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UFO sightings are no longer restricted to grainy YouTube videos or alien conspiracy subreddits. A House panel will hold the first congressional hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in over 50 years to follow up with a Pentagon report that was released last June on U.S. military sightings of unidentifiable flying vehicles.
The hearing, scheduled for May 17, will be held by the House Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation and will include the testimony of two top defense intelligence officials, the New York Times reports.
“Since this is an area of high public interest, any undue secrecy can serve as an obstacle to solving the mystery, or it could prevent us from finding solutions to potential vulnerabilities,” Representative André Carson, the chairman of the subcommittee, told the New York Times. “This hearing is about examining steps that the Pentagon can take to reduce the stigma surrounding reporting by military pilots, and by civilian pilots.”
What is the UFO Pentagon report?
In June 2021, the Pentagon released a highly anticipated report on UAP (the military term for UFOs), the first to be released in decades. The report broke down sightings of UAPs that took place between the years 2004 to 2021, and unclassified information on military investigations into these incidents.
The report didn’t exactly provide answers, listing a total of 144 incidents, and only one of them was properly identified as “airborne clutter.” The remaining 143 were left unexplained, although the report did confirm that these were very much real flying objects, just that the government has no idea what they are. Of course, the report had no mention of aliens as a probable cause of these unidentifiable vehicles. But I mean, it didn’t not say they were aliens.
The report was a result of the Intelligence Authorization Act, which called for the release of an unclassified, all-sources report on UAPs following leaked videoscaptured by U.S. Navy pilots that showed odd-looking flying vehicles with unidentified maneuvers. In one video, the pilot can be heard exclaiming, “What the fuck is that?” as a cluster of aircrafts pulls some crazy stunts.
The government’s main concern with these unidentifiable flying vehicles is not an alien invasion, but rather that this is some sort of technologically advanced aircraft employed by China or Russia that could potentially threaten the U.S. military. The Pentagon report listed 11 incidents of near misses between a military vehicle and a UAP.
Although it didn’t provide many answers, the report lay the groundwork for further investigations into these incidents. And next week’s public hearing may be part of that effort.
The purpose of the 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,” according to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.