Last week, another UFO was spotted in Washington.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Uncovering the Truth” at the Rayburn House in Washington, D.C., at 11:30 a.m. ET (15:30 GMT) on Wednesday, November 13. Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) is a relatively new, broad term that encompasses sightings of unexplained objects or events in the air, underwater, in space, or moving between these environments.
As with previous congressional hearings on UFOs, this event featured testimony from active duty U.S. military personnel who claimed that the U.S. government has been hiding evidence of advanced technology and alien beings from the public for decades. There were numerous stories of flying orbs emerging from the ocean, disc-shaped objects, and craft “displaying flight and structural characteristics unmatched in our arsenal.” While such claims are nothing new, the pedigrees of some of the whistleblowers who testified stood out, including a former U.S. counterintelligence officer, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, and a former NASA associate administrator. All emphasized the need for greater government transparency, reducing the stigma surrounding UFOs, and creating new policies to bring UAP data out of the “black” classified world and into the public domain.
A still from a video titled “Go Fast” taken by a US Navy aircraft, which reportedly shows the drone discussed at a US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth” on Wednesday (Nov. 13).
This is not the first attempt by the US government to investigate the recent wave of UFO claims that began in 2017. A similar hearing was held last year, in which a whistleblower told Congress that the US government was hiding evidence of “non-human intelligence.”
In 2022, the Pentagon also created the Doman Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to study UAP reports and government UFO data, but critics, including some government officials, have questioned the office's goals and methods.
“AARO is unable or perhaps unwilling to disclose the truth about the government’s actions with respect to UAP,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said during opening statements at the hearing. “What concerns me is that AARO itself is opaque; even its budget is hidden from the public. If there is no ‘there,’ why are we spending money on it? And how much? Why the secrecy?”
Other participants also noted the importance of transparency and data analysis, a common theme in other recent UAP studies. “We have evidence that what we’re capturing is real, and we know we don’t understand it, and that should be investigated,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). “I think we can always be more open. To me, these hearings and others like them are about the truth and getting the facts about what these UAPs really are.”
Luis Elizondo, a former U.S. counterintelligence official who has been vocal about such views in recent years, told the hearing that “excessive secrecy has led to serious crimes against dedicated government officials, military personnel and citizens — all in the name of hiding the fact that we are not alone in space.”
“We are in the middle of a multi-year, covert arms race financed by the misuse of taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” Elizondo said in his testimony.
Elizondo, who claims to have previously investigated UFOs as part of a secret Pentagon program, proposed that the U.S. government develop a “whole-of-government” approach to UFO research, create a national UFO strategy and offer protections so that whistleblowers “who want to do the right thing can come forward without fear.”
During Elizondo's interrogation
Sourse: www.livescience.com
