WASHINGTON — Two senior defense intelligence officials on Tuesday outlined the federal government’s efforts to collect data on unidentified aerial phenomena in the first congressional public hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years.
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott W. Bray said that since the release last year of a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a task force investigating the phenomenon said his base data had grown to “about 400 reports”. of unidentifiable objects. Bray said he has received an increase in reports because people have become more comfortable sharing these encounters seen in the sky.
“The stigma has been reduced,” Bray said.
Many of these new reports are “actually historical reports” that were “narrative-based,” Bray said. The report published in June 2021 states that the US government could not explain 143 of 144 cases of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) reported by military aircraft between 2004 and 2021.
Bray said that since the early 2000s, the United States has seen “an increasing number of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft or objects” in military-controlled training areas and in other areas. other designated airspaces.
“Reportings of sightings are frequent and ongoing,” said Bray, who explained that there has been an increase not only because of the effort to de-stigmatize their reporting, but also because there has been a increase in unmanned aerial systems, clutter, mylar balloons, air waste and improvements in sensor capabilities in US airspace.
Some objects cannot be correctly identified, officials said. Bray, for example, released a video during the hearing taken from the cockpit of an airborne pilot operating at a US Navy training area that showed a “spherical object” hovering over the aircraft.
“As they fly by, they take a video – you see it looks reflective in this video, somewhat reflective, and it quickly passes the cockpit of the plane,” Bray said. “I don’t have an explanation of what this specific object is.”
To expand the government’s efforts to study these unidentifiable objects, the Pentagon is establishing an office within the office of the Secretary of Defense, said Ronald S. Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
“The function of the desk is clear – to facilitate the identification of previously unknown or unidentified aerial objects in a methodical, logical and standardized manner,” Moultrie said.
The effort will involve collaboration between the Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. They are also in partnership with the Department of Energy and NASA, national laboratories and international allies.
Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., chairman of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, said in his opening remarks that Tuesday’s hearing was aimed at bringing this government effort “out of the shadows.” “.
“The stigma associated with UAPs has inhibited good intelligence analysis,” Carson said. “Pilots either avoided reporting or were mocked when they did. DOD officials relegated the issue to the back room or swept it entirely under the rug, fearing a skeptical national security community. Today we know better. UAPs are unexplained, yes, but they are real. They need to be investigated and many of the threats they pose need to be mitigated.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-California, said in his remarks that reports of these objects “must be understood as a matter of national security.
“There’s something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to be moving in directions that are inconsistent with what we know about physics or science more broadly,” said Schiff, who said that these reports “raise questions of immense interest”.
The committee will move into a closed session with the two defense officials on the NAPs on Tuesday afternoon.
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