Senators Rubio and Warner submit a letter to Defense Secretary Austin, complaining about slow implementation of some AARO mandates: transferring management of AARO to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director National Intelligence; the appointment of an AARO deputy director; a request that Congress be informed of all of AARO’s witness interviews; a secure public-facing website to collect more witness testimony; AARO’s communication strategy for more robust public engagement.
June 13, 2023
Questioned by Matt Laslo about David Grusch’s allegations for a Wired article:
WIRED sent an inquiry to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner; in less than a minute, the Virginia Democrat’s staff replied, “We’re a no comment on this—thank you!”
When we caught the senator in the Capitol’s marble halls, Warner kept tripping over his own thoughts. “There’s been a lot of incoming. Frankly, I just need to find out more information on this,” Warner says.
As for the accusation that the federal government has lied to Congress and hidden some SAPs for decades? “We’ve heard these accusations before,” Warner says, before stopping himself, again. “Let me get some information first.”
Senator Kaine receives a requested UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence. He attends the briefing with Representative Carson. [Source: Navy emails]
February 16, 2023
Senator Kaine co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Senate Armed Service Committee; Senate Intelligence Committee
Around 2011
Senator Gillibrand receives first briefing on UAP. Gillibrand has sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee since January 2011.
February 2, 2021
Senator Gillibrand joins the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of only three Senators to sit on both Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
November 4, 2021
Senator Gillibrand adds a UAP amendment to 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which would establish a new office to investigate UPA titled the “Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office” and require annual public reports on UAP activity through 2026.
According to UAP-Congress-watcher Douglas Dean Johnson’s analysis, the Gillibrand Amendment would “require the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community to create new institutional arrangements and devote substantial resources to investigating and analyzing UAP, and to draw on UAP-related expertise from outside the government.”
November 17, 2021
Senator Gillibrand makes her first public statements about UAP and her amendment in an interview with Politico, excerpted here:
“If it is technology possessed by adversaries or any other entity, we need to know,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said in her first interview about the effort. “Burying our heads in the sand is neither a strategy nor an acceptable approach.”
“We’ve not had oversight into this area for a very long time,” Gillibrand said. “I can count on one hand the number of hearings I had in 10 years on this topic. That’s fairly concerning given the experience our service members have had over the last decade.”
“Having no oversight or accountability up until now to me is unacceptable.”
“I don’t see opposition to this on any level.” [Source: Politico]
November 23, 2021
As a response to the Gillibrand Amendment, the Pentagon announces that the UAP Task Force will become the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group. The Debrief reached out to Senator Gillibrand’s office for comment:
“While we appreciate DoD’s attention to the issue, the AOIMSG doesn’t go nearly far enough to help us better understand the data we are gathering on UAPs,” Lizzie Landau, Press Secretary at the Office of Senator Gillibrand, told The Debrief last November. [Source: The Debrief]
May 2, 2022
In April the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees received the first UAP briefing required by the 2022 NDAA. Senator Gillibrand and other members used a Politico article to publicize their displeasure with the content of the briefing and the slow speed at which the new UAP office is being stood up:
“Senator Gillibrand believes that the DoD needs to take this issue much more seriously and get in motion,” said one of her aides, who requested anonymity in order to discuss private conversations. “They have had ample time to implement these important provisions, and they need to show us that they are prepared to address this issue in the long-term.” [Source: Politico]
August 25, 2022
Senator GillIbrand was approached by Osvaldo Franco of The Disclosure Revolution at a town hall meeting in New York City. She gave this response on camera:
“I’m supposed to get a report in the next month or two [the legally mandated UAP report due to Congress by October 31, 2022]. They briefed our staff. It wasn’t very significant, not a lot of information. They’re building the office right now, and they understand what the mission is. So I met the guy who is in charge of the office [Sean Kirkpatrick] he understands he’s supposed to work with the private sector and all the people who have all the data and information. He’s also asked to go back and look at all the archival data. He has not been able to get access to it. As you can imagine it’s probably siloed in all sorts of places. And so his job is to try to get access to all of it. And if he can’t, I said just go forward. If you can’t get what’s in the historic stuff, get what’s in the private sector data, get the FAA data, correlate it, investigate all the other things that are current, and just create a stood-up office. And he’s committed. And they’re taking it seriously, they’re not going to hide it. Because there is so many of us now in the intel committee, and armed services, that we’re going to stand by the service members who’ve documented this. They have video, they have radar, they have heat sensors, they have everything. [Franco: “Material”]. They have it. I’m not going to let it go. I’m one hundred percent committed.” [Source: Franco video]
December 21, 2022
Response to a listener question about the Pentagon’s late UAP report that was due on October 31, on The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC:
I appreciate your call. Thank you. I met with the head Dr. Fitzpatrick [Sean Kirkpatrick, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office] about a week and a half ago to find out where it is, and he says it’s soon to be made public. It’s being put through its final review by the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and so he thought it could be within the next few weeks or days, so it is late, which of course made me slightly concerned, but he said it was not intentional. It’s just the first public report, so they wanted to make sure it was well written, and it should be out soon.
That’ll be step one. I’ve obviously cared deeply about this issue from a national security perspective, but also from a personnel perspective. We want to make sure service members and other members of the military that when they come forward with data and information and videos that they can actually give this information without having their careers suffer and being dismissed or disregarded in some way. It’s essential that we know what types of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon exist, and then we could do the rigorous scientific review to identify it.
Some may well be weather balloons. Some may well be drones. Some well may be adversaries like China or Russia. Some may truly be unknown, but we need to know the entire collective group of what have we seen, what are the concerns, what technology is it, and can it be identified. That work is being done by Dr. Fitzpatrick and his team. He’s extremely serious and very focused. I’m optimistic that it will be a thorough and thoughtful approach and one that will have a public lens.” [Source: interview transcript]
December 2022
Christopher Mellon published an article on his blog, December 24, in which he stated: I recently had the opportunity to ask Senator Gillibrand, a leading sponsor of the legislation, whether she would support revealing the existence of alien technology if the whistleblower process confirms these sensational allegations. Without missing a beat, she replied: “Of course! Why not?” [Source: blog]
“This is a national security issue. Putting your head in the sand and saying it doesn’t exist is not an appropriate solution or approach.”
“Under all circumstances, you need to know what it is. Because if it is an adversary–let’s say it’s Russia or China–you better know what technology they have. And if it’s ‘Other’ then you also need to know that. Like, you really need to know the answer, and use as much scientific capability that as we have to make those determinations. And if we don’t have enough scientific capability, then increase the scientific capability.”
February 7, 2023
Senator Gillibrand tweets a link about the Chinese spy balloon: This is why I’ve fought so hard to increase interagency cooperation and to reduce stigma around reporting UAPs. When we treat our service members with respect and take their reports seriously, our nation is safer and better prepared.
February 12, 2023
Senator Gillibrand tweets a link about the Chinese spy balloon: This is exactly why we need to be studying Unidentified Aerial Phenomena — and why I fought to increase interagency cooperation and reduce stigma for reporting sightings. Because we’re collecting and studying the data, we’re able to detect these incursions and protect our skies.
“I’m very concerned about not assessing unidentified aerial phenomenon, which is why two years ago I worked with republicans and Democrats to create a new part of the Pentagon that just focuses on all reports of unidentified aerial phenomenon and assess them scientifically with as much publicly available data, and intelligence data, as well as data from aircraft of military personnel, and assess what it is. And in the last two years they’ve assessed over three hundred unidentified aerial phenomena, about half of them were determined to be balloons or balloon-like devices, a couple dozen were determined to be drones, some were just birds or bags in the air and other debris. There are still about 170 that are still not determined.
“There are spy satellites everywhere. There is a certain area that we don’t have a protocol for, which is above commercial airspace to space. And we’ve not made a determination as a government what we’re going to do in that space. And that’s what Congress should focus on, what should be the protocols in that space.”
“It’s all the service members who have reported this for years and been dismissed, derided, disregarded. Their careers have been harmed. Those of the heroes of this moment, because men and women have been reporting these sightings, certainly for our military, for decades, and they have been met with derision. What we made clear in this law is that there could be no stigma associated with reporting, and that reporting is now mandatory, and that if there is retaliation that that will be prosecuted. So that’s the nature of the law that we passed. And so AARO, the department we created, has some of the smartest minds in our country working on analyzing this data, these videos, and radar detections, as scientifically and thoroughly as possible to make assessments.
“And as I said there are still many that are not assessed yet, it takes time and resources. So one of the things that I will be working on this week is to make sure this is fully funded this year, and to make sure that this is a priority for the Department of Defense. Because regardless of how they looked at these things in the past, and I understand these are not threats from a military perspective, but we need to understand what is in our airspace, we need to understand who is spying on us and how, and we need to know what technologies they’re using, whether it’s Russia, whether it’s China, whether it’s Iran, whether it is any other entity known or unknown, we need to know. And no one should be derided for giving reports on it.”
February 13, 2023
Senator Gilibrand tweets about recent shoot-downs of balloons:
What are Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and why are we hearing more about them? I passed legislation requiring more reporting and analysis of unidentified sightings. Now we have much more data about balloons, drones, and other aerial phenomena so we can better protect our skies.
“AARO provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma. AARO’s success will depend on robust funding for its activities and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. As such, we respectfully request your assistance in securing the necessary funding and organizational support for AARO’s success and longevity.”
“The amount outlined in the classified attachment is crucial to AARO’s scientific plan, and the lack of funding for these capabilities presents a serious impediment to AARO’s mission.”
“In addition to securing necessary funding, we request a briefing from your offices on your agencies’ plan to implement the dual reporting of AARO to the leadership of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. … The briefing should cover the balance between Intelligence Community and Department of Defense involvement, including how Title 10 and Title 50 authorities will be delegated to, and exercised by, the Director of AARO. We see it as essential that AARO’s activities are not viewed or managed as solely an intelligence activity.”
March 8, 2023
CLIP OF U.S. INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORS TESTIFY ON GLOBAL THREATS
Senator Gillibrand askes DNI Director Avril Haines:
Senator Gillibrand: “DO I HAVE A COMMITMENT FROM YOU, AND EACH OF OUR WITNESSES, that YOU WILL WORK TO REDUCE STIGMA, SHARE INTELLIGENCE BETWEEN AGENCIES AND, AS WE’RE ABLE WITH THE PUBLIC, TO ENSURE WE HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR SKIES AND seas?”
Haines: “YES, SENATOR. ABSOLUTELY. I AGREE WITH, YOU THIS IS AN ISSUE, SOMETHING WE HAVE TRIED TO WORK THROUGH, BOTH BY SENDING THE MESSAGE FROM LEADERSHIP THAT THIS IS IMPORTANT, AND ALSO CREATING MECHANISMS WHICH ALLOW FOR PEOPLE TO DO THIS MORE EASILY, WITH LESS SORT OF STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH IT.”
Gillibrand: “AND IS THE ARROW OFFICE FULLY FUNDED IN YOUR BUDGET? Can you MAKE SURE? IT WAS LEFT OFF LAST YEAR, FOR BOTH THE D.O.D. AND INTELLIGENCE BUDGETS.”
Haines: Yes. I believe it is. RIGHT. SO IT IS IN D.O.D., I THINK OUR SUPPORT IS FUNDED IN THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, I WILL CHECK TO MAKE SURE.
March 28, 2023
Sen. Gillibrand Questions During Armed Services Committee Hearing:
“I was disappointed that for the second year in a row, the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO, was not fully funded in the departments budget request… Can you discuss why AAARO was not fully funded?”
Mike McCord, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer: ““[AARO] is a relatively new office we are standing up. I was under the impression that we had adequate funding for the relatively new state of this.”
Gillibrand: “Several senators signed a letter to Secretary Hicks… We specified in a classified annex exactly what funding wasn’t being met, and it’s operational funding, its basic operational funding, so I’m highly concerned about this.
“The incidents last month involving the Chinese high-altitude balloon and the three unknown objects highlighted the need for us to continue to improve our understanding of UAP’s over U.S. airspace. Secretary Austin, do you intend to ensure AARO receives full funding in the future?”
Defense Secretary Loyd Austin: I will, Senator. In this budget we’ve asked for $11 million in support of the office, of that initiative.”
Gillibrand: “That is not the budget request. Will you investigate why the budget request isn’t being met, and be part of the response?”
April 16, 2023
Senator Gillibrand interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN:
“I created… an office within then DOD and the Intelligence Community specifically to review every unidentified aerial phenomenon that the military has access to. We have the most intensely specific technology that can video different aerial phenomenon, that can get radar, heat sensing… There was still 171 that they have not assessed what it is. This work has to be done. If we’re going to have domain awareness, if we’re going to have aerial dominance, if we’re going to make sure our adversaries aren’t spying on us, or using new technologies, or have aircraft that we don’t even know how it functions, or how fast it is, or how effective it is, that is a national security risk. Knowing what these aircraft are is essential, and unfortunately the military hasn’t been doing that work. They’ve just assumed they are non-adversarial because of how they fly or how they function.”
April 19, 2023
Gillibrand used the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which she chairs, as the venue to bring Kirkpatrick before the cameras to answer questions.
“Dr. Kirkpatrick has a very difficult mission. While we have made progress, there remains a stigma attached to these phenomenon. There is a vast and complex citizen engagement, and there’s also very challenging scientific and technical hurdles. So we appreciate the willingness of Dr. Kirkpatrick to lean in on this issue…”
“In late 2017, media reports surfaced about activity set in motion by the late long-serving Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid, more than a decade ago. We learned that there was strong evidence of advanced technology reflected in the features and performance characteristics of many objects observed by our highly-trained service members operating top-of-the-line, military equipment…. We don’t know where they come from, who made them, or how they operate.”
“As former Deputy Secretary of Defense, David Norquist, observed, had any of these objects had the label, Made in China, there would be an uproar in the government and media. There would be no stone unturned and no effort spared to find out what we were dealing with. We can look at the recent incursion of the unidentified, PRC (People’s Republic of China) high-altitude balloon as an example.”
“Finally, one of the tasks Congress set for AARO is serving as an open door for witnesses of UAP events, or participants in government activities related to UAPs, to come forward securely and disclose what they know without fear of retribution for any possible violations of previously signed non-disclosure-agreements. Congress mandated that AARO set up a publicly-discoverable and accessible process for safe disclosure. While we know that AARO has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process and we need to know where that effort stands.”
“I just want to just talk a little bit about your logistics, who you report to, how that’s going, whether you need different reporting lines. By congressional legislation, your office is administratively located within the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, but you’re not substantively subordinate to the undersecretary. Rather, you are to direct report to the deputy secretary. Are you taking direction directly from the deputy secretary? Are you able to meet and brief the deputy secretary? Is the office of USD(I&S) working with you to have the right framework?… Do I need to update your reporting structure in the next defense bill or is this something that you think will work its way out, or does it need further clarity?”
After the hearing, Gillibrand spoke with audience members who had brought their own UFO evidence. She told them to leave their materials for her staff to collect: “My office can be a clearinghouse for this information.” [Pg 46-50 of the transcript].
“We need to just look into whether there are rogue SAP programs that no one is providing oversight for. The goal for me will be to have a hearing on that at some point so that we can assess if these SAP’s actually exist. So if there are SAPs out there that are somehow outside of the normal chain of command and outside the normal appropriations process, they have to divulge that to Congress.”
On David Grusch’s allegations: “I have no idea. So I’m going to do the work and analyze it and figure it out.”
June 14, 2023
Senator Gillibrand co-sponsors the Schumer/Rounds UAP Disclosure Act: “Understanding UAPs is critical to our national security and to maintaining all-domain awareness. When Senator Rubio and I created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), we sought to increase transparency to the American people and reduce the stigma around this issue of high public interest. Declassifying previous records related to UAPs is part of that mission and I’m proud to support this important amendment.”
June 23, 2023
Senator Gillibrand’s official statement: Gillibrand Secures Full Funding For UAP Office In Senate Defense Bill Markup
Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced that she had secured full funding for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act. Earlier this year, Gillibrand and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) led a bipartisan push to fully fund the office after the previous year’s NDAA failed to provide adequate funding.
Gillibrand and Rubio’s groundbreaking AARO was created in the FY22 NDAA to focus the Department of Defense (DoD)on resolving UAP sightings, improving data sharing between DoD and the Intelligence Community on UAP sightings, addressing national security concerns, and reporting health effects people may experience in relation to UAP events. AARO has access to DoD and Intelligence Community UAP data and is required to provide Congress with briefings and reports on UAPs.
“With aggression from adversaries on the rise and with incidents like the Chinese spy balloon, it’s critical to our national security that we have strong air domain awareness over our homeland and around U.S. forces operating overseas,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Fully funding AARO is essential to our national security; the office provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma around this issue of high public interest.”
July 28, 2023
Senator Gillibrand was asked about the July 27 House UAP hearing:
“They’re very serious allegations that we have to get to the bottom of.”
Gillibrand said the Defense Department hasn’t responded to her requests for more information and she doesn’t know why.
“I don’t know why. I don’t know if it doesn’t exist. I don’t know if we’re not asking the right questions. I don’t know. I just know I have no, I have nothing to confirm those allegations.”
August 8, 2023
Senator Gillibrand interviewed by City And State New York:
“They are very serious allegations. The [July 26 House Hearing] hearing had two sets of testimony. The first was from pilots who saw an object flying in the sky that looked like a Tic Tac that had very strange patterns and abilities. Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed, which is how I got involved in the issue. We want our pilots and our service members to come forward when they see things that they cannot identify, which is why I created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office to review all of these unidentified aerial phenomena in a scientific and thorough way.”
“We realized for AARO to really work better we are going to need a lot more sensors around military bases, nuclear sites, on our aircrafts. That is going to be one of my to-dos for the new Congress…. we need to know what we can know and at least identify the knowable so our pilots are safer, so that we know what else is in the sky. … We need domain awareness, and we need air superiority. If our adversaries have technology that we don’t have, we need to know about it.”
“One of three things are true: Either it doesn’t exist and they worked on programs that were alien-related which weren’t, or they are making it up, or these programs do exist and the Department of Defense is not either read in on it, or the need to know is so small that the people that have been testifying in front of us don’t know about it, or they are just misrepresenting the facts. I intend to get to the bottom of it.”
“I think this AARO office is excellent and built to do this job. If there are special access programs – they are called SAP programs – that Congress was not read in on, we put an amendment in the defense bill to say they can’t be funded. We do not want to be misled. We do not want to be led astray. We want to get to the bottom of this and this office is perfectly positioned to do that work.”
August 14, 2023
Senator Gillibrand speaks about UFOs at a constituent event:
“I started meeting with pilots, and pilots were very upset that they kept running into these drones and other aircraft that they were really worried they would crash into. … and in some instances they [DOD] retaliated against the service members, the pilots, and said ‘you know, you’re just crazy about aliens, and we’re not going to take you seriously anymore.” And it ruined their careers. I was chair of the Personnel Subcommittee [of the Senate Armed Service Committee], and I said that’s not acceptable. These are men and women who are serving bravely for our country, and they are just reporting what they see…”
“This is fascinating because, we don’t know who is making these types of aircraft. I’m sure some of it’s China. I’m sure some of it’s Russia, and I’m sure some of it’s Iran. They are at the forefront of drone technology. We already know one weather balloon was Chinese [from February 2023], and they’re spying. They are spying on our bases, on our nuclear sites, and overhead. So I make this office [AARO], I created it. It’s up and running. I made sure the DOD fully funded it, because they didn’t even want to fund it….”
“Did anybody watch the hearings last week? We had come strange testimony. … The second guy, I think he was Navy intelligence, and he said, ‘I was in charge of looking at all the existing UAP programs, and I talked to everybody I could, found out what I could, and I talked to a bunch of people who said not only do we have a program but its super secret and we have dead aliens and we have crashed aircraft.’ What? [audience laughter] I don’t know what this is! They will not tell me about it, I cannot get to the bottom of it, I cannot get any data and information. So, we don’t know if this exists. We don’t know if that’s real.”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of it. I don’t know if we’ll ever get the information about Special Access Programs that are need-to-know only, that Congress is not read in on. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it. I put a provision in the defense bill this year that said, you can’t fund any Special Access Programs if you don’t come through Congress. So that’s one push. And the other push is just trying to get these whistleblowers to talk to the guy who is the head of AARO, and he’s very competent and very capable. The last way I’m going to try to find out… is we’re going to get better sensors. Better sensors on our aircraft, better sensors on our bases, better sensors at these nuclear sites, so whatever is flying around them, we know whose they are. Because they’re most likely adversarial. They’re most likely Chinese, they’re most likely Iranian, trying to get intelligence, trying to get data. And if it’s not, we’ll catch them, so we’ll know, what it is, whatever it is.”
September 1, 2023
Senator Gillibrand tweets the following message about AARO’s new website: “I’ve been working directly with AARO to make it easier for current or former U.S. government employees, service members, or contractors to report UAP incidents. This is a matter of national security. This week, AARO finally launched their official website: http://aaro.mil “
September 20, 2023
Senator is asked about UFOs during a WAMC Public Radio interview:
PICKUS: Last question. You have been pressing the Department of Defense for more information about UAPs, also known as UFOs, have you gotten any answers?
SENATOR GILLIBRAND: Not any answers that you would think were interesting. What I have learned is this: we have not been really patrolling the skies in a meaningful way. The FAA looks at this sky for air traffic control to make sure planes don’t crash and Space Force and parts of Commerce Department, they do the work of making sure we know where satellites are and what they’re doing. But nobody’s been looking in between. And the spy balloon was a big wakeup call that other countries are taking advantage of this and spying on us, China being one of them. So we’d heard a lot of reporting from pilots that they keep seeing drones and other different types unidentified flying objects, unidentified aerial phenomenon, doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s something in the air that you don’t understand. Some look like drones, some look like balloons. And they really see it as a safety issue that they’re gonna crash into these objects. And they’ve been very distressed about it. So I was chair of the [Senate Armed Services] Personnel Subcommittee when a lot of these reports were coming in. And so I wanted to create an office that would review all these UAPs and assess what are they? Are they spy balloons? Are they spy drones? Are they something else? We need to have domain awareness and we need to have air superiority for our national security. And so now we have an office [the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO] that’s been reviewing all these cases, they have about 800 cases they’re reviewing. They’re assessing what they are. A lot of are drones, a lot of them are balloons, a lot of them are unclear. But we are going to add sensors, we are going to add detection devices on our aircraft, we’re going to do over the horizon radars, we’re going to do a lot more to have that domain awareness and air superiority. And that I think is really important and meaningful because if there is any UAP out there that’s not from here, we will find that. We will be able to assess that and, and if not, then we’ve got a lot going on that is probably adversaries like China, Russia and Iran, that we have a huge responsibility to know what they’re doing.
September 27, 2023
Senator Gillibrand interviewed by Matt Laslo: “These claims are very serious, and I take all of them very seriously. And I want to make sure our service members know they can come forward and disclose all projects they worked on. And it’s important that the whistleblower community feels comfortable talking to AARO and having those conversations in SCIFs [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities] so that AARO can do its job thoroughly. Otherwise, they can’t. So if the whistleblowers don’t come forward, they can’t assess their claims, they can’t find programs that they’re talking about.”
“They have to trust the process that Sen. Rubio and Sen. Rounds and I have set up to do this work, and if they don’t trust it we can’t get to the bottom of anything because we can’t do all the interviews that are needed to figure out what’s existing, what’s not existing and, frankly, what creation of programs we need in the future to better to monitor our skies, have air dominance, have pilot safety. Things that really matter.”
“I have to have a chance to talk to the whistleblowers to urge them to help us help them, because we’re their best allies and we need them to work with us.”
November 14, 2023
Senator Gillibrand responds to a question about Sean Kirkpatrick’s retirement: “I’m so disappointed. I thought he was an amazing leader of AARO…” [Matt Laslo]
Senator Heinrich gave this interview when approached on the street by a TMZ reporter:
Heinrich: I think we need to get to the bottom of it. It’s pretty intriguing. I don’t know what it is, but anytime you have legitimate pilots describing something that doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics that govern aviation, and is in U.S. airspace, I think it’s something we need to get to the bottom of.
TMZ: Bigger thing to worry about, if it’s a foreign government, or if it’s aliens?
Heinrich: Oh, option B. Much bigger thing to worry about.
TMZ: You think the aliens would be worse?
Heinrich: I cannot imagine… If there is a foreign government that had these kinds of capabilities, I think we would see other indications of advanced technology. I cannot imagine that what has been described or shown in some of the videos belongs to any government I’m aware of. I’m not a betting man, but the way these things operate, you wouldn’t want a human being or any living creature in something that moves that fast, that changes direction that quickly. Like I said, I have no idea what it is, but I think we should figure it out.[Source: TMZ interview]
November 2021
Senator Heinrich is one of four senators to co-sponsor the UAP amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which had been initiated by Senator Gillibrand and Representative Gallego. The final bill passed the House on December 9, the Senate on December 15, and was signed into law December 27. Heinrich told the Albuquerque Journal:
“The American people deserve transparency when it comes to UAPs – especially given the national security implications. To do that, we need to elevate this issue within our defense and intelligence agencies so they have the mandate to focus not only on what is happening in our skies, but also on relaying these findings to the American people. By creating this new office within the Department of Defense, we start taking a critical, unified approach to collecting and reporting UAP data, ending the previous cycle of sweeping these sightings under the rug.”[Source: Albuquerque Journal]
February 16, 2023
Senator Heinrich co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
June 14, 2023
Senator Heinrich co-sponsors the Schumer/Rounds UAP Disclosure Act: “The American people deserve transparency. And the federal government needs to be able to explain what is happening in our skies. This legislation will devote real resources and take a unified approach to gathering data to fully understand UAPs and better address their national security implications.”
Asked on the Joe Rogan Experience: “If you got into the office and you found out something about aliens, if you found out something about UFOs, would you let us know?”
Sanders: “Well I’ll tell you my wife would demand that I let you know…. It’s just ‘Bernie, what is going on? Do you have any access to records?’ I don’t. Honestly I don’t. … All right I’ll be on the show, we’ll announce it on the show.” [Source: Episode 1330 Interview clip 1:07]
January 19, 2020
Asked at a New Hampshire journalist roundtable about revealing the truth about UFOs: “My wife would never forgive me if I did not. … Let’s not jump the gun. I’m not sure we’re on the same figure but there was some articles recently that Navy pilots I think had spotted these things. I could not explain them. And I think I think of course we have to explore that–if it is true–don’t quote me Sanders believes in…please don’t–If it is true, yeah of course I mean they presumably are coming from a rather long distance away, right, that somehow they’re able to get here.” [Source: video link]
June 13, 2023
Senator Heinrich interview by Wired about David Grusch’s allegations: “Generally, I would look skeptically at many of these reports. What I take seriously is sometimes we just have these really good, decorated pilots and navigating officers who are experiencing things that we can’t explain, so we need to collect data so that we can figure out what is going on.”
Senator Graham is one of four senators to co-sponsor the UAP amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which had been initiated by Senator Gillibrand and Representative Gallego. The final bill passed the House on December 9, the Senate on December 15, and was signed into law December 27. [Source: statement]
February 16, 2023
Senator Graham co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Senator Blunt is one of four senators to co-sponsor the UAP amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which had been initiated by Senator Gillibrand and Representative Gallego. The final bill passed the House on December 9, the Senate on December 15, and was signed into law December 27. [Source: statement]
“I did not look into it [UFOs] much. I’ve watched some of the stuff on TV with some amusement. People are having a lot of fun with it. I don’t dismiss it completely, but also I don’t–where I don’t go is I don’t presume that an Unidentified Flying Object is [extra]terrestrial…. There are clearly unexplained phenomenon going on out there, but we don’t know whether that’s our technology, adversaries’ technology, or whether it’s [extra]terrestrial — I just don’t see how it can be [extra]terrestrial without us knowing it. I just don’t.”
Senator Rosen co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing
April 19, 2023
Senate hearing on UAP, questioning Sean Kirkpatrick of AARO [transcript]
I want to focus on Nevada because I want to talk about the impact of UAPs on aviation safety. So when it comes to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenal…phenomena, excuse me, one of my first concerns is really about the safety of Nevada’s military aviator. So we have airmen stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, naval aviators flying at Naval Air Station Fallon, and service members from across the world, training at the Nevada test and training range. I know you know all this. And unfortunately, the existence of advanced UAPs in the U.S. airspace and over U.S. military installations [is] not a new phenomenon. The Navy’s officially acknowledged that between 2004 and 2021, eleven near misses occurred involving UAPs that required pilot action and follow up reports. As a result, in 2019, the Navy established a protocol for pilots to report on their dangerous encounters. So, could you speak to any ongoing efforts within DoD to ensure the safety of our aviators with a potential UAP encounter? And what’s your relationship with NORTHCOM, NORAD, Space Comm, when it comes to this immediate, real-time response?.
I’d love to follow up about your risk-management methodologies for some of these… I have about a dozen more [questons].
Senator Hawley interviewed by Mat Laslo for a Wired article about David Grusch’s allegations:
“They [Pentagon briefers] were talking about the balloons, and then several senators pointed out, ‘Now hold on: We’ve had a lot of unidentified anomalous phenomenon for years now,’ and that’s when the military briefer was like, ‘True. True.’ The takeaway from that is, they had thousands of sightings of these things over the years, which was news to me. So I’m not surprised, necessarily, by these latest allegations, because it sounds pretty close to what they kind of grudgingly admitted to us in the briefing.”
“It’s not good. None of it’s good. I think we want to get to the bottom of this. I think it’s disturbing.”
Young, Todd
Indiana–Republican
Term: 2017-Present
United States House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services (2011-2012)
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (2017-Present)
June 14, 2023
Senator Young co-sponsors the Schumer/Rounds UAP Disclosure Act: “The American people deserve transparency on all issues related to UAPs. Our bipartisan effort will protect and better organize government materials related to UAPs and promote disclosure of this information.”
“It seems to defy logical explanation in many respects. I think we owe it to our own national security and curiosity to ask the questions and come up with as many answers as possible. I don’t have any theory as to whether or not it’s some exaggerated report, but there’s enough evidence now to justify pursuing it.” [Source: The Center Square]
July 19, 2023
Senator Durbin responds to Matt Laslo’s questions about the Schumner/Round UAP Disclosure amendment.
Matt Laslo: “Have you looked into these claims of UAP whistleblower David Grusch?”
Dick Durbin: “No.”
ML: “No?”
DD: “No. I’ve funded work in the area in years gone by, but I’ve not personally looked into it.”
ML: “Have you ever talked to Schumer about it?”
DD: “Flying saucers?”
ML: “Reid?”
DD: “Reid? All the time.”
ML: “Right?”
DD: “He was very concerned about this phenomenon.”
ML: “I just saw Max Baucus upstairs, and he remembers talking to Reid about it.”
DD: “There’s this fellow named Bigelow in New Mexico who Harry used to always talk about. Mr. Bigelow has all the information.’ I never met Mr. Bigelow.”
Reporter 2: “There’s this disclosure in the bill—in the NDAA—now that says collect all the documents from the National Archives that say anything about UAPs.”
DD: “Is there a question there?”
Reporter 2: “Are we gonna learn anything new from these?”
Reporter: Any thoughts on UFOs, and any concerns you might have about them?
Kelly: I’ve been to space four times. What I’ll say about, you know aliens–is that what we’re talking about? UFOs?–Well on the alien subject, you know I could confirm that they exist, they’re really small, they have sharp teeth, and they live under your bed. [chuckle] UFOs. So I’m interested in seeing the [UAP Preliminary] report as well. I don’t know if there’s going to be a classified version of it or not. I know there’s going to be a public version, it comes out this month, so it could be in a week. I’m very interested to see it. I’ve seen some interviews specifically with–I can’t remember the guy’s name, he was a skipper of a F-18 squad aboard an aircraft carrier–gave a very compelling account, somebody who is trained in understanding how aircraft flies, and he saw something. What he said I thought was pretty compelling, so I’m interested in seeing the report. But I have no inside information on what these unidentified objects that maybe we’ve seen more of lately, I don’t know.
Reporter: Have you ever seen one?
Have I ever seen any? No. Let me tell you something, this is pretty interesting. So on my third space shuttle flight we thought we had a piece of debris floating above the payload bay, and it was right before I was closing the payload doors and I was really concerned about what was this because it looked like it was about this big and I was concerned it may have came up come off the payload bay doors or some other equipment in the payload bay, we’re getting ready to close them, could it be something that would interrupt the successful closing? And we need these doors to close before we can re-enter. So the day we’re landing we take pictures of this and before we send the pictures to the ground… I zoom in on this object that we think is floating as far away as that door, and I zoom in on it, and I keep zooming in on it. You know what it was? It was the space station 60 miles away.
So my point is sometimes you see stuff and it looks like one thing and it’s actually another, a space station that weighed a million pounds, size of a football field 60 miles away. And I thought it was that distance and all six of us on board the space shuttle did.
Reporter: Are these UFOs a national national security concern?
Kelly: I think it depends on what it is. … We are always concerned. I am the chairman of Emerging Threats and Capabilities on Senate Armed Services, so if our adversaries have developed technology that we don’t understand and have made–sometimes countries make technological leaps that we don’t anticipate–if somebody made a technological leap, it’s important that we know. [Source: The Arizona Republic]
July 16, 2023
Response to a question by Jake Tapper if he has ever seen a UFO: “I have not, and none of my colleagues have as far as I know. We actually very rarely even speak about this. I can’t remember even one time in space that we talked about aliens. We’re focused on a mission. If it doesn’t have a negative effect on national security, I think transparency with the American people is the best option. Let me also say, Jake, that when you have extraordinary claims, you needs some extraordinary evidence, that’s what Carl Sagan said about this kind of stuff. And I think its important to get the information out there, as long as it doesn’t impact national security. “
Tapper: You sound skeptical
Kelly: “Well, a little skeptical, you know, the distances involved when you think about the physics of space flight and what it would take to get around just our galaxy. Now having said there, there’s two trillion minimum galaxies in the universe, each with hundreds of billions of stars, so when you think about the potential of life in the universe, even within our galaxy, it’s tremendous. But I have yet to see any evidence of any life form visiting us from another part of our galaxy. ” [Source: CNN State of the Union Interview]
February 16, 2023
Senator Kelly co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
Asked about the upcoming Preliminary UAP report due by June 25 at the Retired Men’s Association of Greenwich, Connecticut:
“I have heard nothing that would change my views on UFO. I can’t say whether it would change yours. … I haven’t heard of anything reliable or credible that would lead me to think UFOs are a threat to our country or our world right now.” [Source: Greenwich Time]
February 16, 2023
Senator Blumenthal co-signed a letter, drafted by Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, that was a formal request for more AARO funding and a briefing.
After a UAP briefing that the Office of Naval Intelligence presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee, an internal Navy email identifies Senator Risch as a “UAP Cynic” on this date. [Source: Navy emails]
The term “UAP Cynic” was coined by the Office of Naval Intelligence who made their own UAP ratings of Congress in at least one known document. We don’t know exactly what they meant by it, but we will adopt their term as synonymous with skeptic. However, Risch has made no known public actions or statements demonstrating hostility to the cause of UAP transparency.
July 19, 2023
Senator Risch When asked about UFO whistleblower David Grusch by Matt Laslo, Senator Risch laughed and answered: “Got the wrong guy. I don’t read UFO stories.”
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation (Chairman)
July 16, 2019
Representative Carson, as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, receives a UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence. [Source: Navy emails]
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. After the briefing, Casron gave a press interview:
Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), who has been heading efforts on the UFO inquiry, said Americans should expect an eventual public hearing on the report’s findings.
“We’re looking forward to having a public hearing at some point,” he said. “I mean, there’s some national security concerns that we want to take into consideration.” [Source: New York Post]
July 4, 2021
“My hope … is that we will have a series of hearings and possibly a public hearing in the very near future.”
“There have been nearly 150 sightings–80 of the sightings detected with some of the best technology the world has ever seen. We can’t rule out something that is otherworldly, but that’s a very small percentage.”
The congressman also said Sunday that it would be “arrogant to say that there isn’t life out there.”
“If it is otherworldly, we have to take into account our advancements in terms of our cellphone technology and why aren’t these images being captured?” Carson said. “We have to think about the nearly 4,000 satellites that are orbiting the Earth right now. Most of those satellites have cameras attached to them. Why hasn’t any of that information been released?” [Source: Face the Nation]
January 2022
“If it is otherworldly we will have internal controls in place to protect us and to engage, in the event that that happens, in a healthy and safe way.” [Source:End UAP Secrecy]
May, 11 2022
Representative Casron announces the first congressional public hearing on UFOs in fifty years:
“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.
“Since coming to Congress, I’ve been focused on the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena as both a national security threat and an interest of great importance to the American public. And I’m pleased to chair the first open Intelligence Committee hearing on these events. It will give the American people an opportunity to learn what there is to know about incidents. And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this critical matter.” [Soucre: announcement]
May 13, 2022
“The American people want answers. I think we have to be able to answer these questions in a way that does not compromise our national security, because our enemies will be listening very closely to hear what the military has to say.
“I think that there are things out there that can’t be explained. Some experts say 2 to 7% of these sightings are not based on weather balloons or computer malfunctions or aircraft. That is top secret. We can’t explain it away. So hopefully we can dig much deeper.” [Source: Fox News]
May 17, 2022
The House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation (C3) holds the first congressional hearing on UFOs in over fifty years. Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence) testify about their progress standing up the new UAP office, AOIMSG. As chair of the committee, Carson, made several statements:
“You need to show us, Congress, and the American public whose imaginations you have captured, you are willing to follow the facts where they lead. We fear sometimes that the DOD is focused more on emphasizing what it can explain, not investigating what it can’t.”
“The last time Congress had a hearing on UAPs was half a century ago. I hope that it does not take 50 more years for Congress to hold another because transparency is desperately needed.” [Source: Hearing Transcript]
Representative Carson also gave an interview about the hearing to The Indianapolis Monthly:
Q: What do you hope the hearing accomplishes?
Carson: This is something I’ve been working towards for a long time, and something many other people have wanted as well. For a very long time, this subject was relegated to science fiction. But I believe UAPs present a very real risk and the Intelligence Committee has a responsibility to investigate it. As chairman… I think conducting this hearing will give us a chance to share some information with the public.
Q: What got you interested in the topic?
Carson: I’ve always been fascinated by it. When I was 16, Time-Life Books had a series called “Mysteries of the Unknown.” I couldn’t afford the whole series, but the first book was free. So I ordered it, and the first book was about UFOs. From there, I tried to learn more. And of course I was an ’80s baby and watched a lot of science-fiction movies. But coming from a military family, I know there have been questions about this from activists throughout the years. I want to be able to present an open hearing—the first one in 50 years, since Project Blue Book. But not in a way that gives our enemies any clues or cues into what we’re doing personally as a country.
Q: How would our enemies glean anything useful from this?
Carson: I think that UAPs have captured the imagination and the interest of the American public. They expect and deserve to know that the government and the intel community are seriously evaluating and responding to these potential security risks. Especially those we don’t fully understand. And there are about 2 to maybe 6 percent of these sightings that cannot be explained. They aren’t drones or aircraft or balloons or weather phenomena. That percentage of unexplained sightings must be addressed publicly.
Q: So probably less talk about cattle mutilations and possible abductions, and more about recent encounters between UAPs and, say, U.S. fighter jets?
Carson: After the public hearing, we will follow up a few hours later with a secret hearing. But from what I’m understanding, a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle want to raise points about reports they’ve heard from their own constituents. So we could go anywhere. I want us to go different places in our allotted timeframe, while also retaining the credibility of the subcommittee.
Q: Twenty or 30 years ago, chairing a hearing like this might have been more problematic, because whoever got the job would be afraid he or she would be laughed at. Has that thinking changed?
Carson: Yes, and I think in a positive way. We have people in the media and in the state who are willing to report these things. There’s been a stigma attached to it, but we’re talking about witnesses who are commercial and military pilots. Folks in the military and law enforcement who have been ridiculed and prevented from advancing in organizations because of what they’ve reported.
Q: Popular opinion says that UAPs could be anything from secret aircraft operated by the U.S. or an adversary, all the way to extraterrestrials. What’s your view?
Carson: Look, I don’t think we’re alone in the universe. The laws of probability suggest we aren’t, but we just don’t know. It’s worth noting that the majority of these sightings happen around military installations. Many of us have seen YouTube videos, and obviously many of those are not credible. But there are others that seem far more credible, with real audio attached to them. What might we be looking at? These are questions we want to ask, and as chair of the committee, I’m going to give my colleagues the ability and opportunity to ask them.
Q: Have you ever seen a possible UAP?
Carson: I’ve seen things in the sky on a couple of occasions, but it could be explained as a shooting star or even an aircraft traveling at high speed. However, I’m open to the idea that it might, in some cases, be something else.
Q: Your committee already had a secret meeting last year on this topic. Can we assume, because of this public meeting and the secret one that will follow it, that you didn’t get all the information you hoped for that first time?
Carson: Yes.
Q: Is the interest in UAPs bipartisan?
Carson: There’s been so much interest among both Republicans and Democrats that I think this hearing will be bipartisan. That doesn’t mean that when the cameras come out, there might not be some pageantry or posturing. But that comes with the territory. What I’ve found is that Republicans have a genuine interest in this, and they’re asking the tough questions just like we are. I hope to have the spirit of bipartisanship, at least for an hour or two while this hearing takes place. They have questions too, so here we are. [Source: The Indianapolis Monthly]
January 12, 2023
Representative Carson on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Report, press release
“This report shows a key goal of our public hearing was achieved: to help destigmatize UAP reporting. By bringing this issue into the light and increasing public awareness, UAP reports have increased, ensuring the U.S. government has all the information on important issues of national security. I appreciate the collaboration of Chair Adam Schiff and other Members who have worked on this issue and look forward to continue learning more facts about these phenomena.”
January 14, 2023
Representative Carson CBS Saturday Morning interview:
Question: In all these sightings now, we’ve got 510, has any physical evidence such as debris been recovered?
Carson: “The debris that has been recovered has not raised any notable alarms, and that’s as much as I’ll say.”
May, 2023
Representative Carson was interviewed by documentarian James Fox, posted online August 2:
“Are people ready for some kind of revelation that deals with extraterrestrial life, life that is interdimensional, life that is otherworldly. And so that kind of revelation unearths people’s beliefs, their religious beliefs, their spiritual beliefs that they’ve been taught all their lives. And so, if such a revelation were to present itself, how does it get presented, and can it be done in a way that people are accepting of it?”
“One of the purposes of the committee that I serve on, and the hearing that I held, the first hearing in fifty years since Project Blue Book, was to encourage folks in the IC, and outside of the intel community, to come forward with their stories.”
“If the Russians had UFO technology, I mean, they would own us right now. They used to say that they’ve heard people talk about how the Nazis had it in the Second World War that they did, they would have won. That is ridiculous. It has to be something that is out of our galaxy, it just has to be if it in fact is real.”
“They [presidents] always say they’re gonna do something bad and then they get in office and, and honestly, I thought Trump was gonna do something, thought he was gonna release the files. But you know, they release these files that are redacted. It’s just a big blob of white out. Clearly, something’s going on that we can’t handle. I mean UFOs were in the Bible. Read Ezekiel, it talks about the wheel flying around. So I mean, they’re, they’ve been around since we’ve been around and somebody needs to come up with some answers.”
“I think Roswell was covered up. I think you know more people believe in UFOs than believe in Congress for good reason. Because of the jackleg stuff we do like that we talked about we’re going to release it and then we never do, or we release something that is so redacted that is just ridiculous. The Air Force had a release on Roswell, which was the big deal I think in ’48 [1947] and the big cover up there and the guy that did it was a smart aleck and he kind of smirked the whole time and nobody took it serious. They ought to take it serious. The American public wants to know and frankly, we deserve to know…. But we haven’t had a president with enough guts to do it just yet.” [Source: TMZ Interview]
May 2, 2022
Representative Burchett was one of three members of Congress who expressed frustration with recent UAP briefings in a Politico article:
“I don’t trust the Department of Defense to get this right since leadership there has always been part of a cover-up”
“It is clear from the public evidence that we don’t have full control of our airspace,” added Burchett, whose district includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where there have been numerous reports of UFO sightings over the decades. “That’s a national security issue and it’s also unacceptable.” [Source: Politico]
May 10, 2022
“A public hearing is long overdue, but it will be a waste of time if the Pentagon isn’t forthcoming with its information. We’ve asked the Pentagon to fix a problem it created in the first place, and I predict these officials won’t be nearly as transparent as they should be.” [Source: Liberation Times]
May 16, 2022
Before the open congressional hearing on UAP, Representative Burchett gave an interview with John Michael Godier’s show Event Horizon:
“Well I think it’s a big cover-up. It’s been a cover-up since before Roswell I think there’s obviously proof that that there is some kind of intelligence out there that can can put things in the air and move them at rates of speed, and change directions in manners that we’re not accustomed to or could not survive, and I think the federal government has continuously covered this up.”
“The only reason there’s a hearing is because it was leaked by some folks of some some very compelling audio and video of navy pilots, which are the best in the world, and some interaction with some type of craft. I still prefer to call them UFOs. I think it’s a distraction to change the name because you hear a headline ‘UAP’ or whatever. I think that that just further clouds the issue for the American public.”
“I think the hearing they’ll announce who’s going to be in charge in the federal government [of the new Pentagon UAP office]. It’ll some astrophysicist or something, I’m not sure if that’s the correct term or not, and I’m sure they’re an honest honorable person and they will talk about things they’ll say that this in fact is something we don’t understand and we’re not capable of doing it and everybody’s gonna ooh and ah but they’ve been saying that for quite some time since this stuff was leaked and that person in all sincerity and their honesty will probably not have the keys to the vault. They’re not going to talk about reports that have been redacted upon redaction, they might as well have just put one word on a paper and surrounded it with whiteout because these reports are a joke, and I feel like they’ve continuously done this. And that’s why people like me never get on intelligence committees.”
“It’s about control. I mean Reagan said that… if we were to as a people, the world, were to find out hey there is something there are other beings out there, maybe our focus would stop turning on the boogeyman overseas or across the border. And that whole military industrial complex, that investment that elected officials in congress make 75% on the return on their investments knowing which missiles, which companies to buy because of which conflicts were getting ready to get into before the average person knows, maybe that would upset that little apple cart a little bit too much, and so there’s a lot of factors. And I know people roll their eyes. I hear me saying this, but you just have to see and be around some of those people before you realize what the heck is going on now.”
Godier: In your fellow members of the House do you get a sense that you got a lot of support into looking into this? Do you feel like behind the scenes other congressional members that normally wouldn’t talk about this subject because of the stigma are very interested in it as as much as you?
Burchett: “Very few very few i’d say a half dozen, and I’m the most vocal. It’s just in my genetic makeup, but you know if I feel a little friction that’s generally the way I go, and I feel a lot of friction in this because people are shut up about it you can’t you talk about it and people just shake their head and walk off. I mean they just don’t want to be stigmatized with it.”
“If it’s from out of this world, they’ve had this technology a long time. You know I go out at night and look at the stars and the vastness of God’s universe and I think wow. And I look at some of those stars in the light… the vastness of God’s universe, some of the light that we’re seeing from stars left those stars before the time of Christ. Some of them are stars that have collapsed millions of years ago and we’re just now seeing the light from it. I mean that’s some pretty big vastness …this is something that’s been around for a long time and these beings if there are beings I think if they were going to do us damage they already would… I think if they wanted to do us harm they would have done us harm a long time ago and I’m just not seeing any evidence of that. And then I just think we we need to be more forthcoming with what’s going on.”
Godier: The hearing that’s coming up Tuesday. If it appears that you’re getting stonewalled again by the representatives from the Pentagon what can Congress do to go further?
“I would hope at some point we would subpoena folks. There’s enough out there we could call in people and give them and and give them some sort of freedom to talk without being prosecuted under the law…. They won’t be convicted of a crime or anything and i think we ought to allow that, we ought to allow people to come in and speak freely if they have to do it in a in a closed meeting or if they have to do it behind–you know they used to have mobsters come in and testify behind a screen who were squealing on their their mob cohorts–but I just think at some point enough is enough. I just don’t think this [hearing] is going to do anything. I don’t have any faith in Congress to do the right thing, and I just think that they’ll run us down a rabbit hole.” [Source: John Michael Godier interview]
May 17, 2022
After the public hearing on UAP, Burchett spoke with the press:
“For them to show that lame video, when you can find all the other that’s out there. I’ve talked to Navy pilots that are in there at the same time. That’s the kind of people you need to have in here for testimony… We have video from pilots, and their wing cameras for goodness sakes. Bring those guys in here. Let them talk.”
“By telling you they have whistleblower protection. That’s bogus until it’s in the law. For us to talk about it is bogus. You really need to provide them with some sort of ability to come in here and not be prosecuted, and not have a blemish on their records.”
“Transparency. I do not fear the American public knowing what we have. And I would sure as heck like them to see it.”
Interviewer: “Did you learn anything today?”
“No. I learned that I was correct, that the coverup will continue.” [Source: interview]
June 1, 2022
Representative Burchett interviews Luis Elizondo on his podcast Tennessee Talks. [Source: Tennessee Talks]
“We’ve been covering this up since the 40s … I don’t trust [the] government, [and] there’s an arrogance about it, and I think the American public can handle it. …release everything… we need to find out what’s going on. …huge cover-up, for whatever reason. America is ready to know, and stop with all the shenanigans.”
“My biggest concern is we have something in our airspace, in our military airspace, that is flying very close to our aircraft, that we do not control. Now it’s not the Russians, it’s not the Chinese. Some of the balloons, yes, they are Chinese. The first one was. I think the last three were basically a distraction so that we would get off the President’s back. They started shooting down weather balloons, which we see quite a bit of. The UFO or UAP phenomenon is real. I believe that there’s craft that’s visiting from somewhere, and we don’t control ‘em.”
June 7, 2023
Representative Burchett revealed on Steve Bannon’s podcast: “he ‘has a commitment’ from both House speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer to hold a hearing on UAPs, though he says it’s not a top priority for party leaders. ‘We’re only going to get about one bite at the apple,’ Burchett said.” [Wired]
June 8, 2023
Representative Burchett asked by Fox News, “Will we get answers as to wether or not we are alone.”
“We are not alone and we will get some answers.” Acknowledges he spoke with David Grusch yesterday.
June 29, 2023
Representative Burchett filed a UFO-related amendment (no. 438) to the House NDAA (H.R. 2670), to require the Dept. of Defense to declassify “any documents and other records…relating to publicly known sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena.” This was revised to be less expansive and approved for inclusion in the final House NDAA on July 12.
July 17, 2023
Representative Burchett announces a hearing focused on UFOs.
July 20, 2023
Press Conference announcing House OverSight Committee hearing on UAP.
Last year, the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing on UAPS. They brought in some Pentagon bureaucrats [Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray] who only had two answers to the questions they were asked. I don’t know or that’s classified. This hearing is going to be different. We’re going to have witnesses who can speak frankly to the public about their experiences. We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. We’ve had members of Congress who fought us. We’ve had members of the intelligence community and also the Pentagon even NASA backed out on us. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light. I’ve even tried to introduce an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill and all that would do would require the Federal Aviation Administration to report UAP sightings by commercial pilots to Congress. The Intelligence, I was told the a uh the intelligence community shut it down. This is ridiculous, folks, they either they do exist or they don’t exist. They keep telling us they don’t exist but they block every opportunity for us to get a hold of the information to prove that they do exist. And we’re gonna get to the bottom of it. Dad gum, whatever the truth may be, we’re done with the cover up.”
Question: Would we have riots in the streets?
“Absolutely not. And that, what do you think? I think it’s the arrogance of this, the arrogance of our government. Why would it, why would it over 55 more people believe in UFO S and believe in Congress? I mean, look at the polling that’s out now. 55 58 depends on who you talk to. They believe there’s something else out there and these are legitimate polls. I, I, I’m stopped every, every weekend, I’m back in Knoxville. I’m talking about educated people, professional people, I’m on airplanes, I’m traveling all over the country. People will stop me and tell me about an experience, decorated veterans. These people, why would they risk their reputations and careers over something that they’re lying about? It’s just, it’s too big right now and, and I don’t believe they can keep their, their, their, their thumb in the, in the, in the, in the dam, too much longer because people are coming forward to too rapid of a rate.”
“It’s either something from that’s extraterrestrial or something that we, that we have in our skunk works that we are reverse engineering because with this technology, when you see the uh the tic tac videos and listen to the pilots, it defies all of our laws of physics, the human body would not be able to stand the pressure from this thing. It’s, it’s, it’s beyond belief and some other stuff and that’s why I wish they would release everything that, that I’ve seen because the American public would say, why are you covering this up?”
Question: At the hearing next week, should we expect to be seeing new visuals, video, or pictures?
“Possibly. But I think what you’re going to see is real questions.”
“And here’s what’s gonna happen. A few of the big shots in Congress are going to get a call from some of their donors saying, hey, let’s, let’s get to the bottom of this and they, they’re gonna start getting interested. We’ve had, I’ve had so many congressmen put a bug in my ear saying, man, I’ve had, uh, some of them have told me they’ve had sightings and they’re afraid to say anything and they’re glad we’re doing it. So I think we’re knocking, we’re knocking the varnish off of it a little bit with this. Do I think, you know, we’re not gonna bring you in a saucer or a little green man? That’s not what it’s gonna be about. And I know y’all. Every time you play this uh interview with one of us, you play the theme from X files, I get it. But the reality is the American public deserves to know and you, you better be careful about a government that doesn’t trust its people because there’s no telling what they’ll pull on you.”
On Eglin Air Force Base incident: “Ok. Well, and what Representative Luna and I experienced was, our colleague, Matt Gaetz was contacted by some folks that said that some people would like to talk about some information, some things they’d seen and we uh we contacted the Air Force and we flew, we were told we were going to be briefed on this issue, the UFO…. And, um, we got down there and it was the traditional SCIF James Bond stuff. You leave your phone, your Fitbit. We go in and the synopsis had nothing to do. It was some pretty, pretty big important stuff, but it was not anything to do with the UFO and we stopped the thing rightfully right in the middle of it and said, hey, this is not what you all told us. We were coming down here and they basically told us we’re not going to give it to you. The arrogance of this general was beyond belief. …Numerous pilots have told us and I’m sure they’ve told Representative Luna that the, when, when they come forward with this, they’re supposed to be provided some sort of whistleblower protection. But they’re not, they, the brass will tell you they’re debriefed. Well, they’re interrogated for eight hours, I believe at some point. And then they have a blemish on the record and then, uh, they carry this stigma and we were, we’ve been actually told that they will destroy, um, video evidence because they don’t want to have to go back in and have to be pulled off the flight line and be interrogated for eight hours.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Burchette’s opening statement and questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“It’s been so difficult to get here today. I’ve said you know in the Baptist Church we’d say that the devil’s in our way, and the devil has been in our way through this thing. We’ve run into roadblocks from members from the Intelligence Community, the Pentagon. I proposed legislation to go in the FAA reauthorization that just said if an airline pilot has a sighting that when he makes that report to the FAA that it would come to Congress, but I was told that the Intelligence Community did not like that and the amendment was not even heard in committee. I think it’s time for this country to take back our country. We need to tell the folks at the Pentagon they work for us, that we don’t work for them, and that’s exactly the point. This is an issue of government transparency. We can’t trust a government that does not trust its people.”
“Has the U.S government become aware of actual evidence of extraterrestrial otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence and if so when do you think this first occurred?”
“Can you give me the names and titles of the people with direct first-hand knowledge and access to some of this crash retrieval some of these crash retrieval programs and maybe which facilities military bases that the recovered material would be in? And I know a lot of Congress talked about we’re going to go to Area 51 and you know and there’s nothing there anymore anyway it’s just you know and we move like a glacier as soon as we announce it I’m sure the moving vans would pull up.”
“What special access programs cover this information and how is it possible that they have evaded oversight for so long?”
What level of security clearance is required to fully access these programs, and I say that because myself, Representative Gaetz and Representative Luna were basically turned away at one point at Eglin [Air Force Base].”
“Which private corporations are directly involved in this program? How much taxpayer money has been invested in these programs to your knowledge?”
“Has there been an active U.S government disinformation campaign to deny the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena and if so why are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non-terrestrial craft?”
“We thank you, and I do want to also thank the people in the audience, and people that are watching this. People all over the world that have kept this issue alive. You’ve endured criticism and derogatory remarks, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it, and so God bless y’all thank you all so much we really appreciate you guys and gals.”
July 27, 2023
Representative Burchett and three other members of the House call on the Speaker to create a Select Committee to investigate the “United States government’s response to UAPs”
August 22, 2023
Representative Burchett and five other members of the House submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
Burchett tweeted a copy of the letter, stating: “During the UAP hearing, David Grusch testified he could not provide specific details about UAP crash retrieval programs or reverse engineering programs, but said the Intelligence Community Inspector General could. So my colleagues and I wrote to him to ask for details.”
August 28, 2023
Representative Burchett gives an interview for a MUFON symposium:
“I’ve got a meeting set up with the Speaker [Rep. Kevin McCarthy] when I get back to DC in September… Hopefully in September we’ll be able to, I’m going to get the Speaker to do that select committee. And I’m going to call on you all’s folks to make sure they apply pressure to their legislators.”
Burchett said that McCarthy called him on his birthday, August 25. “…I said don’t forget that select committee. I wish you’d really consider it, and he said ‘I thought you were going to come see me.’ …which tells me he’s still serious about it, in consideration of why we should have this select committee. You got to realize with the select committee we are going to be able to get to these witnesses in a setting where they will be able to tell us everything, and we can subpoena them, and they will have their attorneys there, and we will be asking questions, and they will be able to provide answers.”
On October 3, Burchett was one of eight House Republicans who voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
September 13, 2023
A NewsNation journalist tweets: “NEW-@RepTimBurchett tells me he spoke to @SpeakerMcCarthy Tuesday, who assured Burchett there will be more UAP / UFO hearings. Burchett says despite public demand for another, leadership was hesitant & reluctant to allow it. But assurance from the Speaker is significant.”
September 15, 2023
Representative Burchett tweets the letter from Intelligence Community Inspector General in response to his questions about David Grush allegations: “Look at the bottom paragraph. The IC IG office did nothing to look into the information they received from David Grusch on UAP crash retrieval programs? They have no information they can give to Congress??? Cover-up.”
Interviewed by Matt Laslo about the ICIG letter: “It’s more of the same. I’ve got no faith in any of these people. They’re just trying to run the clock out…. They keep bring people in who can’t spell UFO. Why would I trust them?”
“We’re not going to get a select committee. And the reason for that is, we ticked off the Intelligence Committee and Community, we got in their lane. Well, you know what, if they’d been doing their dad-gum job, we wouldn’t have got in their lane.” Is Speaker McCarthy supportive? “Yeah, sort of. But he realizes we stepped on the toes of the Intelligence Community, that’s what he told me, basically that’s why we’re not getting a select committee…. If he’d wanted to sweeten the pot [for a Continuing Resolution to fund the government] then he should have given me a select committee.”
September 21, 2023
Representative Burchett attends a closed-door NASA briefing to the House Oversight Committee. He tweets this video of this thoughts: “It’s 56 pages. Doesn’t say a whole lot. To me it’s just driving them towards getting more funding. … What I think they’ve done here is send these two folks in here, like the Pentagon did, who have very little knowledge of the issue, so they can hold up their hand before Congress and swear that they know nothing about the issue, and it doesn’t exist.”
September 22, 2023
Representative Burchett tells Matt Lalso about Himes contradiction the idea that the House Intelligence Committee squashed his UAP select committee: “It’s very odd that they say that when I was told by the Speaker [Kevin McCarthy] that that was the reason why we couldn’t have a select [UAP] committee, because we stepped on their toes. I just think they don’t want to address the UFO issue. The war pimps at the Pentagon got too much money and too much, you know, and nobody’s gonna slap their fat hand. Til I come along and I’m one of 435. I gotta get somebody else. Gotta get two of us up there.”
October 17, 2023
Representative Burchett tells NewsNation that he and others in the House will be allowed into a SCIF to review documents realted to Grusch:
“I believe, first of all, we’ll go through with the documents. That (going in with Grusch. ~Joe) would be a secondary thing, which I understand is in the works as well. From what I understand, there’s a lot more than Grusch out there. Dave’s a buddy of mine, but there’s a lot more than Grusch out there that have this information and we’re gonna get to it. And that’s why people are very nervous, and they should be, at the Pentagon. Because they’ve been covering this thing up since 1947. And now, all of a sudden, hey, 55% of America believes that there’s something else out there. A major news network like yourself is covering this, so they realize there’s money available, they want us to study it now. All I say is, bring out the documents, let the American public decide. You all have been great in the media by keeping the heat on them and thank you all for that.”
“A SCIF has been booked for members of Congress to meet with the Inspectors General of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community to discuss UAPs in a classified setting. Dates for the meetings:
DOD IG – October 26
IC IG – November 16
It’s a start.”
October 26, 2023
Representative Burchett was interviewed after a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF.
Q: What did you learn in there? Are you satisfied?
Burchett: “Absolutely nothing. .. It’s like a stove pipe. They just have their little bit of information … If I got to hear one more time, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ It’s another layer of the onion. We peel another layer and we know where not to go and it’s with these cats.”
“Some of them [Congresspeople] are not UFO people. They just don’t think they exist, but they are seeing the frustration that the rest of us have seen.”
“A select committee would empower us more. But there again, leadership has to agree with it, and leadership gets the call from the big boys… [With a select committee] we have subpoena power, and you don’t have to go through leadership. We just go. We just do it.”
Burchett also told the Daily Wire about future Inspector General briefings: “I don’t expect anything from this. Until we get some private government contractor who’s ticked off about something, that’s dealing with some of this stuff, [who] comes forward. A lot of it’s farmed out to them because it’s un-FOIA-able. We’re never going to get anywhere — just going to be our word against theirs. And people in Congress don’t have the guts to take them on because the defense contractors grease this place incredibly well.”
Burchett told he Daily Wire that he approached the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson within 24 hours of his appointment about forming a UAP select committee:
“He seems very receptive,” Burchett said in an interview. When asked if he thinks Johnson might be open to a select committee, he replied, “I do — because he’s not beholden to the defense contractors.” When pressed on whether he would ask for a select committee, Burchett noted that he has already done so informally, but would need to make the request officially.
November 8, 2023
Representative Burchett speaks on the UFO podcast Weaponized with George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell.
“Every time we do that, the UFO community gets a little tired… The folks that are true believers like us, they’re getting more refined, and they understand our frustration. . Everybody had that same look. They just kind of nodded, ‘We get it now, Burchett.’ Which was a good thing. You all are long termers, your lifers in this thing and you get it, you get the fact that we just get turned away at all times. But now, when you have a bunch of arrogant United States congressmen who have their finger on the checkbook of this country, that to me, I felt more redemed after the meeting.”
“In no shape form or fashion did we get anything that Grusch–and basically they um–let’s see, let me see how I can say this, basically they didn’t valdify or condemn Grusch. Let’s just leave it at that…. I left there not knowing anything more than when I went in.”
Knapp: The new Speaker has given you a thumbs up in pursuing the topic? Burchett: “100%… I think it’s important that we get some of these Department of Defense people in, and start separating the wheat form the chaff. Let’s start eliminating stuff that we don’t need to be talking about, and let’s get some people on the record. … maybe we can get a little closer.”
Knapp: You expressed some concerns that maybe this will be used against you in the next election. Is someone in your district running against you on UAPs? [37:15] Burchett: “Well, oddly enough, a member of Congress, a chairman apparently has been calling around the district, a very powerful chairman who has a lot of friends at the Pentagon and in those departments, has been calling around trying to get me opposition…. It’s not like I’m going to back off on it either, it just kind of ticks me off. It means that we are closer than maybe we give ourselves credit for.”
Representative Gallagher is appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. He joined the Armed Services Committee in 2017. [Source: Statement]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Gallagher leads the following line of questioning:
“DOD had an initiative to study UFOs in the 1960s called Project Blue Book. It’s also been well reported in our briefing and in other places that we had more recent projects, specifically AATIP. Could you describe any other initiatives that the DOD or DOD contractors have managed after project Blue Book ended and prior to AATIP beginning? Did anything also predate Project Blue Book?”
“Additionally, are you aware of any other DOD or DOD contract programs focused on UAPs from a technological engineering perspective? And by that, I mean, are you aware of any technology initiatives focused on this topic other than initiatives focused on the individual case investigations?”
“It’s also been reported that there have been UAP observed and interacting with and flying over sensitive military facilities, particularly, and not just ranges, but some facilities housing are strategic nuclear forces. One such incident allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable. At the same time, a glowing red orb was observed overhead. I’m not commenting on the accuracy of this. I’m simply asking you whether you’re aware of it and whether you have any comment on the accuracy of that report.”
“And then finally, are you aware of a document that appeared around 2019 sometimes called the Admiral Wilson Memo or EW Notes memo? This is a document in which, again, I’m not commenting on the veracity, I was hoping you would help me with that, in which a former head of DIA claims to have had a conversation with the Dr. Eric Wilson and claims to have sort of been made aware of certain contractors or DOD programs that he tried to get fuller access to and was denied access to. So you’re not aware of that? In my 10 seconds remaining then, I guess I just would ask Mr. Chairman unanimous consent to enter that memo into the record. [Source: Hearing Transcript]
May 18, 2022
“I’m new to this debate. I don’t bring any particular UAP expertise, but I’ve done basic research. I’ve probably done about five hours of research. So I asked what I thought were just basic questions for people that are just modestly familiar with the literature, and they [Moultire and Bray] couldn’t answer any of those questions…
“The whole thing was incredibly confusing. I’m not sure we got any closer to the truth. Listen, I appreciate this effort to destigmatize the discussion, but until the Defense Department starts speaking in simple and direct plain English answering questions, we’re just going to spin everybody up and spin around in circles. I left very frustrated. Though I started off as a casual observer in this whole UAP debate, now I’m so pissed off that I’m not going to let it go until they answer my questions.” [Source: interview]
“There’s the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I’m trying not to lean for or against it, I just don’t think we know enough to dismiss it. The third really interesting one is that it’s inter-dimensional, that it’s us from the future. … Theoretically time travel is possible. That is the third hypothesis. People of the future have figured out how to bend space and time. … I would say there is a group of people on the outside who believe this is more plausible than the extraterrestrial explanation, serious people too.” [Source: Interview]
“The quicker DoD can disconfirm certain hypotheses that they should be able to easily disconfirm, the better we can focus time and energy on more plausible hypotheses.” [Source: Politico]
“The reality is, there are only two full-time people looking into this. So, I have questions about whether they have the resources, or the access, necessary to get us closer to answering these questions.”
“The fact is, things are appearing on our ranges that should not be appearing. It jeopardizes the safety of our pilots, it compromises our ability to safeguard critical infrastructure. We need a lot more answers than we got this week.”
“I’m going to be pressing the Pentagon to be more transparent thus far.” [Source: Spectrum News 1]
June 8, 2022
“I don’t know it’s aliens. There is something weird going on. There are a lot of people out there who used to work for the federal government claiming they were part of programs that basically involved things we don’t know about landing here and us taking those things and studying them. It’s impossible to get a straight answer from the government… We should offer everyone who may or may not be involved in those programs blanket amnesty in return for testifying to Congress.”
“Thus far we’ve not gotten answers to our questions…there’s got to be a way to get to the bottom of this whole aliens thing. It’s driving me insane.”
“It could be humans from the future. That’s the hypothesis I favor.” [Source: Jonah Goldberg’s The Remnant]
July 13, 2022
Representatives Gallagher and Gallego propose a UAP amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2023. It contains an immunity provision for witnesses of “any event relating to unidentified aerial phenomena… any government or government contractor activity or program related to unidentified aerial phenomena.” It passes on a voice vote.
According to Politico:
It was proposed by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who have been among a vocal bipartisan bloc of lawmakers pressing Pentagon and intelligence officials to take the issue more seriously — and to be more transparent with Congress and the American people.
Gallagher couched the effort in national security terms, saying his “primary interest … is to ensure that our military and intelligence community are armed with the best possible information, capital, and scientific resources to defeat our enemies and maintain military and technology superiority.”
But he also wants “to further Congress’ ability to fact gather and further prove or disprove the origin and threat nature of whatever seems to be flying in our skies.”
“I believe it’s possible that folks may be precluded from being fully transparent with Congress due to their being bound by non-disclosure agreements,” Gallagher added in a statement to POLITICO. “If that’s true, I want to make sure that there’s no technical reason preventing them from speaking to us.” [Source: Politico]
January 12, 2023
Rep. Gallagher’s statement following the release of a congressionally-mandated unclassified report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), released on social media
The amendment [UFO historical report in the NDAA] was introduced by Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Gallagher, who declined an interview request, said in a brief statement that a “comprehensive timeline” of unidentified aerial phenomena in U.S. government records was needed, and that the amendment would ensure a full review of “all U.S. government classified and unclassified information.”
“This is an important step that will give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we know — and don’t know — about incidents impacting our military,” he said.
February 13, 2023
Rep. Gallagher’s statement in response to the several UAPs shot down over the weekend.
“For years now we’ve had a problem with Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon–so called UAPs, fouling our ranges, things showing up in our training ranges and us not knowing what they are. We’ve actually tried to get the administration, and the previous administration as well, to take this more seriously. We set up a special office to adjudicate these issues. But until now, until it burst into public view, it really didn’t get the attention it deserved.”
June 26, 2023
Representative Gallagher authored an amendment (no. 287) to the House NDAA (H.R. 2670), focusing on cutting off funding for secret UFO black projects that have been kept from Congress:
“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for fiscal year 2024 may be obligated or expended, directly or indirectly, in part or in whole, to conduct or support any activity relating to un8 identified anomalous phenomena that is controlled under a classified program that has not been formally, officially, explicitly, and specifically described, explained, and justified to the appropriate congressional committees, congressional leadership, and the Director..”
“—Any contractor or former contractor of the Federal Government in possession of material or information produced by the Federal Government and relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena… a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena materiel.”
June 27, 2023
Representative Gallagher interview on the Pat McAfee Show:
Asked questions about UFOs and aliens, Gallagher touted an amendment he led to last year’s National Defense Authorization Act — which he referred to as the “Alien Bill”
After McAfee, his crew and Gallagher threw around speculation about extraterrestrial life, including that objects would be from past or future civilizations, Gallagher took a more serious tone, saying the bigger issue surrounding UAPs is “people losing trust in government, trust in institutions.”
“This should be an opportunity for the government to be transparent,” he said. “If we have information that disconfirms the extraterrestrial hypothesis, or all these other ones, at least it shows the government doing something competent and being forward-leaning by declassifying information to the public.”
He added: “So for those two reasons alone, I think it’s worthy of investigation. And, the third one that I’m probably the most interested in is whether it’s adversary technology, particularly from China.”
Gallagher said he was approved to visit Area 51, a classified Air Force facility in Nevada often associated with alleged extraterrestrial and UFO sightings, and plans to go eventually.
Appearing on the sports talk show, Gallagher suggested that one possible explanation of supposed UFO sightings was the so-called “Terminator” theory—based on the film of the same name—that aliens were actually human beings from the future.
Another hypothesis, he said, was that “as opposed to being us from the future, it could actually be an ancient civilization that’s just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself.”
However, Gallagher said the “worst-case scenario” would be if the reported sightings of craft that appeared to defy modern capabilities were actually advanced technology built by adversarial nations. He added that fears of potential Chinese weapons developments had been his “entry point” into the UFO discussion.
“The biggest source of resistance is just people [are] almost sort of embarrassed to talk about the topic,” he said. “They think they’re going to be labeled a crazy, tin foil hat, conspiracy theory, loony tunes person. So just by having these discussions out in the open, I think it goes a long way.”
However, Gallagher added: “Most of the resistance is just from the bureaucracy in the defense department and in the intelligence community.” He claimed that five requests regarding UAPs he had made to U.S. intelligence agencies had yet to elicit a response.
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation
June 16 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. After the briefing, Welch gave journalists a clear impression that he was unimpressed by the briefing: “I’m not on the edge of my seat.” [Source: New York Post]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Welch leads the following line of questioning:
Chairman, what seems incredibly difficult for you is that there’s two almost competing but different narratives. One is no one knows whether there’s extraterrestrial life. It’s a big universe, and it would be pretty presumptuous to have a hard and fast conclusion, and then if there is, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there is some exploration coming here, and that underlies a lot of the reports you get… people think there must extraterrestrial life, and it’s not at all beyond the pale that there would be a visit here.
On the other hand, as the DOD, you have the responsibility to make sure that our national security is protected, and that if there are surveillance drones or active drones that can disable our systems, that has to be analyzed. It has to be stopped. [Source: Hearing Transcript]
After the hearing, Representative Welch spoke with a Vermont’s WCAX:
“People think there must be extraterrestrial life and it’s not at all beyond the pale that there would be a visit here. On the other hand, as the DOD, you have the responsibility to make sure that our national security is protected.” [Source: WCAX News]
Representative Luna tweets her involvement in the upcoming House Oversight hearing on UFOs with the following graphic.
“12,618 sightings were reported to Project Blue Book”
July 20, 2023
Representative Luna participates in a press conference that announces an upcoming House Oversight hearing on UFOs.
“For decades, countless of Americans have questioned our government’s lack of transparency regarding U A in our nation’s airspace. These same questions have been echoed by many leaders on a bipartisan basis. From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, from Marco Rubio to Chuck Schumer from the former Director of National Intelligence, John Radcliffe to current officials at the National Security Council. They have all called for disclosure of UAs. If this was a court case, the court would be compelled to take up the thousands of testimonies, images, videos and eyewitness accounts from doctors, pilots, scientists and active duty, service members, the status quo on the part of the US government has been to leave the American people in the dark regarding information of UAP. They refused to answer questions posed by whistleblowers, avoiding the concerns of Americans. And acknowledging that the possible threat of U A poses to our national security as well as public safety. It is extremely unnecessary and an over-classification if the last few months have taught me anything, especially in investigating this. It is that this issue is in the hands of the American people and they deserve answers. I just want to be fully transparent here myself. Representative Burch and Representative Gates had attended an air Force base and we are blocked not only by the Pentagon but by the Department of the Air Force from seeing information, talking to witnesses and after much arm twisting, we got some of the information. But the fact is is that they answer to Congress and that the American people and any government entity that attempts to stonewall us is doing nothing in the vested interest of the American people. When I take a face value, the numerous road blocks that we’ve been presented with it leads me to believe that they are indeed hiding information. I look forward to bringing this topic to light and finding out the truth of what is really out there.
Question: Do you expect next week’s hearing is the start of a series of think this is like your one shot.
“I think that it’s probably going to be the start. What Representative Burchett, myself and my colleagues behind me have realized is that ultimately as elected members and being assigned to house oversight and accountability, we can conduct field hearings. And if we continue to get stonewalled, if we smell that they’re giving us a bunch of BS, we are going to do the field hearings directly at those locations and we’re going to open it up to the press because full transparency really is what we need in this situation and ultimately to piggyback off of what all my colleagues have said, the military, the Pentagon, the intelligence agency, they answer to the people and thus Congress. And so we are going to hold them accountable.”
On the Eglin Air Force Base incident: “The Pentagon, this is Department of the Air Force. It was a commanding, yeah, of course, it was the commanding general of Eglin Air Force Base. And ultimately, even before we got down there, the Pentagon actually tried to cancel the field hearing. And also it’s important to note that these were whistle blowers, these were pilots that had come forward to representative Gaetz’s office with information saying this needs to be investigated. We have an increase in sightings in this region and it’s a cause for concern for national security reasons. We don’t know what it is. So we went down there, we were stonewalled. They would not give us access to testimony from some of the pilots. They were hiding images and information. We were told there was pictures available which we still haven’t seen. And ultimately, what ended up happening is we had to actually call House Armed Services. Chairman Rogers got involved, the Pentagon got involved. The Department of the Air Force got involved. We actually got into an argument with the general of that base and I just, it’s important to note that we were there simply to follow up on the whistleblowers that came forward with information. And so if the Department of the Air Force, if the Pentagon thinks that they’re above Congress, they have something else coming to them.”
July 24, 2023
Tweet that shares and comments on a Chris Mellon interview with News Nation, in which Mellon said: “I’ve been told that we have recovered technology that did not originate on this earth by officials in the Department of Defense and by former intelligence officials.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Luna’s opening statement and questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“From Roswell New Mexico to the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, the sightings of UAPs have rarely been explained by the people who have first-hand accounts of these situations this is largely due to the lack of transparency by our own government and the failure of our elected leaders to make good on their promises to release explanations and footage and mountains of over-classified documents that continue to be hidden from the American people. This isn’t just how I feel, in fact the American people largely believe that the government has actively covered up the truth about UAPs one poll in particular found that 68 percent of Americans believe that the government is hiding information about UAPs and not being honest about what we know about them, and from my personal experience I believe the same thing…
“It is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans into thinking that this is not happening or that the potential of intelligent lifeforms exist other than humans. Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are many times service members and have no assurance that their lives will not be negatively impacted or even harmed by their experiences. In being an active duty service member working on an airfield I’ve had conversations with many pilots where they were in fear of coming forward for retribution and or being taken off flight status. How do we know this? Because the government has said nothing to assure us otherwise. They have also done nothing to calm the concerns of over 20 percent of Americans who have reported to have seen UFOs or UAPs. We are simply told not to question the government and that the government has it under control.”
“Referring to your new interview [David Grusch] you had referenced specific treaties between governments article 3 of the nuclear arms treaty with Russia identify as UAPs it specifically mentions them, to your knowledge are there safety measures in place with foreign governments or other superpowers to avoid an escalatory situation in the event that a UAP malevolent occurs?”
“You mentioned white collar crimes potentially being, taking place in regards to a cover-up, can you please elaborate?”
Grusch: I have concerns based on the interviews I conducted under my official duties of potential violations of the federal acquisition regulations the FAR.
July 27, 2023
Representative Luna and three other members of the House call on the Speaker to create a Select Committee to investigate the “United States government’s response to UAPs”
August 22, 2023
Representative Luna and five other members of the House call submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
September 14, 2023
Representative Luna tweets: “Just got word that we will not be getting the UAP select committee. However, we will be getting another hearing. @timburchett is working on dates. Also, we are still working on SCIF for Grusch.”
September 20, 2023
Responding to DOD acknowledgment of congressional UAP briefing at Eglin Air Force Base, Representative Luna said: “Hopefully they actually follow through, but I don’t have a lot of faith after what happened to us at Eglin. DoD would do well to not block the American people out from transparency like they did to us earlier this year.”
October 26, 2023
Representative Luna was interviewed after a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF.
“The fact is that Congress should have oversight and the ability to look into and have access to these programs. And we’re being told we don’t have access to these programs, which defeats the purpose of what we’re supposed to be doing.”
November 4, 2023
Representative Luna tweets that House members have been given permission to read David Grusch’s IG complaint.
Representative Moskowitz participates in a press conference that announces an upcoming House Oversight hearing on UFOs.
“And, and ultimately, you know, it really is about getting to just go greater government transparency as Tim said that, you know, when we ask these questions, if the answers are, there are no unidentified aerial phenomenon, then say that, but that’s not what the answers are, the answers are. We can’t tell you. And so that leads to speculation.
“We we need to know whether these things are uh are they domestic uh are they foreign or are they, are they something else or do they not exist? And the government needs to have straight answers. And so the American people deserve to know the truth on this unnecessarily censoring things or over-classification is what leads to all of these theories that have been out there.”
“I think the overarching question that we’re really asking is why are they overclassification this and why aren’t they being transparent? You know, and it’s about asserting reasserting, I should say Congress’s role in all of this. I mean, to Tim’s point, I mean, the United States Congress passed a law on the JFK assassination. That information under that law is now supposed to be available and yet president after president violates parties of both parties, right, violates that law and extends the information to his point. Why? And that’s really what’s happening here. We’re interested in the, why, why are they doing this? Why won’t they tell the American people? Yes, it’s a national security issue. Of course, it is. Right. We can’t, we tell the American people that it isn’t China? It isn’t Russia, right? And, and if it is right, then that’s even more questionable, why aren’t they telling the American people that other countries have this technology, right? And to your point, I want to reengineer reverse your question, which is, are we OK with the federal government keeping information from the American people because they’re trying to prevent us from having anxiety on all sorts of issues. I mean, if they can do it here, what else, what else are we going to give them authority to not tell the American people, people because they’re interested in, in, in, in controlling and keeping us in a bubble. I mean, that’s a, that’s a scary thought that they don’t trust us. That the universe is a big place. I mean, everyone learns about that in school, right? The universe is a big place. Our solar system is a big place. We’re learning about solar systems far beyond. And so the idea that human, the human brain can’t tolerate that there might be life somewhere else. I just don’t accept that. And at the end of the day, I think the hearing is really about real-life accounts from reliable people. And as the technology is getting better, our technology is getting better. We’re now capturing these things on our hand held devices. And why is the military and the government not just being honest with us, why are they over classifying it? Why aren’t they being transparent? “
“I wanna give Tim [Burchett] uh a lot of credit going back to uh some of your questions, which is, this is a really simple hearing. It’s about oversight…. it was really hard for him to get this scheduled. It was hard for him to get it scheduled. It was hard for uh Congressman Luna to get it scheduled. It was hard to get a room. It was hard to get staff on board. It was hard to get approval every single step that they had to go through to make this hearing happen. Next week, the witnesses, they were stonewalled and they had to push and push and push again. If there’s nothing to talk about, why was it so difficult? And that again is what breeds these theories and these concerns. And so I think the best thing that can happen quite frankly just to end this whole debate is just like, let’s hear the testimony and let the government come forward and figure out what they have and share it with the American people.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Moskowitz’s opening statement and questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“‘For decades many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it’s long past time that they got some answers. The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena.’ Those are not the words of a UFO Twitter account. That is a direct quote from majority leader Chuck Schumer, that the American public has a right to learn about Technologies of unknown Origins non-human intelligence and unexplainable phenomena.”
”But we can’t allow that [national security classifications] to be used as a shield to keep the American people completely in the dark from basic truths the American people deserve to hear more about special access programs. Congress has a right to know if there’s any unsanctioned weapons development, satellite imagery that has not been provided to Congress… it’s time for Congress to reinsert ourselves I call on our military leaders and intelligence officials to release more information to the American people about UAPs. And to our military leaders, if there’s nothing to conceal let Congress go to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the Dugway Proving Ground, or even Groom Lake in Nevada. We should have disclosure today, we should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come.”
Mr Grusch, as a result of your previous government work have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself of non-human origin craft?… Mr Grusch, as a result of your previous government work have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself about ATs, Advanced Technologies, that the US government has?”
July 27, 2023
Representative Moskowitz and three other members of the House call on the Speaker to create a Select Committee to investigate the “United States government’s response to UAPs”
July 28, 2023
Representative Moskowitz interviewed by Newsmax about the UAP hearing.
“But I found his testimony most interesting on the program he was a part of about UAPs, and about how he believes these contractors are involved in reverse engineering technology. I think that’s where I would like to continue to pull that thread with him.”
August 22, 2023
Representative Moskowitz and five other members of the House call submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
September 1, 2023
Representative Moskowitz tweets “Disclosure” and a news reports on AARO’s new website.
September 13, 2023
Representative Moskowitz interviewed with Representative Mace by Bret Baier on Fox News: “I don’t know that we’re there [aliens] yet, Bret. I think we have simpler questions. Like, if there are these weapon’s programs, like when we used stealth helicopters to go after Osama Bin Laden 12 years ago and we didn’t know these stealth helicopters existed–and they came out of Area 51 by the way–are there secret weapon’s programs, advanced technologies that we have, how are they getting funded? …There is more threat to pull here. I don’t know if those sandcastle people that they showed [reference to faked alien mummies] I’m not there yet, but I think there is bipartisan agreement.”
October 5, 2023
Representative Moskowitz tweets at his Republican colleagues: “to my UAP colleagues. I know when you are picking a speaker you will be asking for a UAP select committee!” Speaker McCarthy was removed from his speakership on this day.
October 26, 2023
Representative Moskowitz was interviewed after a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF.
“We were actually told that we don’t have clearance to learn certain things. … I think all the members were very frustrated. …They wouldn’t tell us who [in Congress has access]. They wouldn’t answer that.”
Reporter Scrum Question: UAPs, UFOs, do you think they are non-human extraterrestrial origin?
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Listen, God made a phenomenal planet with phenomenal people, even though we disagree, we have our own issues. I don’t think we’re the only ones in the universe. Do I think that our federal government has hidden information from the American people? 100 percent.”
“I have seen evidence of craft that I am not familiar with, any of our allies or adversaries or even out country possessing. I’ve seen that craft taken by air crews who’ve gotten quite close to it and we we’ve got a lot more questions about why this information isn’t more broadly available to the American people.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Gaetz’s questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“So just to be put a fine point on that, there’s nothing that you’re aware of that’s above Special Access Program classification? …I draw a point on that because we can have access to to those programs and so the notion that we’re not being given that access sort of defies our typical muscle memory here in Congress.”
“Several months ago my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating that there was a UAP incident that required my attention. I sought a briefing regarding that episode and brought with me congressman Burchett and Congresswoman Luna. We asked to see any of the evidence that had been taken by flight crew in this endeavor and to observe any radar signature, as as well as to meet with the flight crew. We were not afforded access to all of the flight crew and initially we were not afforded access to images and to radar. Thereafter we had a bit of a discussion about how authorities flow in the United States of America and we did see the image and we did meet with one member of the flight crew who took the image. The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability either from the United States or from any of our adversaries, and I’m somewhat informed on the matter having served on the armed services committee for seven years, having served on the committee that oversees DARPA and Advanced Technologies for several years. When we spoke with the flight crew and when he showed us the photo that he’d taken I asked why the video wasn’t engaged, why we didn’t have a FLIR system that worked here’s what he said. They were out on a test mission that day over the Gulf of Mexico and when you’re on a test mission you’re supposed to have clear air space, not supposed to be anything that shows up, and they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the United States Congress. One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb, again like I said not of any human capability that I’m that I’m aware of, and when he approached he said that his radar went down, he said that his FLIR system malfunctioned and that he had to manually take this image from one of the lenses and it was not automatic automated in collection as you would typically see in a test mission. So I guess I’ll start with Commander Fraver. What in how should we think about the fact that this craft that was approached by our pilot had the capability of disarming a number of the sensor and collection systems on that craft?”
“It was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that if you have a UAP experience the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone because any type of reporting either above the surface or below the surface does have a perceived consequence to these people, and that is a culture we must change if we want to get to the truth.”
Mr chairman I would observe that perhaps as we as we move forward from this hearing there are some obvious next steps every person watching this knows that we need to meet with Mr Grusch in a secure compartmentalized facility so that we can get fulsome answers that do not put him in Jeopardy and that and that give us the information we need. Second I would suggest that the radar images that
were collected of this formation of craft out of Eglin Air Force Base and specifically the actual image taken by the actual flight crew that we can actually validate be provided to the committee subpoenaed if necessary so that we’re able to track how to get this type of reporting and analysis done in a more fulsome way.”
Representative Gaetz interviewed by News Nation after the hearing:
“Well somehow we’ve got to get subpoena power. We’ve got the ability to get access to the records, the radar systems, the photographs, that will inform the decisions we have to make on funding and authorities. AtEglin Air Force Base I saw things that did not appear from human origin, and I hope we can get that information before the entire Congress. That’s probably all I can say about it. So we may need other authorities that would require the establishment of a select committee, and we’re going to be chatting about that with the Speaker in the coming days”.
July 27, 2023
Representative Gaetz and three other members of the House call on the Speaker to create a Select Committee to investigate the “United States government’s response to UAPs”
July 28, 2023
Representative Gaetz hosts a Newsmax segment on the UAP hearing.
“It certainly makes fights between Republicans and Democrats look silly if we’re going to have to fight the aliens before it’s all over.”
From Representative Mace’s questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“Since the Roswell incident in 1947 many Americans have wondered about the dangers of unknown objects crisscrossing our skies whether these are UAPs or weather phenomena, advanced technology from American allied or enemy forces, or something more out of this world.”
“When you reported your experiences with a UAP did any of you face any repercussions with your superiors, yes or no?”
“Do you believe there’s an active disinformation campaign within our government to deny the existence of UAPs, yes or no?”
“I have a few questions for Mr Graves. What percentage of UAP sightings in your belief go unreported by our pilots?”
Graves: this is an approximation based off of my personal experience speaking with a number of pilots, but I would estimate we’re somewhere near five percent reporting perhaps
“So like 95 basically don’t report seeing UAP?”
“Mr Fravor, as an expert Naval aviator have you ever seen an object that looked and moved like the Tic Tac UAP? …Did the Tic Tac UAP move in such a way that defied the laws of physics the way we understand them?”
“Many dismissed UAP reports as classified weapons testing by our own government but in your experience as a pilot does our government typically test advanced weapon systems right next to multi-million dollar jets without informing our pilots?”
Fravor: no we have test ranges for that
“It took over 15 years for your encounter with the Tic Tac to be declassified. Do you feel there was a good reason to prevent lawmakers from having access to this footage?”
Fravor: no I just think it was ignored when it happened and it just sat somewhere in a file never got reported.
“Do you believe that officials at the highest levels of our national security apparatus have unlawfully withheld information from Congress and subverted our oversight authority?”
“You’ve stated that the government is in possession of potentially non-human spacecraft. Based on your experience and extensive conversations with experts do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?”
Grusch: something I can’t discuss in public setting
“Um okay and I can’t ask when you think this occurred. If you believe we have crashed craft as stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft… were they human or non-human biologics?”
“Who in the government, either what agency, sub-agency, what contractors, who should be called into the next hearing about UAPs either in a public setting or even in a private setting, and you probably can’t name names but what agencies or organizations contractors, etc. do we need to call in to get these questions answered, whether it’s about funding, what programs are happening, and what’s out there?”
Grusch: I can give you a specific cooperative and hostile witness list of specific individuals that were in those.
“And how soon can we get that list?”
Grusch: I’m happy to provide that to you after the hearing.
“But at the end of the day, I don’t think this is really about little green men. This is about government transparency versus government secrecy,” she said, emphasizing it is about the misappropriation of funds, which leads to many other questions.
“How much money is being spent? What’s it being spent on? And are our government agencies hiding anything from Congress and therefore hiding it from the American people?” she asked. “The American people deserve the right to know; it’s about national security. It’s about technology. Is this AI-driven? Have we, as a government, developed our AI to…such an advanced level?”
“I think it’s about energy. If you can defy the law, if the laws of physics and gravity are being defined in the way that these pilots have told us as being defied, then who has the power to create that kind of energy? Do we have that technology, or is it our adversaries?”
“If this is really going on, it’ll be the biggest story in history, not just U.S. history, but world history,” she said, inquiring if these programs exist.
“Why can’t Congress be informed about what’s really going on in this country?”
August 22, 2023
Representative Mace and five other members of the House submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
September 12, 2023
Representative Mace releases a video about the July 26 Oversite Committee hearing on UFOs.
The tweet reads: “Joining the #UAP Caucus to stand for truth & transparency in our pursuit of the unknown. The mysteries of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (#UAP) demand our attention, rigorous investigation, data-driven analysis & oversight. The pursuit of truth knows no boundaries.”
Video transcript: “The UAP hearing should have been the most historic hearing in congressional history. … This is one of the most important stories of our lifetime, and it happened on the oversight committee. What the hell kind of energy is being utilized to see a craft move through time and space in the way that they have? And it’s not just crazy people saying these things. These are pilots. These are decorated military commanders. … And the goverment, your’e government is lying to you. And they’re lying to Congress, and we’ve got to get to the truth.”
“The things that I’ve heard, specifically about contractors, military contractors that are involved, getting to the bottom of that will be the precipice of the entire story.”
“What you see on TV is one thing, what you see behind the scenes is another. After the UAP hearing, a lot of members were interested and intrigued, and wanted more information. They want to get into a SCIF, they want to find out, they want to read classified briefings. But what you see in public is a mockery, making a mockery of people who have seen UAPs or UFOs, whatever you want to call them. … We should not be afraid to broach this subject. Whether it’s real or not real, your money, your tax dollars are being spent on it. We ought to know what’s going on.”
September 13, 2023
Representative Mace interviewed with Representative Moskowitz by Bret Baier on Fox News:
If there are bodies out there, I want to see it for myself. I got to see it to believe it. I have to touch it, put my hands on it. I dont know what non-human biologics are, but I would like to learn more. I’m trying right now to get some of those witnesses into a SCIF to be able to come back to us and brief us on some of the classified information they could not share. It’s not about little green men. It’s about money laundering. What has the government spent our tax dollars on, where has it gone, what programs?”
September 20, 2023
Representative Mace tells Matt Laslo: “I have. I have spoken with one of the witnesses after the hearing and would like to continue to try to get answers. I’m trying to do it through HASC—the House Armed Services Committee. So to get waivers for any witnesses that want to get into a SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility], would need a waiver on TS/SCI [top secret or sensitive compartmented information] clearance or to be able to do that. Even though they have their clearances, they would need a waiver from the Pentagon to get into a SCIF, so I put a request in for that.”
“I don’t know that we need one [UAP select committee], but we might have to have one if Intel and Armed Services say well we can’t get down another layer, then we might have to. This isn’t something that should just be swept under the rug, because I’d like to know how much money has been spent on these programs and what they’re doing. And then, Congress shouldn’t be kept in the dark.”
“They [House Intel. Committee] won’t do it. Yeah, they won’t do it. My understanding is Intel won’t do it. I think, the next option, if Intel won’t do it, will be through Armed Services, and we’ll see if there’s an appetite for that. My understanding is that leadership does have an appetite. They’re willing to support members who want to continue down this investigative path. That he’ll—that they’ll support it, but I don’t—trust but verify. So fact check that. But that’s what I’ve been hearing rumor wise in the House.”
Representative Perry spoke about the David Grusch allegations to the Epoch Times: “The truth, whatever it is, regardless of what the subject is, belongs with the American people, not in these halls, not in some other place in some building in downtown Washington, D.C.—out with the American people. This is their government, not the people that work in D.C. They’re the custodians of the information.”
“These are obviously sensational claims, but they come from three very credible witnesses, all with military experience, one with a particular intelligence background, but all three with security clearances and first-hand knowledge, especially the two Navy aviators.”
“If funds are being misappropriated, or reappopriated, and that is one of the claims as well, that’s very concerning to me.”
“If these are indeed extraterrestrial then I don’t know who in the government has anymore authority to know about them than any other citizen. We are free Amercians, and if these are impacting us or imperiling us, we have every right to know what potential concern we should have.”
“And understand this is beyond Human capability, but certainly not beyond the possibility that these are unmanned vehicles operated by either the United States or our adversaries. We need to know what we are dealing with here, and if it’s not harmful, if it’s extraterrestrial and not harmful, then why must it be classified, and why can’t American citizens know about it? I think those are reasobanle questions that we demand answers to.”
October 26, 2023
Representative Perry was interviewed after a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF.
“We can’t even find out who is allowed to know… This is one more example that this isn’t our government. We just get to live here in America, and the government doesn’t answer to us.”
House Intelligence Committee (Chairman 2019-Present; Ranking Member 2015-2019)
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. After the briefing, Schiff gave a press interview:
“It was an interesting briefing. I did learn things that were certainly new to me. But I think I’m going to leave it at that.” [Source: New York Post]
June 25, 2021
Representative Schiff releases a statement on the release of the UAP Preliminary Report:
“…it has become increasingly clear that unidentified aerial phenomena are not a rare occurrence and our government needs a unified way to gather, analyze, and contextualize these reports.
“We should approach these questions without preconceptions to encourage a thorough, systematized analysis of the potential national security and flight safety risks posed by unidentified aerial phenomena, whether they are the result of a foreign adversary, atmospheric or other aerial phenomena, space debris, or something else entirely.
“As we continue to receive updates, we will share what we can with the American people as excessive secrecy will only spur more speculation.” [Source: statement link]
May 11, 2022
Representative Schiff releases a statement announcing a congressional public hearing on UFOs:
“There’s still much to learn about unidentified aerial phenomena and the potential risks they may pose to our national security. But one thing is sure – the American people deserve full transparency, and the federal government and Intelligence Community have a critical role to play in contextualizing and analyzing reports of UAPs.”
“The purpose of this hearing is to 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, and to break the cycle of excessive secrecy and speculation with truth and transparency. I’m grateful to Congressman Carson for his continued leadership, and push for transparency, on this important issue.” [Source: announcement]
May 11, 2022
“There are a lot of unexplained aerial phenomena. We don’t know what they are, and they can’t be easily rationalized as weather phenomenon or balloons or anything else. So it’s quite a mystery.”
“I think they [Defense Department officials] will be comfortable telling the public what we do know, and what is still yet to be explained. But they’ll be very careful not to speculate that this is some extraterrestrial or this is some foreign adversary with some here before unknown technology. [Source: Fox News]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Schiff leads the following line of questioning:
“To me, among the most fascinating questions, are these phenomenon that we can measure? …it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics or science more broadly. And that to me poses questions of tremendous interest and as well as potential national security significance. …”
“UAP reports need to be understood as a national security matter. And that message needs to go out across DOD, the IC, and the whole of the US government…. UAP reports have been around for decades, and yet we haven’t had an orderly way for them to be reported without stigma and to be investigated. That needs to change.” [Source: Hearing Transcript]
July 16, 2022
Representative Schiff presents a public lecture in California. During the Q&A, he is asked why studying UFOs is important.
“We are now as a result of oversight, being more systematic when pilots and others see things they can’t explain. … And sometimes that something moves in ways that we cannot explain, that aren’t consistent with our own technological capabilities, or what we know of our adversaries, and sometimes they aren’t even consistent–they don’t appear to be consistent with what we know about physics…. If it turns out to be more than that, that would be intriguing. My own suspicion is that what we’re seeing can be explained if we knew more about what we were observing and how we were observing it. But I leave myself open to other possibilities. … how often we are wrong about our assumptions. So I don’t want to exclude the possibility that we are wrong about other things as well.” [Source: Lecture]
July 20, 2022
Representative Schiff releases a statement on the passage of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023:
Shining a historical light on UAPs. This year, the Intelligence Committee delivered on a promise to hold the first public hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in more than half a century. The hearing included newly declassified information about UAPs, including never-before-seen video footage and data from subject matter experts. In order to support the work to unravel the UAP mystery, the 2023 IAA directs the GAO to study historical classified information that may further the broader IC effort to understand and explain UAPs – including the implications they may have for our national security. [Source: Schiff statement]
January 12, 2023
“I appreciate the effort undertaken by the ODNI to study and characterize unidentified aerial phenomena reports, and their commitment to ensuring transparency by releasing an unclassified summary to the American public. … Unidentified aerial phenomena remain a national security matter, and I will continue to support thorough investigations of all UAP reports and oversight by the Congress.” [Source]
House Armed Services Committee (2015-Present); Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations (Chairman 2021-Present)
June 17, 2021
The House Armed Services Committee’s Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee, chaired by Gallego, receives a classified briefing on UAP from the UAP Task Force. Source: Douglas Dean Johnson]
September 1, 2021
The House Armed Services Committee approves its version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, and includes Representative Gallego’s UAP amendment. His office releases this statement:
“It is in the national security interest of the United States to know what is flying in our skies. Whether emerging tech from strategic competitors and adversaries or aerial phenomena from unknown origins, our military must have a full intelligence picture and the tools to respond quickly to these potential threats. My amendment creates a permanent office at DoD to comprehensively evaluate these UAPs, and I’m proud to announce its inclusion in the House version of the NDAA,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations.
The approved amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to:
Establish an office to carry out the mission currently performed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (in coordination with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence);
Submit an annual report on unidentified aerial phenomena; and
Terminate the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force. [Source: Statement]
The Debrief writes that the Gallego amendment is “the first to call for the establishment of an office within government solely for the study of UAP.” Among other provisions, the amendment also calls for “an update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.” [Source: The Debrief]
September 25, 2021
Representative Gallego does an exclusive interview with Politico to explain why he proposed his UAP amendment:
“There’s been a total lack of focus across the national security apparatus to actually get at what’s happening here. I think there has been kind of a partial pastime of curiosity seekers that are within the Department of Defense but there has not been any professional initiative across the defense enterprise… so that we can actually make some deliberate and knowledgeable decisions.”
“I decided to actually put action to words. We had a briefing on this phenomenon. One of the things that came out of that briefing, without breaking too many walls here, was that there just needed to be better data collection. There needs to be standardized data collection across the services. We needed to continue to break down the stigma of reporting these phenomena. There are a lot of people who are afraid of reporting this because they’re afraid … it’s going to cost their careers. People think they’re crazy. We’re not going to be able to get to the bottom of this unless we collect information, get enough information to figure out exactly what’s going on [and] the pilots and other people who have seen it actually feel comfortable talking about it.”
“So if you happen to capture one of these huge weather balloons and think it was an unidentified object, it’s important we figure out … why it caused a reaction to a radar”
“Look, I’m from Arizona, I even lived in New Mexico a little bit. Very far away from Roswell, but still. Part of my job is to diminish the stigma of talking about this, especially for military personnel to talk about. If it means I have to take it on the chin a little, so be it.”
“I don’t think we have enough information to be honest, for us to know whether we should be worried or not. That’s why I’m structurally trying to put this together, so we can actually collect data and treat this like a scientific and military objective rather than … some kooky conspiracy theorists.”
“It’s OK for us to say we don’t know what’s happening so let’s figure it out. That’s not a bad thing in government. The only way to really do this is if you want to actually figure it out is to try to actually figure it out.” [Source: Politico]
November 14, 2021
“So let me tell you where the genesis of my legislation comes from. I’m the chairman of intelligence and special operations, which for some reason UAPs, or UFOs as people know them, fall under my jurisdiction. So I had a hearing regarding this and one of the things that was very clear about it is that we just don’t have enough information and even that the information the Department of Defense has, it is useless information, it is you know anecdotal evidence, and/or, you know even film, whatever it is. But we have no reference points to it, and there is no unified way to actually collect this information. Nobody knows what to do with this information. So the reason I put this legislation together is because we need to treat this as a real problem set, not that maybe these foreign aliens, or out-of-out of world aliens are a threat. The problem says that we don’t have enough information to make any decisions, so the way you do that is you actually gather the information so that way you can actually you know have some viable actions on it.”
” …the goal of my legislation is to treat this like a real problem set and the way you do that in when you’re dealing with the Pentagon is you have a system-wide understanding of how to collect this information, how to collect this data, let’s analyze the data and then let’s come up with recommendations about what this is and what we should do about it, because right now it’s really unfair I think for the NASA administrator to speculate that it is otherworldly objects or aliens because data doesn’t prove anything like that.”
“…and i think it’s getting to a point because we are a more interconnected society, you have a lot of people that are flying, a lot of people have can actively use their own drones, they can actually even now rent satellite imagery, more people are starting to discover this and i think that is setting up a course where if we don’t actually start answering questions or at least start looking for what the question should be, you’re going to have people jumping to some really bad conclusions.”
“…I think actually more than anything else it’s cultural. Because we’ve never treated UAPs as a serious issue, no person wants to be known as ‘the UFO general,’ right? Or be the person who is the director of UFO information. Because that basically sets your career path in the military….And so everyone just avoids it. Everyone just avoids the issue. Politicians avoid the issue. So everyone just kind of walks around in circles and saying, ‘Man, there’s something there,’ but nobody wants to do anything about it.” [Source: Hill TV]
December 9, 2021
Representative Gallego releases a statement on the passage of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that includes UAP language from his amendment:
“Protecting our national security interests means knowing who and what are flying in U.S. airspace. Right now our system of tracking and identifying UAPs is scattered throughout the Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the federal government,” Gallego said. “Based on briefings I’ve received as Chairman of the House Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee, I firmly believe that the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community need to come together and create a permanent, synchronized structure to collect and analyze UAP data. I’m excited that the amendment I introduced alongside Senator Gilibrand was included in the final version of the NDAA.” [Source: statement]
February 13, 2023
Rep. Gallego tweets about recent shoot-downs of balloons:
“The presence of high-altitude objects over American airspace is concerning. That’s why I’ve added language to the NDAA to evaluate all Unmanned Aerial Phenomena (UAP). This will allow us to report information in an organized way for analysis and study.”
To keep Americans safe, we must better identify what’s entering our airspace. I’m seeking answers from the @DeptofDefense on their plans to prevent these intrusions from happening again. To learn more about my UAP provision, check the link below.
Committee on Intelligence; Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. Representative Quigley spoke with the press after the briefing:
“The stigma is gone. Now that’s as big a change in policy as I’ve witnessed about this issue in my lifetime. So the fact that they are taking this sort of thing seriously for the first time, I think, is important.”
“What do they say in ‘Contact’? Occam’s razor,” he said. “I still think that’s what’s real, and there are things we can’t explain.”
“If I had to predict how the public will react to this [Preliminary UAP Report], one word would be ‘disappointing’” [Source: NY POST]
Committee on Intelligence; Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation
July 21, 2021
“Other allies around the world have picked up similar sightings of these same identified objects and I think you’ll see a continued focus by the military and the intelligence services to get the origins of those. But I’m not sure we learned anything more definitive [from the UAP Preliminary Report] that we didn’t already know before.” [Source: WMAY interview]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative LaHood leads the following line of questioning:
“Obviously, this topic of UAPs has attracted a lot of interest in people that are curious about this hearing today. As we talk about, and I would say there’s a lot of what I would call amateur interest groups that are involved in the UAP field, my question is when there are unsubstantiated claims or manufactured claims of UAPs or kind of false information that’s put out there, what are the consequences for people that are involved with that or groups that are involved with that?”
“So just taking that a step further, so that misinformation, false narratives, manufactured, so what are the consequences? Are there legal consequences? Are there examples that you can give us where people have been held accountable by this information or disinformation? …what’s the deterrent from people engaging in this activity?” [Source: Hearing Transcript]
Committee on Intelligence; Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. Representative Maloney spoke with the press after the briefing:
“We take the issue of unexplained aerial phenomena seriously to the extent that we’re dealing with the safety and security of US military personnel or the national security interests of the United States, so we want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“I think it’s important to understand that there are legitimate questions involving the safety and security of our personnel, and in our operations and in our sensitive activities, and we all know that there’s [a] proliferation of technologies out there. We need to understand the space a little bit better.” [Source: New York Post]
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Krishnamoorthi leads the following line of questioning:
“First question is, there have been no collisions between any US assets in one of these UAPs, correct?”
“I assume, or tell me if I’m wrong, there’s been no attempt … there’s no communications or any kind of communication signals that emanate from those objects that we’ve detected, correct?”
“And I assume we’ve never discharged any armaments against a UAP, correct?”
“How about wreckage, have we come across any wreckage of any kind of object that has now been examined by you?”
“Do we have any sensors underwater to detect on submerged UAPs, anything that is in the ocean or in the seas?”
“But the ones where you say most of them represent physical objects, can you say that they are definitely, with a hundred percent certainty that they are physical objects?…I think that we might have a bias right now going on with regards to just reporting on UAPs being in training areas when we don’t really track what’s happening elsewhere. The last question, have our encounters with UAPs altered the development of either our offensive or defensive capabilities, or even our sensor capabilities?” [Source: Hearing Transcript]
June 6, 2022
“I didn’t learn anything that day [May 17 hearing] that would substantiate what Harry Reid had said [about UFO crash retrievals], but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more information out there that needs to be gleaned. …This particular agency [UAP Task Force] doesn’t necessarily have visibility into all branches of the government and their own experiences with UAP. They really focus on what pilots, whether Air Force or Navy, have seen, especially in training areas. They’re starting to have more interaction with the airports and FAA. There’s so much more possibilities in terms of what other branches of government, and others, have seen. We need them to have more visibility into the rest of government, and more communication with others too.”
“Even with regard to this UAP issue, I’ve sensed a real collective inquiry, and a lot of curious minds [in Congress] trying to figure out what’s really going on here.” [Source: John Michael Godier interview]
Committee on Intelligence; Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation
June 16, 2021
The House Intelligence Committee receives a classified briefing from the UAPTF and the FBI previewing the upcoming UAP report. Representative Demings spoke with the press after the briefing:
“You know it’s always about our safety and security — our national security is number one — and so that’s really the area where we really focused on this morning.” [Source: New York Post]
May 17, 2022
REP. DEMINGS ON UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA HEARING: “As a former chief of police there’s nothing I take more seriously than the safety and security of the American people. We will always investigate any potential threat from our adversaries. The top goals of this investigation are seriousness, transparency, and national security. Just because something is unidentified doesn’t mean that it’s unidentifiable, and truth must always be a precondition to good policy.
“By treating this issue seriously, working with Pentagon experts, and empowering witnesses and hard evidence, we can find answers, ensure the integrity of American airspace, counter global threats, and keep Americans safe at home and abroad. I will continue to work with the Pentagon and our intelligence agencies on this important issue.” [Source: Press Release]
Representative Moulton and other members of the House Armed Services Committee receive UAP briefing from the Office of Naval Intelligence. He “asked questions typical of this topic” and expressed interest in securing funding for UAP investigations. [Source: Navy emails]
House Committee on Budget; Ways and Means (Chairman 2023-Present)
June 24, 2021
During a Budget Committee hearing , Rep. Smith asked the top Pentagon budget official the following UAP-related question:
“As you could imagine, the American people probably share my concern that we have a system wide outage when I am asking questions about UFOs, and whether it is the Chinese or the Russians or it is actually people in other places. So, let us try to ask this UFO question again and see if the systems will hold up.
“Under Secretary McCord, there has been a lot of discussion recently regarding unidentified aerial phenomena, UAPs, harassing U.S. Navy pilots and exhibiting technological advancements far beyond our current capabilities. The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to require U.S. intelligence agencies and DoD to compile a detailed public analysis of all information collected on UAPs. Additionally, a former top Pentagon intelligence official said the report could range from revealing an unknown threat or military vulnerability to there have been probes visiting our planet, or anything in between. Another top Pentagon official said that dozens of UFOs appeared to have carried out some kind of reconnaissance or surveillance of our nuclear technology and weapons.
“The UAP Task Force at DoD has stated its intention to release an unclassified report on this matter by Friday. Will the report provide the American people with answers on how we plan to continue investigating and counter these phenomena? … Do you believe this report will reveal any serious national security threats that the American people should be aware of?… There is a lot of interest, and even more interest as the days get closer.”
Representative Waltz interviewed by Florida’s Voice:
“UFOs, UAPs, whatever you want to call it, I think we need to take this incredibly seriously. Yeah, I’m going to ask for a briefing and sit down of what this whistleblower [David Grusch] is alleging.”
“I think why Americans are seeing so many, you know, feel like this is really new and they’re seeing so many reporting of these sightings is because we now have such a proliferation around the world of satellites, of Radars, of sensors, of cameras that you know 20-30 years ago it was you know Joe Bob and his pickup truck takes a grainy photo of something he sees in the sky. Now we have radar imagery, thermals, different types of infrared sensors. You can’t deny this stuff this is real, hard data that is showing objects that are doing things that can’t be explained. And it’s that data that we’ve demanded the Intelligence Community and the Pentagon analyzed and come back to Congress to explain and through us to the American people.”
“What we have been assured is it’s not our systems, so that means that it’s either our adversaries have things that, with capabilities that we weren’t aware of and that we can’t explain, or it’s otherworldly. Either way I want to know, when the American people deserve to know what the hell it is.”
Comer, James Jr.
Kentucky–Republican
Term: 2016-Present
Committee on Oversight and Accountability (2016-Present; Chairman 2023-Present)
June 22, 2023
Representative Comer interviewed by Matt Laslo on the upcoming subcommittee hearing on UAP.
“So [Reps. Tim] Burchett and [Anna Paulina] Luna, on my committee, are the two that are kinda taking the lead in that. It’s interesting. It’s not an issue I’m an expert in so I don’t know anything about it, but apparently Burchett and Luna are so they’re really excited and our staffs are real excited about it. We’re having to do background checks on some of the witnesses. It’s been interesting. We’re going to do it. There’s a lot of witnesses. It’s pretty amazing some of the background checks we’re getting back on some of these folks. I know that we had to reshuffle the deck on a few witnesses because of some issues…. An old trick in oversight is: whoever the minority witness is or whoever the majority is, first thing the other side does is background checks on ‘em to see if they’ve ever been accused of being a racist or if they have a felony, you know what I mean. 99.9% of the time, nothing comes back. But some of these cats have had some pretty interesting background checks.”
September 16, 2023
Representative Comer interviewed by Matt Laslo about the UAP select committee: “Well, I think that’s fine. There’s a lot of people interested in that. .. I’m fine with it. I could care less. … I’m fine with it because we can’t have a UAP hearing every week. We’ve got too many things going on especially now. I think it should be under the Science Committee though, because we probably don’t have the right staff for that. … I would vote for it.”
House Oversight Committee (2015-Present; subcommitteeChairman 2023-Present)
July 26, 2023
From Representative Grothman’s opening statement on UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“…curiosity and speculation from all walks of life have generated interest in studying what UAPs are and what threats
that they may pose. I will say that when I was younger in school I read a book, a 1966 book called Flying Saucers Serious Business, and for a while when I was a little bit younger I thought it was the most important issue out there. The lack of a transparency regarding UAPs, which was one of the themes of that book, has fueled wild speculation and debate for decades, eroding public trust in the very institutions that are meant to serve and protect them.”
There is 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 … Today we’ll see clarity from these Witnesses’ testimonies as to what can be done to improve reporting for military and civilians and remain committed to objective inquiry. Congress should work to ensure that knowledge is not driven by fear. Today we are not just debating the existence of UAPs, we are deliberating on the principles that define our Republic, which is a commitment to transparency.”
“Thank you all for being here today. Mr chairman, thank you I’d like to one more time thank Mr Burchett, Ms Luna for bringing this to our attention it’s a topic that has interest me since I was in school it was a very Illuminating hearing. Obviously I think several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this. I think we’re going to want to look into what we can do to make more of this information public. I think there’s certainly a time period after which it should always be made public and people have been concerned about these issues like I said since I was in high school [1969-73].”
July 28, 2023
Representative Grothman was interviewed by Wisconsin Public Radio about his committee’s UFO hearing:
“We had a couple congressmen who were very adamant that they wanted to have a hearing. There’s a congressman who hasn’t come forward yet, but he told me he had seen one of these things when he was a child. So given that there were a couple passionate congressmen who wanted this hearing, we decided to give it to them.”
“I last visited this, and I’m not kidding, in Middle School when I read a long book. And it was kind of like today, there were a small number of people who said they saw what at the time we called UFOs, and they felt the government wasn’t taking it seriously, and a lot of people were seeing them but weren’t coming forward for fear of ridicule, and at the time the government said well we can’t divulge this for national security reasons. So we’ve got all these closed files, people can’t look at them. It was the same thing on Wednesday.”
“I think there should be legislation saying they have to release these files eventually. We went through a period in the late 1960s, the early ’70s in which there were a lot of rumors that these things were out there. As far as I know to this day the files are not released on what pilots saw in the 60s and 70s. So, I think if you go back fifteen years or whatever, these things should be released… The big thing is “a little more transparency from the military”
“Is it something that other nations have developed that we are nowhere near developing? We ought to know that. And if it is something from outer space, and there are other people monitoring us, well, we ought to know that.”
“I’ve received more phone calls on this and more press attention than I have for all the hearings I’ve held… If there are a couple dozen people who have seen things high up in the sky going at rapid rates, and stopping on a dime, let’s face it, if that is true, that is incredibly significant, isn’t it? For all the other headlines out in the paper for the last year, if we’re being visited from another galaxy, I guess that’s the news story of the year.”
“This stuff has been around a long time. Maybe Congress hasn’t had the hearings on it, but the idea that certain pilots are saying that they see this strange stuff has been around since I was in elementary school.”
August 6, 2023
Representative Grothman interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News:
“I’ve since had a conversation with someone who’s involved with the Department of Defense who insists our military is withholding information on this. So while it seems like an off-beat thing for Congress to focus on this, it’s high time we did.”
Representative Garcia interviewed by The Los Angeles Times about the upcoming UAP hearing:
“There’s a lot of information we don’t know, and so I think that it’s really important that we have this hearing publicly.”
“He [Burchett] has a perspective on this, which is fine. My job as the ranking member on the Democratic side is to ensure that we have a hearing that is responsible, that is serious, and that centers national security, and I will make sure working with my subcommittee chair that that’s the type of hearing that we hold.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Garcia’s opening statement and questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“The sheer number of reports, whistleblowers and stories of unidentified anomalous phenomena should raise real questions and warrant investigation and oversight and that’s why we are here today. Pilots have reported encounters for years now. Because of the stigma around reporting these incidents we still don’t have a complete picture of actually what’s going on, particularly as our witnesses will testify on the civilian side and that is a real problem that we have today.”
“If we are to advance oversight and public disclosure, we must also gain the broad support of the public. We will succeed getting facts out to the public faster if there is a broad public support as part of the process.”
“I encourage all of my colleagues to engage with these difficult questions with an open mind and to follow the facts on behalf of our country. I also just want to say more broadly that we should look at this hearing and believe that everything is on the table as it relates to UAPs. I think an open mind is absolutely the best.”
“One of the things that I found fascinating in our discussion, Mr [Ryan] Graves last night as well, is that you’ve both [David Fravor] described UAPs and formations and the way they have they are observed in space or or in our air and the way that they move essentially in ways in which current technology, or aircraft that we know of, are unable to actually function or move, and so will you just for the public record again briefly just either describe or note that aircraft that are being witnessed, particularly by the 30 folks that you’re working with, are essentially outside the scope of anything that we know of today in the technology we have today.”
“I know that some of you have also said some of these answers in the past. We’re trying to get them on the public record as well which is
really important. Mr Grusch finally do you believe that our government is in possession of UAPs… and where?”
“We have to continue our investigation and accountability on asking the right questions and ensuring that they’re part of the public record.”
”It’s important also that our friends in the media and those that are not just reporting on this hearing but that reporter on this topic that may in the future the media has an important role in this process and it’s very important that the media engages does independent investigation and reports on not just what happened today but what they what they see independently as what has happened around UAPs in the broader community. That is also an important public benefit that we have in trying to get the information and the facts as it relates to this. Let me also just say finally that as a teacher and an educator, a long time teacher and researcher that I also really believe in following facts, in doing your homework, and making sure that you follow science. As we try to get as much information as possible and so I want to thank you all for for agreeing to do that today. Transparency is a Cornerstone of government. We live in a vast Galaxy a lot of unanswered questions.”
August 6, 2023
Representative Garcia interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News: It’s up to us [Congress] to get to the bottom of it. There’s a lot of information that came out. And while the government can certainly agree that there are a lot of UAP that we can explain, there are many that we cannot. … The American people deserve transparency and disclosure here, and there are unanswered questions.”
April 9, 2024
Rep. Garcia tweets: “The role of Congress to seek the truth and disclosure about UAPs is a critical responsibility that should be taken seriously. Democrats don’t control the House or the hearing schedule. We continue to ask for more public UAP hearings from the GOP leadership. It’s time.”
From Representative Raskin’s questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“So I take it that you’re arguing what we need is real transparency in a reporting system so we can get some clarity on what’s going on out there because there are many pilots in your situation, but we should have a way of developing a systematic inventory of all of such encounters, is that right?”
“I hope you [Grusch] understand that there would be bipartisan rejection of any attempt uh to vilify demonize or engage in other reprisals against our witnesses and people who are telling the truth from their perspective
What is your [David Fravor] general interpretation of these phenomena, or what is your current thinking of trying to make sense of them?”
“Have you formed any general conclusions about what you think you experienced then?”
Gravor: Yes. I think what we experienced was like I said well beyond the Material Science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently, or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years?”
Representative Raskin tells Matt Laslo: “There [were] a lot of people getting in touch with me, telling me I had to come and check it out. I did what I could to read up on it, and, obviously, I’m a real newcomer to the field so I’m gonna be reading more into it.
“You saw I asked about that. It seemed like sometimes Mr. Grusch could testify freely and in detail, and then other times he didn’t. So I would be interested to hear more fulsome testimony in a SCIF… I can assure you from what members were saying that there will be a meeting in the SCIF with him to go over all those questions that remain unanswered.”
September 14, 2023
Representative Raskin tells Matt Laslo: “Oh, yeah. I don’t know what’s happening with that. I’ll find out. I think that was certainly a far more valuable use of our time then this faux impeachment investigation.”
From Representative Fox’s questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“Mr Grusch, in your sworn testimony you state that the United States government has retrieved supposedly extraterrestrial spacecraft and other UAP related artifacts. You go so far as to state that the U.S is in possession of quote “non-human spacecraft” end quote, and that some of these artifacts have circulated with defense contractors. Several other former military and intelligence officials have come forward with similar allegations albeit in non-public settings, however Dr Sean Kirkpatrick the director of AARO previously testified before Congress that there has been and I quote “no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity” or of quote “off-world technology” brought to the attention of the office. To your knowledge is that statement correct? … this contradiction is a perfect example of why we need to inject transparency into our government. And for another example look no further than the pitiful response to the Chinese spy balloon debacle… It’s my Hope Mr chairman that this sort of confusion will not be repeated. We should investigate the extent to which elements of our government possess or do not possess information that is of critical value to the American people. We owe it to the citizens of this nation to make sure that our government is transparent and accountable. We must make sure that our government provides answers, and Congress must do its duty to solicit those answers.”
Frost, Maxwell Alejandro
Florida–Democrat
Term: 2023-Present
July 26, 2023
From Representative Frost questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“NASA administrator Bill Nelson stated that NASA would begin to investigate these events. In fact I sit on Science and Technology committee and when we were doing a hearing with the NASA administrator Bill Nelson I asked why NASA needed to be fully funded, and there were many great reasons but one of them was actually had to do with UAPs. I mean he actually mentioned you know is there life out there, I don’t know. And so either way these actions ultimately led NASA to assemble the independent study team that I mentioned earlier. Also in 2021 Harvard University stood up the Galileo Project to research and examine the origins of UAP so it seems like both you know from NASA and in the higher education Community because of the work that you all have done and people standing up you know I think we’re seeing some of that stigma slowly going away.”
I couldn’t imagine–you know I’m not a pilot, but I used to fly gliders in Civil Air Patrol–I mean I couldn’t imagine you know being in the glider and seeing something and then not feeling like I had the agency to talk about it.”
“I think it’s important that we keep our top scientific Minds focused on this issue and look for ways to increase collaboration.”
From Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“When it comes to notification that you [David Grusch] had mentioned about IRAD programs, we have seen defense contractors abuse their contracts before through this committee. I have seen it personally and I have also seen the notification requirements to Congress abused. I am wondering one of the loopholes that we see in the law is that there is at least from my vantage point is that depending on what we’re seeing is that there are no actual definitions or requirements for notification. What methods of notification did you observe, like when they say they notified Congress, how did they do that? Do you have insight into that?… To put a finer point on it when there is a requirement for any agency or company to notify or any agency to notify Congress do they contact the chairman of a committee do they get them on the phone specifically is this through an email to hypothetically a dead email box?”
“For the record, if you were me, where would you look? Titles, programs, departments, regions–if you could just name anything.”
July 29, 2023
Representative Ocasio-Cortez speaks about UAP in a social media post: “Let me start off the whole UAP discussion just by stating the obvious. Which is that people don’t trust the government. And why would you? I mean a lot of our budget is like five defense contractors in a trench coat asking for a trillion dollars. So you know when you don’t have universal health care but you spend $800 billion dollars a year that can’t pass an audit, I don’t trust it either. That’s why I sit on the oversight committee.”
Committee on Space, Science, and Technology (2017-2020)
Oversight Committee (2021-Present)
July 26, 2023
From Representative Biggs questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
I’m going to take you to specific instances around the Phoenix Valley because that’s where I live. In ‘97 we had the famous Phoenix Lights case. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with that. There were two things that went along with that, and the explanation was military training range off Luke [Air Force Base] and the Barry Goldwater range. Do you know anything different other than the official explanation of those lights?… If we wanted to find out more about that where would we go to find the files, and who would we address–and are you gonna tell me we need to go to a skiff so you can tell us in a skiff?”
“Do you believe that the 2019 classification guidelines for UAPs interferes with the federal government’s ability to be transparent with the American people, and do you think we need to be more transparent with the American people?”
David Fravor: in my opinion I will say things are over classified I know for a fact the video or the pictures that came out in the 20 things 2020 report that had the stuff off the east coast they were taken with an iPhone off the east coast a buddy of mine was one of the senior people there and he said they’re originally classified a tssci and my question to him was what’s tssci about these they’re an iPhone right literally off the vacapes that’s not tssci so they’re over classified and as soon as they do that they go in a vault and then you all have to look for them.”
“Over classification that may be one way. Are there other ways that the DOD or intelligence agencies are keeping this information from the American people or even from Congress?”
From Representative Langworthy questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
Asked a series of writness corroborate questions of David Fravor
“From what you saw that day and what you’ve seen on video did you see any source of propulsion from the flying object including on any potential thermal scans from your aircraft?”
“In your career have you ever seen a propulsion system that creates no thermal exhaust?”
“Now if the fastest plane on Earth was trying to do these Maneuvers that you saw would it be capable of doing that?”
“If the aircraft was armed do you believe that your aircraft or any aircraft in possession of the United States could have shot the Tic Tac down?”
“It looks like we have a problem here that needs further investigation.” [laughter in hearing room]
“In your belief is this flying Tic Tac, I mean is this is it capable of being the product of any other Nation on the Earth?”
From Representative Ogles questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“Is there any indication that these UAPs could be essentially collecting reconnaissance information? Is it possible that these UAPs would be
probing our capabilities, yes or no?”
“Do you feel based off of your experience and the information that you’ve been privy to that these UAPs provide an existential threat to the National Security of the United States?”
“Based off of the information that you’ve been privy to is there any indication that these UAPs are interested in our nuclear technology and capabilities?”
“Is there any indication that Department of Energy is involved in UAP data collection and housing?”
“There clearly is a threat to the national security of the United States of America. As members of Congress we have a responsibility to maintain oversight and be aware of these activities so that if appropriate we take action. I would encourage the chairman to demand that we have any and all, but in particular Mr Grusch, talk to us in a skiff and if that access is denied I will personally volunteer to initiate the Holmen rule against any personnel or any program or any agency that denies act access to Congress.”
August 22, 2023
Representative Ogles and five other members of the House submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
Representative Jackson delivers remarks to his constituents on the July 26 House UAP hearing. He was not on the committee, but chose to attend the hearing.
The number one question I’ve been getting from all of you is, ‘Hey Jeff, what’s up with the aliens?’ …The third witness was Mr. Grusch, and he’s become well known for making much larger claims… His big claim is that our government has retrieved UAP and has a whole program dedicated to reverse engineering the technology. He doesn’t claim to have seen any UAPs with his own eyes. He’s saying that he’s spoken to a lot of people involved in this program and that he has a lot of documents. The frustrating part of the hearing was that he didn’t provide any evidence or any details and said he could only do that in a classified setting. …
I’m a natural skeptic of extraordinary claims, as we all should be, but he’s a former military Intel officer and the way I see it, if he’s got more to say then the least we can do is put him in a secure room so he can say it. My bet is that will end up happening. As of now, the only new feature of his testimony is that it was under oath, which means if he’s lying, it’s a crime. …
On this day, the UAP day, the committee was almost totally nonpartisan. It was fascinating to see how members of both parties act when there was no clear partisan angle. Everyone was basically rational and respectful, even the members known for being pretty extreme. It was kind of great. Now you know everything I know about this, and I’ll keep you posted.
Responding to Matt Laslo about the Schumer UAP Disclosure Act now in conference: “I understand a lot of the language is duplicative of existing language. We’re sorting through it. We’ll figure it out.”
Committee on Intelligence; Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee (Ranking Member 2021-Present)
May 10, 2022
“With China and Russia developing hypersonic weapons and the Biden administration leaking alleged US military operations in Ukraine, we have far more serious intelligence threats than flying saucers.” [Source: CNN]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Crawford leads the following line of questioning:
Despite the serious nature of this topic, I have to say I’m more interested in our understanding of Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapon development…in as much as this topic may help us better understand unknown activities of Russia and China, I am on board.
This is not about finding alien spacecraft, but about delivering dominant intelligence across the tactical, operational, and strategic spectrum.
…how do you prevent leaks of potentially classified videos or other material? [Source: Hearing Transcript]
Committee on Intelligence (2013-Present; Ranking Member 2023-Present)
June 25, 2021
“They’re very sensitive to, if this is an adversary, you want to be really careful about saying, ‘we know this and we don’t know that. The report [UAP Preliminary Report] is going to be a little unsatisfying for that reason and that reason alone.” [Source: CNN]
May 17, 2022
During the open hearing on UAP with Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence), Representative Schiff leads the following line of questioning:
“…my point is that an observation, either a visual observation [from a jet aircraft] or an electronic observation, infrared or whatever, looks radically different than it does to most people. Even instruments, instruments are on gimbals and that sort of thing, so that creates a very unusual view to, again, those of us who are used to seeing things in two dimensions largely. And second question, I think Mr. Bray, you said something that I want to unpack a little bit. A number of these UAPs you said we can’t explain. Again in the service of sort of reducing speculation and conspiracy theories, ‘we can’t explain’ can range from a visual observation that was distant on a foggy night, we don’t know what it is, to we’ve found an organic material that we can’t identify, right? Those are radically different worlds. So when you say ‘we can’t explain,’ give the public a little bit better sense of where on that spectrum of ‘we can’t explain’ we are. Are we holding materials, organic or inorganic, that we don’t know about? Are we picking up emanations that are something other than light or infrared that it could be deemed to be communications? Give us a sense for what you mean when you say we can’t explain.” [Source: Hearing Transcript]
February 12, 2023
NPR Interview on the balloon shoot-downs:
Now, my theory is – and this is where it gets pretty speculative, but it’s informed speculation. I’m thinking back last year to when we had the hearings on what we’re supposed to call UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomas – most people call them UFOs. And what I learned in that hearing is that there is an immense amount of garbage up there, all kinds of balloons. You don’t have to be a nation-state to launch a balloon. You know, there are folks launching weather balloons, Wi-Fi balloons, you name it. And now we’re just particularly sensitized to it. And we also happen to have a lot of our military radars and that sort of thing doing something that they’re not used to doing, which is looking for balloons. So I think because we’re really looking hard, we’re seeing a lot of this garbage. And when it incurs – when it – when there’s an incursion into civil aviation space, I think, at that point, the authorities say, boy, we’d better do something about this.
“WHAT WOULD BLOW YOUR MIND IS THE AMOUNT OF GARBAGE DRIFTING AROUND UP THERE IN AN AWFUL LOT, I’M SORRY TO SAY, an awful lot of what people think are UFOs is just garbage. I DIDN’T KNOW THIS BEFORE THE [May 2022] UFO HEARING, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO CALL IT UAP, UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENON. I’m not really sure why that is. YOU CAN EXPLAIN MOST OF THE STUFF PEOPLE SEE BECAUSE, THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PUTS UP A COUPLE HUNDRED BALLOONS EVERY DAY AND THEY DON’T COLLECT THEM ALL. ANYWAY, THE OTHER THREE THINGS. There is a Michigan balloon weather operators club that put something up and lost it. Most of it is garbage.”
“WE’VE GOT THE NAVY IN THE LEAD POSITION LOOKING AT WHAT THESE THINGS ARE BECAUSE IT’S LARGELY PILOTS THAT ARE IN F-18 OR F-35S ONLY SEE THESE THINGS, UNCLE JOE ON THE PORCH AFTER A COUPLE BOURBONS SEE THESE TOO BUT WE TRUST THE NAVY PILOTS WERE SEEING THESE THINGS AND THEY HAVE SENSORS SO IT’S NOT JUST WHAT THEY SEE. IF A SENSOR PICKED SOMETHING UP YOU KNOW THERE’S SOMETHING THERE. SO HERE’S THE INTERESTING ANSWER YOUR QUESTION. IF YOU GO THROUGH THE COUPLE HUNDRED INCIDENTS WHERE A PILOT’s THE SENSORS PICKED IT UP. WE CAN EXPLAIN ALMOST ALL OF IT. IN OTHER WORDS, IT WAS A WEATHER BALLOON, ANOTHER PLANE. I’M NOT A PILOT BUT WHEN YOU’RE A PILOT MOVING AT HIGH SPEEDS AND THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE COMING AT YOU, THINGS LOOK STRANGE. AT NIGHT, OVER THE OCEAN. WE CAN EXPLAIN ALMOST EVERYTHING. THIS CAME OUT IN THE HEARING. THERE STILL A FEW THINGS THAT WE ARE NOT SURE ABOUT.”
April 21, 2023
Representative Himes participates in a briefing at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. The purpose of the briefing was to ensure that intelligence officials are knowledgeable about activities occurring at Wright-Patterson, which houses the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) and National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC).
“Historic… I don’t recall the committee ever doing anything like this.” [Source: MARCA News]
June 6, 2023
Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier interview, when asked about David Grusch allegations: “We did have a hearing, in fact we have had two hearings in the last couple of years on this subject,” Himes told Baier. “And I asked a question in the second hearing, because of course we hear this kind of notion that has been out there forever that the United States government is hiding materials that we are hiding aliens or whatever. I asked a very specific question which is do we have any sort of matter, organic or inorganic or whatever, that we can’t explain as to its source. Now this was a year, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, and the answer was an unequivocal no.”
June 29, 2023
Representative Himes responded to Matt Laslo’s question about David Grush allegations: We haven’t really done anything with it yet. Staff is sort of looking into the situation, but we haven’t done anything officially with it yet. I mean, you know, we did hearings on this less than two years ago. I was assured by all of the various units that there was no material. No organic or inorganic material that they were hiding or anything else, so I’m skeptical.”
September 20, 2023
Representative Himes tells Matt Laslo, “No discussion at all,” regarding the House Intelligence Committee taking interest in UAP.
December 13, 2023
Rep. Himes responds on Twitter to the accusation that he was “reportedly running around during the NDAA conference committee and making last minute efforts to lobby for removal of the most important enforcement and oversight provisions from the original Schumer-Rounds amendment”:
“Hey Nicholas. I run my own Twitter. And I have not said a word about UAPs or associated measures in the NDAA or anywhere else. Don’t think I’ve even mentioned them in the last few months. That was the deal I was forced to strike with
Representative Burlison participates in a press conference that announces an upcoming House Oversight hearing on UFOs.
“I’ll start out by saying that I’m a skeptic on a lot of stuff. Um I come from a computer science background and finance background, so I tend to err on the side of things that I can see and touch. Um, and I don’t, I don’t give to, into conspiracies, but too often the federal government works outside of the public eye and in conspiracies and rumors tend to flourish in places where the federal government is silent or not transparent. The American people deserve to know what their tax dollars are funding and what the government knows. That’s just plain and simple. The other, the other thing I think is important is that our servicemen and women who are risking their lives for this country and are encountering these devices. We, we owe it to them to find out what, what is in the air that might potentially harm their lives. What’s disturbing is when you hear about the accounts of 14 near misses in air next week’s hearing is about transparency. Like many Americans, I read David Grusch’s story when it first came out and watched the TV. Interviews. I was struck by the sheer amount of detail. So I was able to contact him and hear directly from him in a in AAA lengthy phone call interview. And after speaking with him, I was convinced that the American people deserve to hear from him directly. That’s why I asked Chairman Comer to hold this hearing. And I’m grateful that the chairman has decided to hold a hearing so that we can ask questions and get the answers that the American people deserve. It is time for transparency and I’ll say one more thing, it’s the responsibility of members on oversight to do. This is our job.”
July 26, 2023
From Representative Burilson questioning during the UAP hearing for the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Hearing.
“Look I’ve been here for six months and I’m pretty skeptical I don’t trust anything in this town, and so I and I think that’s because I’m from Missouri. You’ve got to show me.”
“You’ve said that U.S and has intact spacecraft. You said that the government has alien bodies or alien species. Have you seen the spacecraft… Have you seen any of the bodies?”
“My my view has been that we are billions of light years away from any any other system, and the concept that an alien species that’s technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive Earth or crashes is something that I find a little bit far-fetched. And with that being said you have mentioned that there’s interdimensional potential could you expound on that …but you have not seen any documentation that that’s what’s occurring?”
“Occam’s razor—is that these aircraft, have they been identified that they are being produced by domestic, you know military and contractors? Is there any evidence that that’s what’s being recovered?”
August 22, 2023
Representative Burlison and five other members of the House submit a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, requesting names and locations of any UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs.
October 26, 2023
Representative Burilson was interviewed after a classified UAP briefing in a SCIF.
Burilson: “Tim [Burchett] and I may have have different views on what we are seeing. But people are seeing something. What is it? How much money are we spending on this technology? And what concerns me is that, what it appears to be is somebody has discovered something—some advanced form of propulsion or technology—that might actually change all of our lives, maybe for the better. But clearly it’s in an experimental phase or we’re experimenting with it. And I want to know to what extent and how much we are spending.”
The Daily Wire interviewed Burlison and reported the following:
Asked if “some degree of answers were provided based on what was alleged,” Burlison replied, “Some degree — but, and it’s really frustrating because I can’t say what was said, but I’ll just say, my viewpoint about the UAP phenomenon has not changed. My worldview of what we’re seeing, what we’re experiencing, is that it’s likely U.S. experimental, whether it’s from the private sector or being done through a black operation within the Department of Defense or Energy.”
He also commented: “I’ll just say this: UFOs are not keeping me up at night. They weren’t before, and after this meeting, they weren’t. They aren’t now. I told a constituent that what keeps me up at night is the national debt, the war in Ukraine, and the war in Israel, and the potential for World War III. And so there’s nothing that shattered my worldview today.”
November 8, 2023
Represetnative Burlison introduced an amendment to allow UFO Whistleblower David Grusch to renew his security clearance, which has lapsed. He said in part: “We need to cover all possible angles here. If we can get Mr. Grusch in a SCIF with an active security clearance that would go a long way.”
Burilson then did an 30 minute interview with John Michael Godier’s Event Horizon You Tube show:
“There’s generally the sense of no one is responsible for UAPs, no one is responsible for tracking down reports, and what we continually hear is ‘it’s not in the mission of our agency to do that.’
“Of all the things that Grusch said, one of the things that I can believe for certain–and I’m not saying I don’t believe everything he said, what I am saying is I’m a skeptic. But what Im not a skeptic about is government waste and government spending. It’s very easy to see, one of the things he talked about is some of the contractors overbill and are allowed to over bill so they can work on the next projects. I have a feeling that that’s probably likely happening.”
“Based on what I have, from my worldview, so far seen and heard, I am yet to be convincned that what were seeing is an alien species from another solar systems somewhere lightyears away. I have a hard time believing that. I think it’s more likely what we are seeing is more advanced technology that is being generating here on Earth… That’s what I suspect it is. I think there is a reluctance to–look if they discovered a way to manipulate the Higg’s field, and use an aircraft to do it, that would be a game changer, and you would not want that technology to end up in the wrong hands. I would see why you would want to keep that under sever lock and key.”
“We have not been able to identify who might know what is going on. We’ve got another Inspector General hearing that’s coming up. And then additionally, the Inspector General for the Department of Defense now is going to have another meeting in the SCIF with us where they are going to allow us to read the Grusch report.”
“I do not discount and I do not discredit the videos that these pilots have taken and the footage that they have. And if you watch those videos, for example the Tic Tac, it is clearly operating and moving through airspace in a different way than a jet engine would. To me that suggests there has been some advancement. You’d have to come to the conclusion that that is real, that thing is real, and that footage is real. Clearly, it’s alien advanced technology or it’s us. And I’m of the latter. I believe it’s probably us.”
One of the interesting things that I have learned being up here, as a member of Congress we qualify for the highest level of security clearance, but no matter who you are or how qualified you are, you still have to be a need-to-know.If you don’t have a need-to-no, they’re not required to disclose anything to you.”
“It could be an effort to convince Congress to spend more money to catch up. You never know.”
“I think people should know. Anything this life changing that alters people’s worldview, I think it’s unacceptable to withhold that from the American people…. If we do discover that this points toward some extraterrestrial being, then I think that we owe it to the world to tell them.”
November 9, 2023
Representative Burlison tweets a link to his Event Horizon interview: “The American people deserve to learn the truth about what UAPs are and I’m going to do everything in my power to shine a light on the darkness.”
November 13, 2023
Representative Burlison interviewed by News Nation: “If we continue to get pushed on getting Grusch into a SCIF, then I’m going to think there is a red flag there… We may be in a situation where there are no alien bodies, there is no spacecraft, and to continue to pursue it is to put us in a position where we are today, the different departments denying that they are involved in these programs, that they don’t know what we’re referring to… I haven’t seen anything that’s compelling me to believe that they’re trying to deny us access…. But if they don’t allow us to see the report, they don’t allow us to have access to bring Grusch into a SCIF, then I’m going to start raising alarms that something is being hidden from Congress.”
April 10, 2024
Rep. Burlison reveals upcoming AARO briefing in response to Matt Laslo question: How do you guys make it [UAP investigation in Congress] a priority?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to plow forward with what tools I have, which is why I’m organizing this briefing from AARO in a SCIF. I’m doubtful that we’re going to hear the truth from them, but at least, I think, that we just need to keep the ball rolling. We need to keep moving the ball forward.”
NSA can’t even keep basic secrets when employees go rogue that I highly doubt the government could keep spaceships and alien bodies a secret. Still waiting for any whistleblower to disclose the address of where the aliens are. Also, why are aliens always showing up in America?
House Intelligence Committee (2015-Present; Chair 2023-Present)
“Gang of Eight” (2023-Present)
June 6, 2023
Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier interview: “Bret, this has been a story since the 1960s. Really every decade there have been individuals who have said that the United States has such pieces of unidentified flying objects that are from outer space. There is no evidence of this. And certainly, there (would) be quite a conspiracy for this to be maintained, especially at this level.” [Source: Dayton Daily News]
June 13, 2023
Matt Laslo goes to press with his article in Wired containing many quotes from members of Congress about recent UFO developments, especially allegations made by David Grusch in the article for The Debrief: “That’s why one of [Rep. Mike] McCaul’s first reactions to the article was to forward it to the House Intelligence Committee chair, Mike Turner, whose office didn’t reply to multiple requests for comment.
July 30, 2023
Fox News Interview: “I always love it when you have someone who comes forward and testifies about things that they don’t know anything about. The most striking aspect of all of the testimony, was repeatedly over and over the whistleblowers had to say, actually I don’t have any knowledge of this, someone else told me that. Really, this would take thousands and thousands of people for such an unbelievable coverup to be occurring. For people to speak with such confidence over something that they do not know, is something that I think everybody needs to be concerned about.”
“I certainly can’t tell you there are no aliens here, I can tell you that there is no evidence of what the gentlemen is testifying about. He said himself personally, he has no direct knowledge.”
September 27, 2023
Representative Turner is asked by Matt Laslo, “Curious, any update on UAP investigations and stuff?”
Turner: “I don’t do ambush interviews. Call my office.”
“What I really find interesting about what I call the pro-alien caucus over here in the House… you would think that if this is that important of an issue to them, at least one member of the House who’s, you know, advancing this cause would actually come up and substantively talk to me about this issue. No one has even raised it.”
Speaker McCarthy responds to a UFO question at his weekly press conference: “If we had found a UFO I think the Department of Defense would tell us, because they’d probably want to request more money. So I’d love to see whatever facts and information we have. I’m very supportive of letting the American people see what we have.”
Representative Bacon responding to a question about UFOs: “I don’t believe in them. I’ve never seen one. If I did, I’d have shot it down,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a former Air Force pilot and retired brigadier general, with a laugh.
Hearing Room of the May 17 Congressional Hearing on UAP
If you only listened to the congressmen during the May 17 open hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, you would get the impression that this was an historic hearing about a long-standing mystery that has captured the public’s imagination. The representatives spoke about all of the “most fascinating questions” and “tremendous interest” and “hype and speculation” swirling around the topic. There would be no doubt that you were listening to a conversation, at one of the highest levels of government, about alien visitors from outer space. One of these politicians even said so. “It’s a big universe,” Representative Welch said, “people think there must be extraterrestrial life, and it’s not at all beyond the pale that there would be a visit here.”
There would be no doubt that you were listening to a congressional hearing about UFOs.
You would not get that impression at all if you only listened to the two DOD officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, answering the congressmen’s questions. You would think you were hearing a dry, pro-forma status report from some bureaucratic arrangement in an uninteresting, outer-ring office of the Pentagon that had to do with something related to computers. They spoke at length about their “standardized reporting process” and “data integration” and “multi-sensor collections” and “dissemination trains” and “sensor phenomenology.” They showed odd video snippets of indecipherable shapes and colors. They were not there to discuss UFOs at all.
In the worldview of Scott Bray and Ronald Moultrie, there is no such thing as UFOs. There are only “sensor artifacts” and “insufficient data.”
Claims of the stigma’s demise have been greatly exaggerated
The social function of a stigma is to block a taboo topic from being discussed in respectable, public conversation, and to keep certain ideas deemed dangerous or inconvenient from spreading through the body politic. Once a stigma has outlived its usefulness, the antidote for getting rid of it is to engage in free and open discussion of the formerly taboo topic. Once others see that this kind of talk does not transform the speaker into a social pariah, they feel comfortable joining the conversation.
The UFO stigma–open discussion of the possibility that UFOs are alien spaceships visiting the Earth–is dissolving for the public, the media, and the political class. Not so much at the Pentagon. The May 17 hearing is evidence that the UFO stigma is still strong among the military leaders whose job it is to solve the UFO mystery.
One expressed purpose of the hearing was to assure military personnel that they will face no stigma for reporting UAP. Chairman Schiff stated: “UAP reports have been around for decades, and yet we haven’t had an orderly way for them to be reported without stigma and to be investigated. That needs to change.”
Moultrie concurred: “Our goal is to eliminate the stigma by fully incorporating our operators and mission personnel into a standardized data-gathering process.
As did Bray: “The message is now clear, if you see something, you need to report it.”
But ordering military personnel to say something if they see something strange is not the same thing as dismantling the stigma. Just look at how two of those reports were treated in the hearing, when Bray showed the videos made by Navy personnel.
Imagine if you were the airman who became so intrigued or concerned by the silver sphere whipping around his plane that he took out a phone to record it, only to have the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence use that video to demonstrate how “many cases” have a “limited amount of high quality data.” This video, which showed the sphere for only a few frames, was used as a prop to make the point to Congress that most UAP reports are essentially nothing, that they contain “too little data to create a reasonable explanation.”
Scott Bray pointing out the spherical UAP
The airman surely knows there is more to the sighting than that, if only because he saw it with his own eyes for a time before he decided to get his phone out and record. He also knows that there is more actual data on the sphere that Bray chose not to share. Chairman Schiff also knows this to be true, which is why he asked, “is this a situation where it was observed by the pilot and it was also recorded by the aircraft’s instruments?” Bray’s answer: “We’ll talk about the multi-sensor part in a later [closed-door] session.”
Bray is not saying (yet) that this airman misidentified a high-altitude balloon, but he strongly implied it when he explained that pilots express “a lot of different impressions about how quickly something is or isn’t moving.” He explained: “That aircraft is moving quite fast. How fast that object is moving that goes by is probably very slow.”
Hearing all this, does that ariman and his colleagues feel like the stigma has lifted?
Imagine you were the Navy officer who filmed the triangle-shaped UAP through night vision goggles, and you hear Bray explain that you were fooled by a trick of light caught on the SLR camera. Your boss just went on national TV, before the public and some of the most powerful people in the government, and called you a fool.
This does not even account for the reporting of Jeremy Corbell (who was named dropped by Representative Carson in the opening to this very hearing) which suggests the triangles were in fact flying pyramids seen by the naked eye. All of the many military personnel who know they have seen anomalous, inexplicable objects cannot help but take cues from this testimony. What they heard from Moultrie and Bray is a direct order to report, followed by the implication that nine times out of ten they are going to be told that they did not in fact see what they think they saw. This is not conducive to lessening stigma.
UAP are not UFOs
Another indication that the UFO stigma remains strong is the DOD’s allergic avoidance of every aspect of the historical record of UFOs.
The congressmen intentionally couched their hearing in the proper historical context. “UAP reports have been around for decades,” Schiff said. Carson praised citizen ufologists who “have been collecting data on this issue for years.” They repeatedly pointed out this is the first congressional hearing on UFOs in over fifty years, the last of which coincided with the termination of the Air Force’s long-running UFO study programs called Project Blue Book. The congressmen asked about such programs and famous UFO cases.
To Moultrie and Bray, that is all besides the point. Moultrie is merely “familiar with Blue Book.” Bray has “heard stories.” He added, “All I can speak to is what’s within my cognizant at the UAP task force.”
The Pentagon began officially collecting UFO reports as early as January 1947. But as far as Bray is concerned, all this UAP trouble started in “the early 2000s” when there began to be “an increase in the number of new systems such as quadcopters and unmanned aerial systems that are in our airspace.” This is a logical assumption, which will sound like common sense to the public–but only if you don’t know anything about the history of UFO sightings since the 1940s, or you assume all those stories are bunk.
Moultrie even make the argument that paying any attention to classic UFO cases would be a dangerous distraction for the DOD:
“[T]racking what may be in the media that says that something occurred at this time at this place, there are probably be a lot of leads that we would have to follow up on. I don’t think we have the resource to do that right now… And anything that diverts us off of what we have with the resources that have been allocated to us, send us off in these spurious chases and hunts that are just not helpful.”
Translation: we’re not UFO hunters.
Bray also put light-years of distance between his work on the UAP Task Force and UFOs. In his opening statement he said, “This is a popular topic in our nation with various theories as to what these objects may be and where they originate.” He then spent the rest of his testimony suggesting that those popular theories were almost certainly wrong. Squashing the idea that UAP might be interplanetary craft, he said, “we have no material, we have detected no emanations within the UAP task force that would suggest it’s anything non-terrestrial in origin.”
UAP are not alien
The little green men stigma is also in evidence during the hearing.
Despite assurances that no conclusions have been drawn and every option is on the table, Moultrie and Bray do not talk as though they really mean it. This is especially true about the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Congressman Welch asked point blank about alien visitors. He framed the question by saying, “It’s a big universe… it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there is some exploration coming here, and that underlies a lot of the reports you get.” Then he asked, “How do you separate your responsibilities, where you get all these reports from folks who may be in good faith, maybe not, believe that you should be investigating every possible report of a extraterrestrial incident?”
Moultrie’s answer was to place responsibility for the extraterrestrial question on other agencies, such as NASA: “There are elements in our government that are engaged in looking for life in other places, and they have been doing that for decades. They’ve been searching for extraterrestrial life. There are astrobiologists who have been doing this too.”
Moultrie justified passing the buck in this way when he reiterated to Welch that he is only concerned about “what may be out there… from a defense perspective, any national security implications or ramifications.” He added that DOD would “work with organizations as appropriate. If it’s a weather phenomenology, with NOAA. If it’s a potential for extraterrestrial life, or an indication of extraterrestrial life, with someone like NASA.”
The blase way he tossed out these two options suggests that he believes UAP are just as likely to be weather phenomena as aliens, and it’s all the same to the DOD so long as they mitigate the security threat.
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security
Note well this tendency to invoke NASA, astrobiologists in particular, whenever the topic of UFO occupants comes up. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines made a similar move last year when she said the Intelligence Community would defer to “Bill [Nelson]’s science work” to explain what UAP actually were. Even the NASA team who just announced a UAP study tacked this odd statement onto the bottom of their press release:
“Although unrelated to this new study, NASA has an active astrobiology program that focuses on the origins, evolution, and distribution of life beyond Earth…. Learn more about NASA’s astrobiology program online at: https://www.nasa.gov/astrobiology/“
If unrelated, why mention it? Astrobiologists look for alien life millions or trillions of miles above and beyond Earth’s skies where UAP are currently being observed. They get dragooned into this conversation because they work in a respectable field of science, free of stigma. It is a way for government officials to signal that they’re not espousing cooky ideas, and they know the proper way to talk about aliens.
Swapping out the term UFO with UAP, and subtracting out the alien question at least temporarily, was supposed to help grease the skids for disclosure by providing an entry point into the topic for people otherwise worried about the stigma. Many disclosure advocates adopted the new terms. One drawback of this is that it allows people like Moultrie and Bray to memory-hole 80 years of UFO history and evidence. Those are all just ghost stories, not useful data for their new “data-driven approach.”
The fact that DOD officials cannot even discuss the pertinent UFO history is proof that that era is still dripping with stigma. The conceit that UAP should should not be stigmatized because they have somehow been walled off and detached from UFOs and little green men won’t wash with the public, however. This two-step might help them get through a congressional hearing without saying much of substance, but beyond that narrow goal it defies common sense. As more comes about about UAP, it will simply be obvious to the public that they are related to the flying saucers of nearly a century ago. And no one is going to want to hear what an astrobiologist thinks about microbes on Mars.
Some kind of star trek?
A scene from Star Trek: First Contact depicting the first meeting between Humans and Vulcans
Online critics of Moultrie and Bray’s performance have depicted them as hapless patsies who were intentionally not “read into” DOD UFO reports so that they could not reveal any secrets. But both men are highly trained intelligence officers. Moultrie was in the CIA. Their minds are conditioned to exert exquisite control over the words that come out of their mouths, for they understand the power that language, grammar, and tone have on the ability to craft a narrative.
This skillset was on display early in the hearing when Representative Carson tried to offer Moultrie an opportunity to break the ice, to humanize what was going to be a bloodless, robotic persona. It produced one of the weirdest moments of the hearing, where the UFO stigma was on full display. Here is the full exchange:
Carson: “It’s fair to say that you are a science fiction fan, is that correct?”
Moultrie: “It’s fair to say that I am an inquisitive mind who has spent 40 years in the intelligence field and has focused on both science and science fiction. That is fair.
“Yeah. Well, look, my generation grew up looking at space sagas and the Apollo program, so all of us who grew up in the ’60s were just thrilled by watching our first astronaut land on the moon. That was a momentous occasion to people who were of different generations. Some of them didn’t believe that happened. I still have relatives and friends who don’t believe it happened. Right? Science fiction to them. But to us, it was, ‘No, that’s the progress that we’ve made.’ And so, I was enthralled by that and I’ve taken that to heart. I enjoy the challenge of what may be out there.
“I have mentioned to you that, yes, I have followed science fiction. I have gone to conventions. Even I’ll say it on the record. Got to break the ice somehow. But I have done that. Right? But there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t necessarily dress up. But I do believe that it’s important to show that the Department of Defense has… We have character, and we’re people just like you, just like the American people. We have our inquisitiveness, we have our questions. We want to know what’s out there as much as you want to know what’s out there. We get the questions not just from you, we get it from family members and we get them night and day, not just in committee hearings. So, finding what’s out there is important, but first, and foremost, it’s important for us to do that so that we can ensure that our people, our personnel, our aviators, our bases and installations are safe. And then that curiosity factor is something else that we just want to know because that’s the human race. It’s just that insatiable desire to know.“
This is revealing on several levels. It is the only time in the hearing where Moultrie acknowledges that they’re not there just to talk about sensor glitches. He allows us to almost imagine a Moultrie-family cookout where amid the burgers and beers his relatives prod him to give up the real dirt on UFOs.
Yet even this human moment was weirdly unspecific and stripped of any content and context. He copped to wanting “to know what’s out there as much as you want to know what’s out there.” A desire to know what, exactly? Out where? He wouldn’t even tell us the name of his favorite science-fiction show.
As a life-long Star Trek nerd, I know one when I see one. There is only one franchise that was around in the 1960s for which Moultrie could have attended conventions later in life.
Star Trek is about exploring space, and “the challenge of what may be out there.” But it’s also about aliens–lots and lots of aliens–and how they interact with one another across galactic neighborhoods.
If Moultrie was truly unaffected by the stigma of UFOs and aliens, he might have said something like this in response to Carson’s question:
Yeah, I have watched countless hours of Star Trek. One of the things that always happens in Star Trek, no matter which series you watch, is the Starfleet crew visits a planet that is home to a less advanced civilization, people like us who don’t know there is life out in the galaxy. Sometimes the crew initiates first contact, and sometimes the crew visits the planet in disguise to avoid frightening the native population. In some episodes the crew is studying the planet on an anthropological mission and their ship crashes. Scott Bray here doesn’t have this in his database, but there is even a Star Trek episode about the Roswell crash being caused by some time-traveling Ferengi. Is that what is behind UAP? We don’t know. But that’s the beautiful thing about science fiction. It helps us think about these possibilities.
A stigma is like a bully. It cannot be defeated by pretending it doesn’t exist. The only way is to stare it in the face and openly deny its power over you. Whatever Moultrie and Bray did in their performance, it was not that. The only question is whether they personally feel the stigma, or if they only want to keep it alive for the rest of us.
The May 17 open congressional hearing on UAP gave us important insights into how the Department of Defense (DOD) is currently thinking about the challenge of identifying UAP.
Ronald Moultrie (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security) and Scott Bray (Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence) were called before Congress because they will be the senior DOD leaders responsible for that process.
Their presentation and responses tell us a great deal about DOD’s internal strategy, and how they intend to manage public and congressional expectations going forward.
While future hearings may reveal more, Moultrie and Bray signaled that a policy of secrecy will continue.
Suggestions that some UAP represent anomalous, breakthrough technology, made last year by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), are being walked back.
Before we unpack how Moultrie and Bray characterized their UAP evidence, let’s take a quick look back at a time when someone in their position was trying to answer the exact same question they are now faced with.
The Proof Point for UFOs
It was 1952. Captain Edward Ruppelt, director of Project Blue Book, was giving frequent Pentagon briefings about the spike in UFO sightings that year. DOD officials spent much of these briefings needling Ruppelt about his proof point: when will he have enough evidence to prove UFOs are or are not interplanetary visitors? One idea of sufficient proof was if an object seen visually had also been tracked on radar. Did Ruppelt have that?
“No, we didn’t have proof if you want to get technical about the degree of proof needed. But we did have reports where the radar and visual bearings of the UFO coincided almost exactly. Then we had a few reports where airplanes had followed the UFOs and the maneuvers of the UFO that the pilot reported were the same as the maneuvers of the UFO that was being tracked by radar.”
Since that sounded like pretty ironclad proof, a lieutenant colonel in the briefing interjected: “It seems the difficulty that Project Blue Book faces is what to accept and what not to accept as proof. Everyone has a different idea of what proof really is.”
Another Blue Book briefing that summer, held in an inner ring of the Pentagon, was requested by General Samford, the director of Air Force Intelligence (a historical predecessor to Scott Bray, who is the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence). Ruppelt repeated Blue Book’s stance that there was still “no proof the UFOs were anything real.” He added: “We could prove that all UFO reports were merely the misinterpretation of known objects if we made a few assumptions.”
A colonel on General Samford’s staff interrupted him:
“Isn’t it true, that if you make a few positive assumptions instead of negative assumptions you can just as easily prove that the UFO’s are interplanetary spaceships? Why, when you have to make an assumption to get an answer to a report, do you always pick the assumption that proves the UFOs don’t exist? … Maybe the ball of fire had made a 90-degree turn. Maybe it was some kind of an intelligently controlled craft that had streaked northeast… at 2,400 miles an hour. Why not just simply believe that most people know what they saw?”
The briefing room fell quiet, and then lurched into a “hot exchange” between two factions on the general’s staff. One wanted Blue Book to begin investigating reports from the starting assumption that the observer “had actually seen something foreign to our knowledge” (today, DOD calls this the ‘other’ category for UAP). Ruppelt held his ground against this approach: “In any scientific investigation you always assume that you don’t have enough proof until you get a positive answer. I don’t think that we had a positive answer—yet.”
This high-minded scientific dogma is all well and good, but it has a flaw. What if the most likely answer is deemed by the analysts to be impossible, for reasons of personal psychology or department policy? If one answer is off the table, forbidden, then you’re never going to find enough evidence no matter how much of it falls in your lap.
For seventy years, this was the challenge faced by all the people who sat in the chairs Moultrie and Bray now occupy. Let’s take a look at how they view the challenge posed by UAP evidence in 2022.
Four Conventional Answers, and “Other”
In his opening statement, Moultrie defined UAP:
“UAP are airborne objects that when encountered cannot be immediately identified. However, it is the department’s contention that by combining appropriately structured collected data with rigorous scientific analysis any object that we encounter can likely be as isolated, characterized, identified, and if necessary mitigated… Our effort will include the thorough examination of adversarial platforms and potential breakthrough technologies, US government or commercial platforms, allied or partner systems and other natural phenomenon.”
Here Moultrie repeated all the explanatory categories established in the 2021 report, except for one–the “other” category, reserved for when a UAP cannot be explained by any known origin. Note Moultrie’s confidence that if given just a little more time to think on it, DOD will have no trouble identifying and mitigating any UAP. It’s as though he does not expect there to ever be an ‘other’ in his UAP reports. This assumption would continue to be the subtext of the rest of the testimony.
Bray’s opening statement did acknowledge ‘other’ and expanded on its definition: “a holding bin of difficult cases [that have] the possibility of surprise and potential scientific discovery.” What that surprise and discovery might entail was never addressed the rest of the hearing.
Both men acknowledged that the UAP office’s main job will be to take the now 400 UAP cases and filter them into the five categories. Recall that as of June 2021, this had been done with exactly one case, the UAP that was identified as a balloon and thus categorized as airborne clutter. Presumably the ‘Pyramid UFO’ case (first released by Jeremy Corbell on Mystery Wire in April 2021) was one of the initial 144 UAP cases and has now been ‘resolved.’ According to Bray, “we’re now reasonably confident that these triangles correlate to unmanned aerial systems in the area,” meaning either US government, comercial, or adversarial drones.
Exactly how many of the 400 UAP that have been ‘resolved’ will hopefully be enumerated in future briefings and reports. But take note: the term ‘unidentified’, which Ruppelt put into common use for Blue Book cases that could not be explained, is now ‘unresolved.’
What will it take to ‘resolve’ or identify a UAP? More importantly, what will it take to ‘resolve’ a UAP as an ‘other’, which is what everyone really wants to know? Moultrie and Bray were very clear on this: just like Rupplet before them, they don’t have good enough data.
Responding to a question about why some UAP cases cannot be explained, Bray said this:
When I say we can’t explain, I mean, exactly as you described there, that there is a lot of information like the video that we showed in which there’s simply too little data to create a reasonable explanation. There are a small handful of cases in which we have more data that our analysis simply hasn’t been able to fully pull together a picture of what happened. …So when I say unexplained, I mean everything from too little data to the data that we have doesn’t point us towards an explanation.
Moultrie chimed in to footstomp the point, using the words “insufficient data” three times in three sentences, like a verbal tic:
“…it’s insufficient data. I mean, that’s one of the challenges we have. Insufficient data either on the event itself, the object itself, or insufficient data or plugin with some other organization or agency that may have had something in that space at that time. So it’s a data issue…”
The hearing showcased several ways this excuse helps DOD escape from having to explain the hard-to-explain UAP cases.
The 2021 report went further than any official government statement ever has by suggesting that some “UAP demonstrates breakthrough aerospace capabilities,” namely due to “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics…without discernible means of propulsion.”
By using this language, the initial report conceded what pilots have been saying not just since 2004 but since the 1940s: these craft do not fly like conventional airplanes.
Chairman Schiff twice asked Moultire and Bray to elaborate on this shocking assertion. Bray’s answer to Chairman Schiff suggests that DOD may be trying to walk it back:
“The question then becomes in many of these cases where we don’t have a discernible means of propulsion in the data that we have, in some cases, there is likely sensor artifacts that may be hiding some of that. There’s certainly some degree of something that looks like signature management that we have seen from some of these UAP, but I would caution, I would simply say that there are a number of events in which we do not have an explanation…”
In other words Bray is suggesting that UAP likely have conventional means of propulsion, and we only fail to see it because 1) there is a gap in the sensor data, or 2) the UAP is actively concealing that data.
Schiff asked a follow up, trying to use Bray’s framing to pin him down on the big question of UAP origins: “Can you provide us a specific example of an object that can’t be explained as having been human made or natural?
The answer was a definitive no: “I can’t point to something that definitively was not manmade, but I can point to a number of examples and which remain unresolved.”
Bray includes the famous 2004 Tic-Tac UAP, observed from the USS Princeton, in the list of UAP for which no definitive conclusions can be drawn due to lack of data: “We have data on that, and it simply remains unresolved.” Earlier in the hearing, Bray seems to have alluded to the Tic-Tac encounter when he said, “[a] narrative report from the early 2000s if it just had a little bit of information on it, it would be in our database and it would be unresolved.” Yes, some airmen told us some stories, but that’s not sufficient evidence.
What Bray did not say is that one of the reasons the 2004 case lacks data is because, as Chris Mellon has asserted, the Air Force confiscated AEGIS radar data from the USS Princeton shortly after the sightings occurred. One of Mellon’s question suggestions for this very hearing, posted on his blog, was: “Does the Air Force know the whereabouts of the missing USS Princeton deck logs from November 2004?”
If Mellon’s question had been asked, presumably Bray would have replied the same way as when he was asked about another famous UFO case: “That data is not within the holdings of the UAP task force. I have heard stories. I have not seen the official data on that.”
No data, no conclusions. Sorry, not sorry.
Sustainable Secrecy
This framework–missing or incomplete data explains why UAP appear to be anomalous–will be a reliable way to stop any speculation about UAP origins in its tracks.
As soon as the flying saucer era began, the DOD needed some magic words to repeat that would assure the public and the press that nothing unusual was happening in our skies. The old chestnut of hallucinations, hoaxes, and misidentified conventional objects did just that, even though it blatantly contradicted hard evidence of many UFO cases. This official line maintained UFO secrecy for seven decades, not to mention built a powerful stigma.
But in 2021, the DOD and IC appeared to be trying out some new lines that were more honest. For the first time, their analytic framework included a category reserved for genuinely anomalous UAP–the mysterious ‘other’. For these cases, the 2021 report stated that analysts would “require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze and characterize… pending scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them.”
This line was repeated publicly by the Director of National Intelligence herself in response to a question about whether the Earth is being observed by alien visitors:
“it doesn’t mean that we are definitely going to be able to tell if we are being observed under the circumstance. I mean I think there’s a lot of different ways that might be revealed…we’re going to have to wait for Bill’s [NASA’s] science work I think to actually reveal some of these additional possibilities. Not to mention some of the other people [Avi Loeb and Jeff Bezos]”
While this was not any more revealing about what the government thinks UAP are, it was more honest. It acknowledged that some UAP might be entirely unknown to science, for which extraterrestrial is one possibility.
That level of candor coming from the head of the IC was refreshing, but the possibility that the government would throw up its hands in ignorance and pass the buck to others was always going to be a problem. This approach would put them in a position to have to say something like this: “Yes, UAP are zipping through our airspace at Warp 2. We have no idea what they are, and we hope that private scientists can get back to us in the coming decades with a clear answer. You have my email.” If words like these were ever spoken aloud by a government official, it would be clear to all that they were not working from a rational strategy, let alone a sustainable public message.
So, in May 2022, enter Scott Bray with the walkback. The intended message of his presentation during the hearing was that UAP are not anomalous, nor are they unexplainable. There are only ‘unresolved’ cases. UAP that appear anomalous simply lack better data. What someone might think is breakthrough technology is merely a “sensor artifact.”
And what about available data that would point to anomalous or breakthrough technology? It’s clear by now that such data will never see the light of day. In response to Representative Carson’s request for “a clear and repeatable process for considering public release” of information, Bray said this:
“when it does not involve sources and methods, and when we can, with a reasonable degree of confidence, determine that it does not pose a foreign intelligence or national security threat, and it’s within my authority to do so, I commit to declassifying that.”
Since we now know that even words that describe general shapes of UAP are redacted, it is safe to assume that almost every detail locked up in Bray’s database will remain classified.
Until DOD shifts to a policy of genuine openness and curiosity about what UAP actually are, there is never going to be a UAP ‘resolved’ as ‘other.’ We may never see the words “breakthrough aerospace capabilities” on a government UAP report again.
DOD’s new, sustainable public message is this: “We’re very sorry, but we simply do not have enough data to make a determination.” Barring more public and congressional pressure, they can repeat this forever.
They also control the evidence, and they can set the proof point wherever they want.
Is this going to keep the public from learning the truth? Maybe not, but as Moultrie and Bray certainly know, it has worked like a charm for seventy years.
The Enterprise Dedication Plaque lovingly recreated for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds……and for the fan-made Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, NY
Recall the following experience, which I’m confident that you, dear reader, have had. You are hanging out with your friends and some turn in the conversion moves you to describe in detail an episode of Star Trek. Maybe you are in the den, or the school yard, or the cafeteria. Invariably someone in the group replies quite matter-of-factly, not intending to be rude at all: “You know it’s not real, right?”
At first blush, you are offended, maybe a bit embarrassed. Of course I know it’s not real! I’m not delusional. What’s your point?
Many of us have had this experience. But let us consider it from our non-Trekkie friend’s point of view. What did they see in us, in the way we talked about Star Trek, that made them think we believed what we were describing was real?
In fact, psychologically speaking, the Star Trek universe is a profoundly real place to Trekkies. Yes, it is just a TV show. Condeeded. And yet, we were there!
We were there with Kirk fighting the Gorn on Cestus III (and also the unnamed Metron planet). We’ve been in the storage compartments of K-7 (first with Captain Kirk and again with Captain Sisko). We’ve visited the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of the Binary Stars. We spent countless hours bathed in the soft, colorful light and gentle warble of the Enterprise bridge (the NX, the 1701, the A, B, C, D and E). We can tell the speed she’s warping across the galaxy by the thrum of her engine room. We were there for all of it.
What happens when we are presented with new experiences that conflict with these very real memories? In fandom, these are fighting words. But why?
Your Brain on Star Trek
The writer and religious scholar Diana Pasulka has written extensively about how story and technology can have profound effects on belief and perceptions of reality. Check out her book American Cosmic, and an earlier essay The Fairy Tale is True. One chapter of American Cosmic, which in part explores how Star Wars inspired a religion with real-world followers called Jedism, compiles research that shows how the human brain creates cognitive models of events in the same way regardless of whether that event was experienced in the real world or witnessed visually such as in a piece of film or from a VR headset. She quotes neuroscientist Jeffrey Zacks: “It’s not the case that you have one bucket into which you drop all the real-life events, another for movie events, and a third for events in novels.” Memories are all built the same way, with neurons and dendrites; the more we revisit those memories the stronger the dendrite bonds become, and the more real those memories become for us. Of course, encoded in the memory of the event is its context, whether you saw it on the street or in the theater. No one really believes they were on the Death Star when it blew up, no matter how many times they’ve seen A New Hope (and all the other movies where the Death Star blew up.)
But this is not always the case. There are many examples of people who come to think they actually experienced something they had in fact watched on TV or heard a story about. This is because, as scholars at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab wrote in their study, “the brain often fails to differentiate between virtual experiences and real ones.”
In Pasulka’s American Cosmic, she analyzes a sci-fi web series that reimagines World War I as an alien invasion. Extraterrestrials were digitally inserted into historical footage and vintage uniforms. She writes, “We know it is not real, but Zack’s research shows our brains process the information and then categorize these productions as equally realistic.” Pasulka writes that it is difficult for our brains to draw sharp distinctions between what is real and what is virtually real.
This chapter of her book cites Alison Landsberg’s idea of prosthetic memory, which she coined in an essay about the films Total Recall and Blade Runner. Lansdberg writes: “Cinema, in particular [has] the ability to generate experiences and to install memories of them–memories which become experiences that film consumers both possess and feel possessed by.”
I suppose that this is why genre fandom is so much fun, and becomes such a life-long hobby for many of us. It’s why the escapism of genre TV and film is so pleasurable. Because we perceive the visuals to be so real, we are literally escaping, swapping out one mundane reality for a fantastic one, at least for an hour or so.
Pasulka sums it up this way: “Exposure to films and media that mimic real life fosters belief and can impact memory. … fictional characters… exist as realities that inhabit our childhood and adult memories and inform our future behaviors. They are cultural realities, infused with meaning and emotion.”
Is there a better explanation for why we Trek fans love–really love–these characters, their ships and homeworlds as much as we do?
These two concepts–the brain perceiving Star Trek experiences as virtually real, and the emotional charge of those memories, particularly how they are tethered to childhood–are the reason Star Trek fandom is saddled with “the canon wars.” It’s why terms like reboot, Prime vs. Kelvin, visual vs. conceptual canon, and canon agnosticism are fighting words in online conversations. Now that Star Trek is closing out its fifth decade with a tsunami of brand new shows and movies, this has implications for how we integrate our old memories with new ones, and how we enjoy new shows like Strange New Worlds, or whether some of us even can.
“Not My Star Trek”
Let’s come out with it. There is a minority of fans who recoil in disgust or gloomy disappointment when they are faced with a new version of Star Trek. Here we are talking about a particular type of hardcore Trekkie, the one who says, whether in anger or sorrow, “this is just not my Star Trek. It’s not the way I remember it.” But many more long-time fans find themselves in intermittent conflict with new Trek. Breaks in canon can make any of us feel alienated from new versions. We raise all manner of arguments about betrayals of trust, and lazy writing. It is perfectly legitimate to have these feelings, and many of us have at one time or another. And we have a point, because we were there.
This is not just a problem of the loudest voices arguing on the internet. But even if it were, those that do not care much about canon wars must admit that those voices have a lot of power. The engines of the modern film industry have been geared to run on internet buzz. Success or failure depends a lot on the voices in social media. Fear of incurring the wrath of those voices is the reason J.J. Abrams invented the Kelvin Universe. It is the reason that Discovery did a mid-series course correction that put over 900 years between the creative team and any potential canon dispute. And yet, that same creative team decided to jump back in the lion’s mouth with a spinoff show–Strange New Worlds–set on the classic 1701 Enterprise just a handful of years before Kirk is to assume command.
The online fan community may well be the reason Strange New Worlds was even greenlit. Anson Mount’s Captain Pike, introduced in Discovery’s second season, was universally beloved by fandom, even the fans who liked to grouse about Discovery. Credit due to Mount’s skill and charm. But also this: it is as easy as falling off Pike’s horse for fans to accept that Jeffery Hunter’s Pike and Mount’s Pike are the same person.
SNW will be far more entangled with TOS than DSC ever could have been. Spock–THE Spock, not alternate-timeline Spock but Nimoy’s Spock–is a central character. We also know that Uhura, Nurse Chapel, and even Kirk himself–Shatner’s Kirk–will be reprised as their slightly younger selves played by new actors. At this point it’s pretty clear that the showrunners intend to depict how the original crew came together. A lot is riding on whether fandom can accept these characters and their ship as the same beloved versions from half a century ago.
The emotional and imaginative barriers that our past Trek experiences erect against new Trek are very real, and they are hard to break through. For many of us, our shields are up. But it is important that we try to lower them. At the end of this essay I offer ways to do that. But first: what are we fighting about when we fight about canon?
A Short History of Visual Canon
A lot of this boils down to what Larry Nemecek calls visual canon, which is the idea that the physical, visual, and aesthetic depiction of the Star Trek universe needs to remain aligned across the various iterations of the franchise. If a ship or a planet looks a certain way in one series, it needs to look similar if not exactly the same in the next series, or else the viewer–who, after all, has virtually been there before, will suffer cognitive dissonance. The negative emotions stirred by this dissonance not only block the fan from entering the story world of the new version, it makes them feel the previous show, and their connection to it, is being denigrated.
Let me give what is by now a non-controversial example. When CBS re-edited all the effects shots from The Original Series with new CGI effects, I recall being mildly repulsed when I first saw the new CGI Enterprise. Every line of it was exactly the same as the original shooting model, but because it was clearly not that model–not what I remember–it seemed less real. The color was off a bit. It wasn’t grainy!
But now, I only watch the updated versions of those episodes on my Blu-rays. I appreciate all the new angles and perspectives of that beautiful ship. The tiny CGI characters you occasionally see walking past the windows from outside the ship have wandered into my imagination. I’m building new memories with those old episodes.
For much of Trek’s history, visual canon was never a problem fans had to deal with because as the production of the franchise moved from the 1960s to the 1990s the Star Trek universe moved into its own future. In the late 1970s there was a need to update the 60s sets with cutting edge, movie-budget designs, which was explained away “in universe” as an eighteen-month refit of the 1701. (If you think about it, such massive structural changes to a spaceship seems pretty inefficient, like it might have been easier to build a new ship from scratch; in any case, such a “refit” by Starfleet was never depicted again.–agh I wrote this before Star Trek: Picard’s ‘Stargazer’ episode, which is a whole other canon debate!)
The budgets for the initial movies helped update and upgrade Star Trek’s set and production design, which carried over into the Berman era of the late 80s to early 2000s (TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT). Many TNG sets were redresses of TOS movie sets. Still, these shows never saw the need to erase or update the beloved 60s designs. Three out of four Berman-era series revisited the 1960s-era bridge set exactly as it was–exactly as we all remember it. The fact that Picard, Sisko and Archer were on Kirk’s bridge was not discordant at all. They were just visiting a place we ourselves had been many times, and we got to experience the thrill of going back there vicariously through them.
It must be noted that those episodes were all one-off, nostalgia-driven specials. If Berman and his team had needed to set all or part of their contemporary series on those classic sets, appealing to contemporary audiences week after week–which is the case for Discovery and Strange New Worlds–those creative teams would have made different decisions about how much to match the style of TV sets dating to the Johnson Administration.
The real debate over visual canon came with the advent of Enterprise in 2001, the first Star Trek prequel. Here we have starship technology set a century before Kirk’s Enterprise that is obviously smoother, sleaker, less clunky, animatronic and grainy than what we know Starfleet will look like in one hundred years. It’s telling that the design of that series’ ship was not based on retrograde notions of what early Starfleet vessels might look like (as if you could go back and ask Matt Jeffries what his ship’s predecessors would have looked like…). Instead, the NX-01 was based on a sleek, modern ship designed for the recent and popular movie Star Trek: First Contact (which was itself a visual upgrade on the TNG-look of Starfleet fueled by movie budgets). Berman’s team at least tried to strike a balance by adding retrograde flourishes. The sleek ship design was merged with structures from WWII airplanes, and the interior sets were modeled on 21st Century submarines and the International Space Station.
Some props were made to look similar to TOS but sleeker. I admit I found myself insulted when Berman told us that audiences would only accept fliptop communicators on a modern show if they were tiny, because they would look ridiculous compared to (at the time) modern flip phones. Today our phones are larger than the 1960s communicators.
This brings us to the current CBS/Kurtzman-era of Trek. Because Discovery was set ten years before The Original Series, the showrunners had to update the visual look of the 23rd Century. If they had slavishly recreated the 60s design aesthetic, many viewers would have been confused as to what they were watching. As the flagship series of CBS’s new streaming service, it was imperative that viewers of all stripes, especially non Trekies, feel like they were having an exciting experience watching a cutting edge TV show. Also, design teams are creative people who want to create something new, not make museum replicas of other artists’ work.
An interesting creative decision that the DSC production team made was to base its visual style for Starfleet on the original TOS movies from the 70s and 80s, even though the timeframe was before the iconic 60s era designs. There are numerous visual call backs to graphics, models, and props from those movies. The shuttlecraft and communicators are nearly identical. While some fans chafed at the dissonance with TOS, it’s actually easy to imagine the USS Discovery being a 10 to 20 year predecessor of the movie era-Enterprise.
Just like in 1979, when Roddenberry advised fans to imagine that the Klingons always looked the way they do in the new movie, it’s possible to adjust our head canon to imagine that Starfleet always looked like it did in those movies as well.
This was, of course, controversial among fans. As we know now that the DSC producers decided that the debates over canon, and the resulting negative internet buzz, was producing too much of a distraction for the show. The mid-series time travel jump silenced those debates. But at the same time, the producers launched a new show–Strange New Worlds–set so much closer to TOS than early viewers of DSC could have imagined. Now, we’re right on the bridge!
The trick of pretending that TOS looked more like the movies than we remember still may be helpful, but SNW producers have promised fans that there will be many callbacks to 60’s design elements. The shuttlecraft, communicators and tricorders now look nearly identical to TOS.
Conceptual Canon–It’s not Just Visuals
The sensation of realness also rests on consistency in concepts, historical facts, and even a character’s attitude and tone of voice. The problem we are all faced with is that the historical record of the Star Trek universe is strewn across at least 41 distinct seasons of television, usually in bits of dialogue that only a handful of fans remember. Some of those bits were written as long ago as 1964.
One line of dialogue in one long-ago episode implied that the Romulans gave the Klingons cloaking technology at a certain date. If that fact is ingrained in your head canon, and a later episode (DSC’s The Battle of the Binary Stars) shows cloaked Klingon ships prior to that date, you are pulled right out of the story.
For some, the Federation-Klingon war depicted in DSC’s first season did not fit with their conception of the recent past of TOS. Some felt that the devastation was just too widespread and brutal to match the society we saw in the 60s episodes. I’ve heard fans comment that the war depicted in DSC’s first season was also discordant with how Kirk described the events that happen in the episode that introduced the Klingons, The Errand of Mercy, in TOS’s first season. During peace negotiations, a Klingon ship attacks the Enterprise, Uhura announces that Starfleet has issued a Code One order, and Kirk says: “Well, there it is. War. We didn’t want it, but we’ve got it.” Mind you, ‘in universe’ these events were ten years apart, and there is no canonical reason there could not have been a brutal war with the Klingons in DSC’s time period. The dissonance for some fans was that if the war we watched on DSC actually happened in Kirk’s past, when he got to that moment in Errand of Mercy, he would have had a less laid back reaction. An entire concept of canon is conveyed by the actor’s tone of one line of dialogue.
I had a similar reaction to Enterprise. That show premiered when I was in college. When I was a boy I watched an episode of The Next Generation called First Contact. In it Picard has to explain to a new species why his crew was spying on them. Doing his dramatic-Picard voice, Patrick Stewart spoke these lines:
“Chancellor, there is no starship mission more dangerous than that of first contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world, how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be. Centuries ago, a disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war. It was decided then we would do surveillance before making contact. It was a controversial decision. I believe it prevented more problems than it created.”
The very first contact between Humans and Klingons had never even been mentioned before. That one line conveyed how cool it would be to know that story, and also how epically tragic that encounter must have been–the stuff of legends with consequences that reverberated through the centuries. But when I saw the famous encounter finally depicted, in the premier of Enterprise, it did not live up to what was in my imagination at all. As a result, the realness of Enterprise was lessened for me. All because of how Patrick Stewart delivered one line of dialogue in one episode that had nothing to do with Klingons.
Thankfully, the reverse of this phenomenon is more common, and it creates a wonderful sensation. If you watch DSC’s The Battle of the Binary Stars and TOS’s Arena together, then Kirk’s almost irrational fear of a Gorn invasion begins to make sense. Now we know he is thinking about Michael Burnham and the start of the Klingon war ten years earlier. In destroying the Gorn ship, he is faced with the same dilemma she was, and he makes the same choice she did. Also, the Pike storyline in DSC synchronizes perfectly with the original character arc introduction in The Menagerie. When canon is used in this way, it creates beautiful harmonies across the generations. It is arguably the entire point of doing prequels in the first place.
This dissonance or harmony also occurs every time an old character is recast by a new actor. There are now so many of these that CBS producers have coined the term “legacy characters.” With SNW, another prequel, we are entering a phase of the franchise where some characters–like Pike, Kirk, and Spock–are on their third iteration. Whether it is Sarek, or young Guinan, or Harry Mudd, fans chaffe if the new actor doesn’t look, sound, or feel like the original. (The less said about the great but pasty-white Benedict Cumberbatch replacing Kahn’s Ricardo Montalban the better.)
DSC faced the unique challenge of having to replace a TOS character for the first time without the fig leaf of a parallel timeline. Ethan Peck’s new version of Nimoy’s Spock will be at Pike’s side on Strange New Worlds. Because Nimoy’s Spock is so ingrained in the fan imagination, the DSC creative team knew they had to gingerly hold our hands through the acceptance process. They put Peck’s Spock in a beard and compromised mental state to blunt the “That’s not Spock!” reflex until the writing and the actor had a chance to put us at ease and work his new Spock into our imaginations. It worked. And I for one appreciate the effort.
Afterall, we know these people. We have spent an unknown number of hours in their presence. We are intimately familiar with their faces, their verbal tics, their posture, their attitude, their essence–all things an actor brings to the role. New actors don’t want to be mimics. They find a new essence for the character, I might add, based on the needs of the script they were paid to act, not the script written long ago.
It goes without saying that all of this is a matter of taste. Every fan reacts differently to canon. But since Star Trek lives so vividly in the imagination, and since the franchise does not reset like a comic book universe (a point the current producers keep insisting upon), the experience of canon cognitive dissonance, as well as canon harmonies, is very real and isn’t going away. It will be a dominant feature of the franchise for as long as we are lucky enough to be able to watch new Star Trek.
A Way Forward
So if you are a fan suffering from canon dissonance sensitivity syndrome (CDSS), I have a prescription for you.
Before treatment begins, you must first decide if you are ready to be cured. This means you are open to making new Star Trek memories that will lay alongside the cherished ones that have been long ingrained in your imagination. If you are too focused on your old experiences in the Star Trek universe, you will block yourself from having new experiences that are happening right now.
It might help to channel the Vulcan principle of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. That idea is not just about being tolerant of others who are different. It is a mental practice that helps you eschew false dualities. Can you hold two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time, or an infinite number of them? If you can, at a certain point you begin to realize that they are not as contradictory as they first seemed. All is part of the fabric of your imagination. If you can accept that, then you are ready. Here is what to do.
Step 1: A few minutes before the new episode begins, sit quietly and clear your mind. Try plexing, if that helps. Prepare your brain to enter the story world no matter what. No negotiations with the creative team. No play-by-play nitpicking. Take the chips off your shoulder for just that one hour each week.
Step 2: When the episode starts, let it come to you on its own terms as a story and as a unique, contained viewing experience. Instead of seeking out canon red flags, seek out the storyteller’s cues about what the story wants you to think and feel about what is happening on screen. Follow their breadcrumbs. Go along for the journey they have laid out for you.
That’s it. It sounds simple. But what happens next is the most important part, and it is no longer in your hands. If the creative team honored their source material, if they worked hard to tell the best story they possibly could, then a new and lasting Star Trek memory will have been implanted in your brain. And that memory will integrate with all the older ones all by itself. Even if there was a canon flub or discontinuity. None of that will matter if the story is good enough, because your head canon (your imagination) will be a richer place for having the new memory.
And what if the creative team did not work hard enough to meet you, to honor your fan commitment and your openness? What if they told the story poorly? Or made canon decisions that served their immediate personal and professional needs and not those of the collective fan community? No need to get mad. Their penance is that their story will be forgotten and seldom revisited. On its own accord it will fail to connect with its intended audience, and it will leave no trace in our brains or our hearts. That story will fade and die.
There is no need for us to dance on its grave. No need, for hate’s sake, to spit our last breath at thee. We just walk away. Practicing emotional openness to new Trek will help let go of any bitterness about canon, but more times than not, it will help form yet more pleasurable memories.
This is especially true now, because, thankfully, the current leadership of the franchise are not hacks. Star Trek’s current crop of storytellers are committed to telling rip-roaring, meaningful Star Trek stories, and also honoring all of the old ones that replay in our heads. There is more room in there than you think. Keep it open.
On March 23, 2022, John Greenwald Jr released a partially redacted version of the classified 2021 UAP Report that was presented only to Congress. Using the power of the Freedom of Information Act he was able to get the document released through official channels, and posted on his website.
I am going to post excerpts that strike me as either new or presented in a more nuanced or interesting way than in the public version of the report.
Both reports are basically the same. However the classified version contains specifics that are paraphrased, glossed over, collapsed, or removed in the unclassified version. Here is a typical example:
UAP interrupting military activities
Unclassified: Most reports described UAP as objects that interrupted pre-planned training or other military activity.
Classified:
This is followed by a section that is almost entirely redacted in the classified version, none of which is given corresponding language in the unclassified version. It’s anyones guess as to what this says, but it relates to the unexplained nature of the available data:
UAP Collection Challenges
Unclassified: The sensors mounted on U.S. military platforms are typically designed to fulfill specific missions. As a result, those sensors are not generally suited for identifying UAP.
Classified:
Can be … what? Pray tell. Also, this is another example of a redacted paragraph that has no corresponding language that was carried over into the unclassified version. In the report we can read there are three bullets describing why it has been difficult to get data on UAP: witness stigma; sensor design; sensor location. The redacted block above represents the third of four bullets. So there is one other reason UAP are hard to defect that the government deems too sensitive to be revealed.
UAP Shape & Capabilities
This section is redacted but still revealing, and is only in the classified version:
Evidence of Advanced Technology
One of the more important sections of the 2021 UAP Report details evidence of advanced aerospace technology. However, all of the corroborating evidence was stripped out of the unclassified version. Here is what that evidence looked like in the classified report:
Here is the provided evidence of UAP acceleration and signature management. Some of these redactions probably contain the speed of the UAP:
Foreign Adversaries
In the section that states “We currently lack data to determine any UAP are part of a foreign collection program”, there is a third of a page that is redacted. This could be additional context or qualifications to the notion that UAP might be foreign aircraft.
Coordination
The second bullet was not in the unclassified version:
This note about the FBI is also included in the appendix:
Appendices
There are a few items in the Appendix not included in the Unclassified. The first seems to be a table of UAP events, and also shapes:
Finally, in a list of definitions for type of intelligence gathering programs, there is mention of videos:
Conclusion: the U.S. Congress got a 17 page report (compared to the 9 page public version) with some key supporting evidence but not extensive evidence, at least in this document. The conclusions are generally the same in both, but redactions suggest the classified conclusions were more pointed, and there may be some more specific conclusions that we cannot infer through the redactions. I recall congresspeople saying that the report was not earth-shaking, and based on this they were correct. It remains a very measured assessment. Still, if any of the redacted evidence (about flight speed or UAP shape) had been part of the unclassified report, the media and public might have treated it as a much more definitive assessment.
This is an audio version of my essay, The Enterprise is not a White Space: why minority representation on Star Trek was so radical and risky in the 1960s.
Much of American society, including genre TV and film, has historically been cordoned off into white spaces, which is a term coined by Sociologist Elijah Anderson to describe spaces predominantly filled with white people and where Black people are treated as outsiders. In its earliest years, Star Trek showed its audience that it was not a white space, but a diverse and inclusive space.
To prove the point, my article is a deep dive into casting choices and the creative input of Black actors in Star Trek’s first season. There is more to the story than Uhura and Sulu, as important as those iconic roles are. People of color were chosen as background extras, small speaking roles, and guest stars. Using analysis and many images, my article celebrates unheralded roles like these:
They all made an impact since even the smallest role kept the Enterprise from being considered a white space. Every week of the 1966-67 television season except for one, you would have tuned in to see Black and brown people in uniform on board a starship.
Sections:
Explanation of Anderson’s thesis on white and Black spaces; brief survey of Jim Crow laws that were being passed in the 1960s
In a historic move, Congress has passed a law mandating that the military and intelligence agencies systematize data collection on UAP/UFO sightings and report their findings to the public.
Timeline:
November 4, 2021: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand adds UAP amendment to 2022 National Defense Authorization Act
December 7, 2021: Passed by the House
December 15, 2021: the U.S. Senate passed the negotiated NDAA bill (S. 1605), including the strong UAP provisions
December 27, 2021: Signed into law by President Biden.
The UAP language is a subsection of a section called: Subtitle E–Other Matters.
Subsection (a) and (b) is about the duties of the UAP-investigative office:
(a) Establishment of Office.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall
establish an office within a component of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, or within a joint organization of the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to carry out the duties of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, as in effect on the day before the date of enactment of this Act, and such other duties as are required by this section.
(b) Duties.--The duties of the Office established under subsection (a) shall include the following:
(1) Developing procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents, including adverse physiological effects, regarding unidentified aerial phenomena across the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.
(2) Developing processes and procedures to ensure that such incidents from each component of the Department and each element of the intelligence community are reported and incorporated in a centralized repository.
(3) Establishing procedures to require the timely and consistent reporting of such incidents.
(4) Evaluating links between unidentified aerial phenomena and adversarial foreign governments, other foreign governments, or nonstate actors.
(5) Evaluating the threat that such incidents present to the United States.
(6) Coordinating with other departments and agencies of the Federal Government, as appropriate, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy.
(7) Coordinating with allies and partners of the United States, as appropriate, to better assess the nature and extent of unidentified aerial phenomena.
(8) Preparing reports for Congress, in both classified and unclassified form, including under subsection (i).
Subsections (c) and (d) stipulate the office’s various teams and how they will interact. Field investigators visit sites, interview witnesses, and collect data. A scientific team will then analyze that data. Subsections (e) and (f) charge the head of the office with two missions: figure out what UAP are, and propose actionable plans to replicate their capabilities.
(c) Response to and Field Investigations of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.--
(1) Designation.--The Secretary, in coordination with the Director, shall designate one or more line organizations within the Department of Defense and the intelligence community that possess appropriate expertise, authorities, accesses, data, systems, platforms, and capabilities to rapidly respond to, and conduct field investigations of, incidents involving unidentified aerial phenomena under the direction of the head of the Office established under subsection (a).
(2) Ability to respond.--The Secretary, in coordination with the Director, shall ensure that each line organization designated under paragraph (1) has adequate personnel with the requisite expertise, equipment, transportation, and other resources necessary to respond rapidly to incidents or patterns of observations involving unidentified aerial phenomena of which the Office becomes aware.
(d) Scientific, Technological, and Operational Analyses of Data on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.--
(1) Designation.--The Secretary, in coordination with the Director, shall designate one or more line organizations that will be primarily responsible for scientific, technical, and operational analysis of data gathered by field investigations conducted pursuant to subsection (c) and data from other sources, including with respect to the testing of materials, medical studies, and development of theoretical models, to better understand and explain unidentified aerial phenomena.
(2) Authority.--The Secretary and the Director shall each issue such directives as are necessary to ensure that the each line organization designated under paragraph (1) has authority to draw on the special expertise of persons outside the Federal Government with appropriate security clearances.
(e) Data; Intelligence Collection.--
(1) Availability of data and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena.--The Director and the Secretary shall each, in coordination with one another, ensure that--
(A) each element of the intelligence community with data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena makes such data available immediately to the Office established under subsection (a) or to an entity designated by the Secretary and the Director to receive such data; and
(B) military and civilian personnel of the Department of Defense or an element of the intelligence community, and contractor personnel of the Department or such an element, have access to procedures by which the personnel shall report incidents or information, including adverse physiological effects, involving or associated with unidentified aerial phenomena directly to the Office or to an entity designated by the Secretary and the Director to receive such information.
(2) Intelligence collection and analysis plan.--The head of the Office established under subsection (a), acting on behalf of the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, shall supervise the development and execution of an intelligence collection and analysis plan to gain as much knowledge as possible regarding the technical and operational characteristics, origins, and intentions of unidentified aerial phenomena, including with respect to the development, acquisition, deployment, and operation of technical collection capabilities necessary to detect, identify, and scientifically characterize unidentified aerial phenomena.
(3) Use of resources and capabilities.--In developing the plan under paragraph (2), the head of the Office established under subsection (a) shall consider and propose, as the head determines appropriate, the use of any resource, capability, asset, or process of the Department and the intelligence community.
(f) Science Plan.--The head of the Office established under
subsection (a), on behalf of the Secretary and the Director, shall
supervise the development and execution of a science plan to develop
and test, as practicable, scientific theories to--
(1) account for characteristics and performance of unidentified aerial phenomena that exceed the known state of the art in science or technology, including in the areas of propulsion, aerodynamic control, signatures, structures, materials, sensors, countermeasures, weapons, electronics, and power generation; and
(2) provide the foundation for potential future investments to replicate any such advanced characteristics and performance.
(g) Assignment of Priority.--The Director, in consultation with, and with the recommendation of the Secretary, shall assign an appropriate level of priority within the National Intelligence Priorities Framework to the requirement to understand, characterize, and respond to unidentified aerial phenomena.
Subsection (h) stipulates what must be in the annual reports:
(h) Annual Report.--
(1) Requirement.--Not later than October 31, 2022, and annually thereafter until October 31, 2026, the Director, in consultation with the Secretary, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on unidentified aerial phenomena.
(2) Elements.--Each report under paragraph (1) shall include, with respect to the year covered by the report, the following information:
(A) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the one-year period.
(B) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a period other than that one-year period but were not included in an earlier report.
(C) An analysis of data and intelligence received through each reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related event.
(D) An analysis of data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena collected through--
(i) geospatial intelligence;
(ii) signals intelligence;
(iii) human intelligence; and
(iv) measurement and signature intelligence.
(E) The number of reported incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena over restricted air space of the United States during the one-year period.
(F) An analysis of such incidents identified under subparagraph (E).
(G) Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by unidentified aerial phenomena to the national security of the United States.
(H) An assessment of any activity regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that can be attributed to one or more adversarial foreign governments.
(I) Identification of any incidents or patterns regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that indicate a potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a breakthrough aerospace capability.
(J) An update on the coordination by the United States with allies and partners on efforts to track, understand, and address unidentified aerial phenomena.
(K) An update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.
(L) An assessment of any health-related effects for individuals that have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena.
(M) The number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with military nuclear assets, including strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships and submarines.
(N) In consultation with the Administrator for Nuclear Security, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with facilities or assets associated with the production, transportation, or storage of nuclear weapons or components thereof.
(O) In consultation with the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena or drones of unknown origin associated with nuclear power generating stations, nuclear fuel storage sites, or other sites or facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(P) The names of the line organizations that have been designated to perform the specific functions under subsections (c) and (d), and the specific functions for which each such line organization has been assigned primary responsibility.
(3) Form.--Each report submitted under paragraph (1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
Subsection (i) stipulates briefings to Congress. This spells out to objectives of Congress. First, they want all the UAP cases collected by the UAPTF after the June 2021 UAP report was closed. Second, they want regularly occurring briefings of recent UAP activity ever 180 days (6 months):
(i) Semiannual Briefings.--
(1) Requirement.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act and not less frequently than semiannually thereafter until December 31, 2026, the head of the Office established under subsection (a) shall provide to the congressional committees specified in subparagraphs (A), (B), and (D) of subsection (l)(1) classified briefings on unidentified aerial phenomena.
(2) First briefing.--The first briefing provided under paragraph (1) shall include all incidents involving unidentified aerial phenomena that were reported to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force or to the Office established under subsection (a) after June 24, 2021, regardless of the date of occurrence of the incident.
(3) Subsequent briefings.--Each briefing provided subsequent to the first briefing described in paragraph (2) shall include, at a minimum, all events relating to unidentified aerial phenomena that occurred during the previous 180 days, and events relating to unidentified aerial phenomena that were not included in an earlier briefing.
(4) Instances in which data was not shared.--For each briefing period, the head of the Office established under subsection (a) shall jointly provide to the chairman and the ranking minority member or vice chairman of the congressional committees specified in subparagraphs (A) and (D) of subsection (k)(1) an enumeration of any instances in which data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena was not provided to the Office because of classification restrictions on that data or for any other reason.
Subsections (j) through (l): Odds and Ends. The new UAP office will replace the UAPTF. Also, the term UAP is now defined in a way that accounts for underwater activity.
(j) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to carry out the work of the Office established under subsection (a), including with respect to--
(1) general intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis; and
(2) strategic defense, space defense, defense of controlled air space, defense of ground, air, or naval assets, and related purposes.
(k) Task Force Termination.--Not later than the date on which the Secretary establishes the Office under subsection (a), the Secretary shall terminate the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.
(l) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) The term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means the
following:
(A) The Committees on Armed Services of the House of
Representatives and the Senate.
(B) The Committees on Appropriations of the House of
Representatives and the Senate.
(C) The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
(D) The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.
(2) The term ``intelligence community'' has the meaning given such term in section 3 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 3003).
(3) The term ``line organization'' means, with respect to a department or agency of the Federal Government, an organization that executes programs and activities to directly advance the core functions and missions of the department or agency to which the organization is subordinate, but, with respect to the Department of Defense, does not include a component of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
(4) The term ``transmedium objects or devices'' means objects or devices that are observed to transition between space and the atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water, that are not immediately identifiable.
(5) The term ``unidentified aerial phenomena'' means--
(A) airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable;
(B) transmedium objects or devices; and
(C) submerged objects or devices that are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance characteristics suggesting that the objects or devices may be related to the objects or devices described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
7/28 (25%) featured no people of color as guests or background actors. If you count Uhura and Sulu, the only one episode, Miri, had now people of color on screen. 96% of season one had some form of minority representation. Every week except for one, you would have tuned in to see black or brown people in uniform on board a starship.
Background Extra
21/28 (75%)
Speaking Guest
9/28 (32%)
Guest Star
5/28 (18%)The Galileo SevenCourt MartialThe MenagerieSpace SeedA Taste of Armageddon
9. What are Little Girls Made of? (Chapel)11. Miri (Rand)17. Shore Leave (the damsel in distress Yoeman)21.Tomorrow is Yesterday (the female-dominated computer programmer society)22.The Return of the Archons (the violent rape and male POV)23. Space Seed (Marla McGivers)
Does not mean there were no women; just means they were not featured enough to make an impact one way or the other. 100% of episodes had speaking parts for women. But of these 5, it was either Uhura or minor background officers that had few if any lines.
The Legacy of Yeoman Rand
Yoeman Rand episodes
(asterisk indicates Rand was integral of the plot)
The Corbomite Maneuver
The Enemy Within *
The Man Trap
The Naked Time *
Charlie X *
Balance of Terror
Miri
Planned episodes post-firing:Conscience of the King
Galileo Seven
Court Martial
Shore Leave
Squire of Gothos
Space Seed
A Taste of Armageddon
The City on the Edge of Forever (based on Ellison’s drafts)
Was in 7 of 11 episodes during Whitney’s time of the show (64%)
Would have been in 15 of 28 episodes (53% of the season) and perhaps more.
The remaining 5 themes explore individual issues that are common debates in literature, science-fiction in particular. In these Star Trek expresses its views on tolerance, war, and technology. Of course a few episodes are just for fun and have no theme at all.
Theme: Embrace “the Other”
Percent of Season One: 21%
6 of 28 episodes:
The Corbomite Maneuver
The Man Trap
Balance of Terror
The Galileo Seven
Arena
The Devil in the Dark
Disgust is a powerful human emotion that probably evolved to protect us from harmful or disease-bearing substances. But as we began to divide societies by caste, race, and class, the emotion was used to manufacture fear of those deemed different. The dominant group is clean and pure, while the subordinate group is polluted. This enables segregation and dehumanization, which allows the gears of the dominant group’s project to turn.
Star Trek attacked this social evil from the very beginning. In season one, episodes depict characters who exhibit this disgust for the Other who are then contrasted with characters who model the act of embracing the Other. Sometimes the audience itself is tricked into succumbing to our own biases and fears, only to be corrected in the end by a more enlightened character.
Turning the sci-fi monster trope on its head had been one of Rodenberry’s earliest goals for his show, and The Corbomite Maneuver was his first effort. Balock’s puppet was designed to instill fear in both the Enterprise crew and the audience. When Balock reveals himself as a child-like imp, he even admits that he used the puppet to play on the primitive Human fear of difference.
The Man Trap is a more traditional sci-fi monster story, but there are attempts to empathize with the creature as the last of its kind. The producers also later admitted that they regretted how the episode killed off the monster in the end, which they considered an off-note in how Star Trek addresses this theme.
The Devil in the Dark is where the producers distilled this theme into its purest form, probably of the entire series if not the franchise. Roddenberry even felt that this episode crystallized “what our point of view on other races would be” and was a statement of “what the series was.” Writer David Gerrold said that after the interactions with the Horta, the characters “end up learning more about appropriate behavior for ourselves out of learning to be compassionate, tolerant, understanding.” The point is hit home by the human miners who form a mob not different from the torch-bearing villagers coming after Frankenstein’s monster, or a racist lynch mob, and after Kirk and Spock shift their perspective they end up becoming the Horta’s co-workers.
Balance of Terror, Arena, and The Galileo Seven all have Others wherein the monster stand-ins are human equivalents. The Romulans are the only case where the Other is not depicted in monster makeup. But in these episodes the dividing line is not disgust over physical differences, it is bigotry against an enemy at war. In The Galileo Seven, the giant ape-like aliens are stand-ins for North Vietnamese, but not as stereotypes or crude caricatures of America’s then enemies. Spock gives some monologues about the distasteful human habit of warlike aggression that he sees in his stranded team. McCoy has to remind him that the aliens are not going to react logically to their “superior weapons” but “emotionally, with anger.” This humanizes them.
The Gorn are shown to be mirror images of Starfleet, simply protecting their outpost from invasion no different than Kirk was in fact behaving in the same episode.
Finally, the Romulans are humanized as they are depicted from their own perspective with their own voice. The audience is hunkered down with them as they are attacked by the Enterprise, and we overhear their hopes and longings to “see the stars of home.” Kirk is explicit with his crew: “Leave your bigotry in your quarters.” As with the Gorn, Kirk sees himself in the Romulan Commander.
In all of these cases the Enterprise crew must learn how to recognize the common drives, emotions and motivations that explain the alien enemy’s behavior. And in the end of each episode, the crew expresses a newfound respect, empathy and compassion for that enemy. They do so in a way that establishes at least the possibility for peace and coexistence. With the one exception of the poor Salt Creature, peace and coexistence is how all of these episodes end.
Theme: Anti-War
Percent of Season: 17%
5 of 28 episodes:
Balance of Terror
The Galileo Seven
Arena
A Taste of Armageddon
Errand of Mercy
A Taste of Armageddon is the episode that deals most explicitly with war–the policy, politics, techniques, and costs of a government’s decision to engage in warfare. It is about the how and why of war. The message is not overtly anti-war–in fact Kirk arranges for the two planets to escalate their war. Yes, the climactic Kirk speech equates human tendency to kill to an addiction that can be overcome. But the more clear message is that if you are going to wage war, do so honestly in a way that does not hide the costs–something a military hawk can agree with. By all means, go to war if you must, but do not try to trick the public into thinking it will be cheap, easy and clean. Of course this is an anti-war activist tactic based on the logic that if the public knew the true costs of war there would be fewer wars.
Perhaps unexpectedly, Kirk is often presented as a military hawk in these episodes. In both Arena and Errand of Mercy he is chomping at the bit to go to war, but other more enlightened beings get to Kirk-Speech him out of it.
The writers were clearly sympathetic to anti-Vietnam War ideas. Gene Coon projected a Vietnam analogy onto the Organians, have their primitive, idyllic society overrun by two warring superpowers. Coon’s Vietnam analogy becomes less abstract when you imagine a Vietnamese peasant rising up and saying to the American and North Vietnamese soldier alike: The differences you are killing everyone over are really not that significant–not even apparent from my perspective.
This was also a minor theme with the cavemen aliens in The Galileo Seven, in which Spock made a lot of snide judgments about Human bloodlust for war.
In all of these episodes, war is either ended or averted, which cements Trek’s opinion that war is in fact bad. But nowhere in these episodes is there a reflexive “war is bad” message. The anti-war themes are more nuanced: war is sometimes necessary or unavoidable (recall that Keeler had to die precisely because she thought otherwise), but we must strive to avoid it. And avoiding it is no mere policy decision–it requires a new moral perspective, a change in the heart. The fact that 23rd Century peoples are shown still struggling to bring about the change, failing some but winning more often, is another example of Trek’s optimism.
Theme: Ecological Harmony
Percent of Season One: 7%
2 of 28 episodes:
The Devil in the Dark
The Man Trap
The Devil in the Dark has the most prominent environmental message of the season: the danger of human industry destroying an ecosystem that they are barely aware even exists; the Horta as endangered species. The Man Trap has a few lines lamenting how sad it is when a species does go extinct, equating the salt creature to Earth’s buffalo.
One wonders why this theme is so slight, only two episodes and really just a minor theme in both of them. Perhaps the environmental movement was not yet culturally prominent in the mid-60s as it would later become in the 70s? Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962, and political pressure was building in the 60s that led to the passage of the Environmental Protection Act in 1970. So environmentalism was “in the water”–no pun intended.
Maybe this: the writers and producers were much more interested in universal human themes that would be familiar on the pages of ageless literature–with a particular future focus on the ascent of man and technological society. Environmentalism is literally Earth-bound, and a bit too topical and tied to current headlines. Same with the small number of anti-war episodes, of which Vietnam was shoehorned into only two, and in the most oblique way that a viewer might not even think of the war in South Asia.
It is invariably said in every Star Trek retrospective and documentary that the episodes took controversial issues of the day and recast them as science fiction. But as we can see here, it’s not that simple–at least in season one. The show did speak to the issues and anxieties of its day, but those issues are much more ageless and universal than just plucking hot topics from the newspapers of 1965 and 66. This is why the show still resonates half a century later, and why it still has something to say about the hot topics in our current “homogenized, pasteurized synthesized” newsfeeds.
Theme: Anti-technocracy
Percent of Season One: 28%
8 of 28 Episodes:
What are Little Girls Made of?
Dagger of the Mind
Miri
The Conscience of the King
The Galileo Seven
Court Martial
The Return of the Archons
Space Seed
Technocracy is a term that has been variously used across the 20th century. For our purposes let’s define it as the primacy of technology over people, a tendency to put power in the hands of scientists and technocrats who promise to strip away or minimize messy human nature from the ways a society functions. There was an actual Technocracy movement during the Great Depression that proposed to reorganize the entire economy and system of work and production as a pure engineering project with “no place for Politics or Politicians.” Let’s leave aside questions about whether this idea is undemocratic or unworkable. Star Trek, at least in its original series, always came down on the side of people over technology, and messiness over efficiency.
In his book Who Owns the Future–about how our economy and personal lives and being hijacked by tech companies and their algorithms–Jaron Lanier includes a brief aside about how Star Trek tackled this theme in the 1960s.
Lainer writes that the dominant narrative of our age will be about how so much of our lives are becoming “more software-mediated, physicality is becoming more mutable by technology, and reality is being optimized.” The problem he foresees is “that the humans aren’t the heroes” of this new reality; humans are obsolete, unimportant, slow and in the way of real progress. He argues that this narrative needs to be opposed, and that the importance of actual people must be reinserted into the utopian visions about the role of future technology. He writes, “Drawing a line between what we forfeit to calculation and what we reserve for the heroics of free will is the story of our time.”
He points out that a backdrop theme of the original Star Trek is the idea that advanced technology does not ruin humanity, which stands in stark contrast with so much other science-fiction. According to Lanier, technology on Trek results in a “more moral, fun, adventurous, sexy, and meaningful world.” The prime reason that “a more instrumented world” does not lead to the kind of dystopian vision of so much sci-fi is because “a recognizable human remains at the center of the adventure” and not only succeeds but thrives due to factors—human factors—that have nothing to do with technology.
Star Trek is never ashamed to point out that technology is a positive benefit—the Enterprise is run on amoral algorithms too. But that technology is the necessary-but-not-sufficient element of human progress. As Lanier puts it, “At the center of the high-tech circular bridge of the starship Enterprise is seated a Kirk or a Picard, a person.” And that person makes all the difference.
In its first season Star Trek depicted advanced technology as no threat to humanity; it was not a threat because real people were always in control, Kirk in particular. And yes, there was also a lot of smashing of computers by Kirk in particular.
There are three broad categories of this theme, though each episode has some elements of all three: Bad Scientists, Bad Computers, Bad Technocratic Thinking.
Bad Scientists
In true sci-fi style, the writers train their most cutting rhetorical firepower on misguided and hubristic ‘bad scientists.’ And the Nobel Prize for worst scientists goes to the people who spawned Kahn Singh. In Space Seed McCoy is adamant about who is responsible for Kahn and the Eugenics Wars:
SPOCK: Of course. Your attempt to improve the race through selective breeding.
MCCOY: Now, wait a minute. Not our attempt, Mister Spock. A group of ambitious scientists. I’m sure you know the type. Devoted to logic, completely unemotional.
The episode’s message about the Eugenics Wars and genetic manipulation was not that you might create people with Terminator-like powers who will turn on you. It is a similar sci-fi theme as expressed in the Terminator movies, but with a different emphasis: not on the created product, but on the creators. The real villains are the scientists who designed them. Shortcuts of hard problems of human nature only cause more problems than you solve. Using science and technology as a cureall *really* causes problems.
Kahn’s most significant attribute is not his strength, but his ambition and lust for power over others. After he makes the Enterprise crew his hostages, he lectures them: “Nothing ever changes, except man. Your technical accomplishments? Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity but improve man and you gain a thousandfold. I am such a man.” This is pure technocratic thinking that almost certainly parrots the misguided notions of his creators.
Kahn is not an android, but he does resemble his creators. Khan speaks with great arrogance that they must have had. He is exactly the type of person you would expect from ambitious scientists trying to design the perfect person: arrogant and self-assured; entitled to take what he wants; utter lack of empathy; sociopathic. A great humanist scientist who studies Michelangelo can create an android like Data. Scientists who are only interested in doubling productivity can only create a Kahn.
There are several other bad scientist culprits in season one. In What are Little Girls Made of? the Old Ones destroyed themselves by creating a race of servant androids. One of the archeologists describes Korby’s analysis of Exo III this way: “You must have often heard Dr. Korby remark how freedom of movement and choice produced the Human spirit. The culture of Exo III proved his theory. When they moved [underground] from light to darkness, they replaced freedom with a mechanistic culture.” What is interesting about this history is that it places blame for the downfall squarely on the people, not the androids who actually finished them off. Giving up their human freedom for technocracy is what sealed their fate. The androids just put them out of their misery. In the episode, these machines–personified by Ruk–are almost sympathetic, hapless figures. But the Old Ones–men like Korby–who chose technology over humanity are both the victims and perpetrators of a piteous madness.
The Earth-like planet in Miri was almost entirely depopulated due to the work of scientists who thought they could stop the aging process. In Dagger of the Mind, Dr. Adams eschews a more humanistic approach to therapy, opting to use a machine to cure mental illness. He is not unlike Silicon Valley tech geniuses who run their rat race to invent apps that will solve the world’s thorniest problems. Adams ends up using his tech to control and destroy.
In all the above cases it is not the technology itself that is the root problem, but the misguided people of science who think they can wield it to short circuit immutable laws of nature and the human condition.
Bad Technocratic Thinking
Next are the examples of technocratic thinking gone horribly wrong.
We have already seen how the promise and peril of technocratic efficiency and control trapped the Earth eugenicists, Miri’s people, and Dr. Adam’s mental ward.
In The Galileo Seven, we have a gentler, more personal version of the theme. Spock’s reliance on logic leads him to fail to assess his enemy or lead his crew successfully. One striking example of Spock’s misstep is objecting to the superfluous act of a burial ceremony for fallen crewmembers. He sacrificed morale for the chance to optimize efficiency, but because morale was low his team could not be efficient.
In The Conscience of the King, Kodos uses a tehcnocratic approach to an ecological crisis that leads him to commit genocide. Kodos was a human, and not a Hitler-type megalomaniac. He became a monster because he made life and death decisions that only a computer would make.
In these examples, Spock learns the error of his pure-logic approach to command just in time to save the mission. Dr. Adams, Kodos, and the Miri planet end up dead as a result of their abundant trust in the benefits of efficiency.
Bad Computers
Finally we come to the cases of bad computers.
Court Martial is Star Trek’s thesis statement against an over-computerized society. It is about the necessity of maintaining man’s rights, dignity, and reason over a computer’s indomitable facts. Originally the ship’s computer was written to be malicious, but upon rewrites it was reduced to being merely unreliable and unworthy. This downgrade is an understandable rewrite from the Star Trek producers–the Enterprise cannot be evil after all–but Court Martial hammers this theme all the more powerfully because it is not about some misbegotten alien society. It is about the struggle of the Federation and Starfleet to resist becoming servants to its own miraculously advanced technology.
Samuel T. Cogley calls the computer a “homogenized, pasteurized synthesizer.” Today we are even more tethered to that synthesizer than was imagined in the 1960s. Many of us never stop our scrolling to consider that we are losing something valuable in that interface. It’s not the user–the person–who is making the decisions about how to read the information, it’s the algorithm. For what purpose was that algorithm calculated? It does not need to be for a nefarious purpose for us to admit that it might not fit the user’s precise needs in the moment, or that it might channel the user into certain pathways of information, associations to other sources that–whatever they are–we did not choose to be exposed to. This canned response can block us from certain insights. Instead, we come to trust and rely on the algorithm’s insights.
Samuel T. Cogley, attorney at law
This is what Cogley is worried about, piling stacks of books around him as a protective barrier. It is what we should all be worried about, knowing what we know now about how the modern internet is configured and how it affects democracy. Star Trek is optimistic in many ways, and this is one of them: that we will have figured out how to coexist with advanced computer networks without surrendering our autonomy to them. Kirk is put on trial against the word of a computer. During trial the Starfleet prosecutor uses a PADD, but Cogley has five heavy books and a yellow legal pad. He wins the case!
The script revision process for Court Martial illustrates how Trek’s producers constantly beat back the implication that the Enterprise’s high technology was crowding out the human element of the crew. They weeded out of the scripts even the smallest detail that suggested an over-computerized society.
The original script was premised on pitting a old-school country lawyer against a computer in a courtroom drama. The conflict was based on who to trust: the impervious computer or the flawed human hero, Kirk? But the producers balked at even this level of technocracy being permitted in their Starfleet.
Here is how Justman put it in one of his memos to John D.F. Black: “In Act I, on Page 3, we are told that ‘almost all legal questions–and certainly all questions of fact–are now determined electronically.’ This bothers me because I felt that we were attempting to maintain our fight for humanity and against complete computerization within our show.”
Roddenberry even wrote to the script writer that “the implied assumption that computers are constantly photographing and recording all aspects of life” should be taken out of the script.
In a letter to Gene Coon about a different episode later in the year, Roddenberry wrote: “There seems to be a compulsion among writers to picture the future as totally computerized, inhumanly authoritarian, and coldly big-brotherish. I know none of us want to go in that direction, but God help Star Trek, if our writers push us that-a-way.” The final script did de-emphasize the role of the Enterprise computer, but Cogley still got to let rip some great bromides “in the name of a humanity fading in the age of the machine.”
In The Return of the Archons we see a world that exemplifies Cogley’s fears but appeases the producer’s fears by moving the theme away from Starfleet and onto an alien planet.
Spock describes the society on Beta III this way: “This is a soulless society, Captain. It has no spirit, no spark. All is indeed peace and tranquility – the peace of the factory; the tranquility of the machine; all parts working in unison.” Landru, the ultimate bad computer, over programs the population to the point that they are mindless automatons. Kirk destroys it. It would not be his last.
Theme: None
Percent of Season One: 10%
3 of 28 Episodes:
Shore Leave
Tomorrow is Yesterday
Operation: Annihilate!
Themes happen when the writer has a germ of an idea that answers the big questions: What is the episode about? Why does the story matter? Usually this message is the first thing the writer thinks about and it propels the writing process through the development of the plot and characters. Sometimes the themes are layered in through the writing process. Other times the theme does not fully gel or fades in significance due to rewrites or the want of better rewrites.
But not every episode needs a big moral message wrapped up in a Kirk speech. Some episodes have no theme at all. They are just there for pure fun, or to deliver a certain kind of plot.
Shore Leave is the first such episode of season one, and it’s almost like the writers were winking to the audience by showing Kirk and his crew fatigued from their year in space, in need of a break. The viewers had just sat through half a season of very great but very heavy stories about life and death, the fate of man and the universe. Shore Leave was there to remind us that we are still having fun, a week in which we did not need to think too much.
Tomorrow is Yesterday was Trek’s first time travel story, and also emphasized fun and humor. It’s purpose was to tell a light-hearted time travel romp, and it succeeded since its tropes were repeated in nearly every time travel story that came after it in the franchise.
Conversely, Operation: Annihilate! is about space parasites invading entire solar systems and driving people mad, but the episode did not have anything to say about the nature of insanity, invasive species, or colonization. It was intended to be Star Trek’s attempt at suspense and horror, nothing more.
There are two honorable mentions in this category. The Naked Time was also not intended to be a message show. It seems that the intention was to tell a suspense story that reveals new character details by putting them under pressure in out-of-character conditions. But because the character development became so strong, that became its theme. Finally, The Alternative Factor is so muddled by an unfinished script it’s hard to tell even what the plot is let alone the theme. Both of these episodes in their way were able to powerfully convey the theme of human connection, as discussed in that section of this essay.
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In the next and final essay in this series, we will explore an important Star Trek theme that runs under the surface of many episodes already discussed: dualities are false.
