The US Congress held this Tuesday (17) the first public hearing in more than 50 years on UFOs, the unidentified flying objects. With the presence of government officials, the session takes place 11 months after the release, by the Pentagon, of a report with records of 144 observations of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, its acronym in English) by the US military since 2014.
The document, while inconclusive, sparked an uproar by indicating that 18 of the objects, classified as “potential hazards” by US Defense Undersecretary Ronald Moultrie, who attended Tuesday’s session, exhibited unusual flight behavior. “We are aware that our military has encountered unidentified aerial phenomena, and as they pose potential flight safety and general security risks, we are committed to a concerted effort to determine their origins.”
In November, the National Defense Law began to require the military to create an office to look into the issue, in addition to presenting biannual briefings on the issue to Congress.
This Tuesday, the deputy director of naval intelligence, Scott Bray, said that the number of UAPs cataloged had risen to 400, but, even in the face of the expressive increase, he adopted a tone of caution and affirmed that there are no indications that the phenomena are of origin. extraterrestrial and that no attempt to communicate was made.
He admitted, however, that US authorities are unable to explain some of the objects detected. “There are few cases where we have more data, but our analysis just couldn’t fully determine what happened,” he said.
Bray showed two videos of unidentified aerial phenomena. One showed triangle-shaped objects flashing in the night sky. The other recorded a shiny, spherical object passing through the cockpit window of a military aircraft. At least 11 sightings nearly caused accidents with American aircraft, and some of them appeared to be moving without any discernible means of propulsion.
“UAPs are inexplicable but real,” said House intelligence subcommittee chairman Andre Carson, who called for the phenomena to be taken seriously. He also accused Pentagon officials of focusing on relatively easy-to-understand cases and “avoiding those that cannot be explained.”​
The 2021 report and Tuesday’s hearing marked a turning point for the US, which for decades has denied and discredited observations of unidentified flying objects.
Even with the record of dozens of reports of unidentified aerial phenomena, alien spacecraft received no mention in the report released by the Pentagon in June. The focus, instead, was on the potential implications for national security and the security of American aviation.
The session was the first open congressional hearing on the issue since the US Air Force ended an inconclusive UFO program, codenamed Project Blue Book, in 1969.
