Congressional Committee Announces Public Hearing on UFOS and UAP

Over the course of the past few years, those on Capitol Hill have taken the reporting of UFOs or UAP more seriously with each passing month. So much so, that a House Intelligence subcommittee announced Tuesday it will soon hold a public hearing regarding the subject with other members of the American intelligence community. Scheduled for May 17th at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, its the first public hearing by a Congressional committee in over 50 years.

A report released last year ended up being inconclusive, neither confirming nor denying UAP — or unidentified aerial phenomena — were of this planet. That same report did, however, confirm the 144 incidents it covered did not include secret technology from any organization within the United States. As such, the House Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and counterproliferation, is hoping to get to the bottom of it.

"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 (D-IN) said (via 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."

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) added, "The federal government and intelligence community have a critical role to play in contextualizing and analyzing reports." He said the purpose of the public hearing was to bring awareness to "one of the great mysteries of our time and to break the cycle of excessive secrecy and speculation with truth and transparency."

Witnesses currently on the schedule for the hearing include Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, current under secretaries for intelligence. Moultrie heads thew new Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, an intelligence group started by the Pentagon last November.

"UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security. Safety concerns primarily center on aviators contending with an increasingly cluttered air domain," last year's intelligence report reads. "UAP would also represent a national security challenge if they are foreign adversary collection platforms or provide evidence a potential adversary has developed either a breakthrough or disruptive technology."