The House Oversight Committee will this week hold a groundbreaking hearing on UFOs, now also known as unidentified aerial phenomena.
In recognition of the public’s growing interest in extraterrestrials, the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs announced a hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.”
The hearing will take place Wednesday, July 26 at 10 a.m. ET, and will bring in officials who have reported firsthand accounts of UAP encounters. The committee will begin the process of assessing the federal government’s transparency and accountability regarding potential threats these phenomena may pose to U.S. national security.
Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee and a member of the subcommittee, said information has been kept hidden by the Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats for decades.
“We’re bringing in credible witnesses who can provide public testimony because the American people deserve the truth. We’re done with the cover-ups,” Burchett said.
The Department of Defense created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in 2022 to investigate UAP reports, yet the government has been slow to disclose vital information, releasing only limited declassified videos and studies on select UAP incidents, leaving many questions unanswered about the origins and nature of these phenomena.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican and member of the subcommittee, said the hearing is scheduled because of the government’s lack of transparency and its failure to address issues raised by whistleblowers.
“If the last few months have taught me anything, it is that this is an issue that matters to Americans,” Rep. Luna said.
The hearing features a panel of witnesses with notable backgrounds related to UAP investigations:
- Ryan Graves, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace.
- Rt. Commander David Fravor, Former Commanding Officer of the Black Aces Squadron, U.S. Navy. Fravor is a navy pilot of 18 years and a primary witness in one of the most credible UFO sightings in history, in which there is a video record.
- David Grusch, Former National Reconnaissance Officer Representative, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force, Department of Defense.
The hearing will be open to the public and the press and will be livestreamed online at the official website of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who passed away in 2010, and the late Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who died in 2012, played crucial roles alongside Sen. Harry Reid in securing $22 million in funding for the Pentagon’s UFO-UAP secret program during the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets in 2007. Both Stevens and Inouye were on the Defense appropriation subcommittee that approved the funding, which went unnoticed by the public.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was concealed from public view as it delved into reports of unidentified flying objects, as disclosed by Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants such as Fravor. The research group was spearheaded by military intelligence official Luis Elizondo, who is the former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
Even after the funding ran out, the Pentagon continued working on the AATIP project on the side.
