by Congressional hearing Tuesday (May 17) that focused on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has received mixed reviews.
Anticipated by many, it was the first open congressional hearing on UFOs — or UAP (“Unidentified Sky Phenomena”), as they’ve recently been renamed — in more than half a century.
Congressman André Carson (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, kicked off Tuesday hearing by noting that more than 50 years ago, the US government put an end to Project Blue Book, an effort to catalog and understand sightings of objects in the sky that could not be immediately explained.
“For more than 20 years, that project treated unidentified anomalies in our airspace as a threat to national security that must be monitored and investigated,” Carson said.
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Out of the shadows
In 2017, it was first revealed, Carson said, that the US Department of Defense had quietly restarted a similar organization. follow what we now call UAP†
And last year, he added, Congress rewrote the charter for that organization, which is now called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, or AOIMSG for short.
“Today we will bring that organization out of the shadows,” Carson said Tuesday. “This hearing and our oversight work has a simple idea at its core: unidentified sky phenomena pose a potential threat to national security. And that’s how they should be treated.”
“UAP reports have been around for decades, and yet we haven’t had an orderly way to report them — without stigma — and be investigated,” said House Speaker Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Permanent Select Committee on Information. “That has to change.”
UAP reports should be seen as a matter of national security, Schiff said, and that message should be spread across the entire US government. “If we see something we don’t understand or cannot identify in our airspace, it is the job of those we have entrusted to our national security to investigate and report back,” he said.
Two witnesses were present at the hearing: Ronald Moultrie, the senior Pentagon intelligence officer, and Scott Bray, deputy director of Naval Intelligence. (After the open section, the subcommittee also held a private, secret briefing.) What did they tell us?
Short on details
“I wasn’t expecting much from those hearings, and I wasn’t disappointed,” said Robert Sheaffer, a leading skeptical researcher of UFOs. “It was long on attitude and promises, but very short on details.”
Sheaffer said there was a lot of talk about “sensors” and “databases” at the hearing, “but the evidence they put forward was extremely ridiculous.” The object in what was tagged as “Video 1 2021” was so insignificant and hard to see that it had to be played over and over before the object was even seen. When it was eventually captured in a still image, it was just a small round object with no detail, he said.
“Most likely, this was just a balloon that the plane flew past at high speed,” Sheaffer said. “They show this as one of their best pieces of evidence, and we can’t laugh?”
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Wild goose hunt?
Sheaffer also highlighted another video from the hearing that showed “triangle-shaped objects” as seen through night vision goggles.
“It’s reassuring that they seem to understand that the objects themselves weren’t necessarily triangular. This is an artifact of the camera system,” he said. “But more than a year ago it was conclusively proven that the ‘unknown objects’ fit the planet perfectly Jupiter and the stars of Scorpius. So these ‘experts’ clearly know less about these military videos than civilian analysts.”
The hearing provided a new pretext for spending taxpayers’ money on a wild goose hunt, Sheaffer said. “We need more sensors! We need more databases! We need more personnel! And since the goose will escape us forever, the investigation justice will have a long duration,” he concluded.
Solve the riddle
Robert Powell, a board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, expressed a mixed opinion about the hearing.
“It was a step forward because Moultrie and Bray committed to making as much information public as possible on the subject of UAP, and they seem determined to solve the conundrum,” Powell said.
At the same time, it was disappointing, Powell said, because they lacked a historical understanding of the phenomenon: “They were unaware of raids on U.S. nuclear facilities that can be traced back to 1947.”
Powell also suggested that the US Navy equip some of its vehicles with equipment such as spectral analyzers and broadband electromagnetic detection systems, in order to be prepared to properly measure the emissions from any UAP they encounter.
“There is so much that can be done if we take a proactive stance with UAP rather than relying on the chance of a pilot or carrier group encountering one of these objects,” he said. “As you can see, there’s a lot I’d like to see accomplished.”
What are we going to do now?
Alejandro Rojas is a seasoned UFO researcher who serves as head of public relations for the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.
Rojas said he hopes the UAP issue will be taken more seriously as a result of Tuesday’s hearing.
“Everyone, from the members who are questioning the witnesses, seems to be taking the matter very seriously,” Rojas said. “Hopefully this will help alleviate the stigma that has hindered serious research into this issue. Bray and Moultrie also suggested that AIMSOG reach out to civilian research groups. Hopefully, that will happen so we can help close the major education gap highlighted at the hearing .”
Wanted: best possible data
“UAP is most likely a mixed bag. Many may have mundane explanations,” said Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb. Galileo projecta systematic scientific search for evidence of alien technological artifacts, and author of the recent book “Extraterrestrial” (Mariner Books, 2021).
“From a scientific perspective, it makes the most sense to focus efforts on developing new instruments and monitoring objects in a quest for the best possible data,” Loeb told Space.com. “Instead of relying on pilots, the government could use higher quality ground-based instruments than those available in fighter jets or the best satellite data in his possession. I hope they do. We are using a much smaller budget to achieve this goal within the Galileo project.”
Loeb said the question is whether there is even one object from which man-made or natural origin can be ruled out. In particular, do we have materials from any of them?
“If some data has no impact on national security, then it needs to be analyzed by top scientists. I’d be happy to help interpret the highest quality data when shared openly,” he said.
And Tuesday’s hearing could lead to more openness on the road.
“I would say that any time there is an opportunity to make an issue of potential national security concern more transparent, and make programs related to it more accountable, that is in the public interest,” Sarah says. Scoles, author of “They’re Already Here: “UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers” (Pegasus Books, 2020).
“I note that it is not the Immigration Subcommittee that is discussing the matter,” Scoles concluded.
Leonard David is author of the book “Moon Rush: The New Space Race,” published by National Geographic in May 2019. David has been a Space.com writer for more than five decades, reporting on the space industry for over five decades. follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or on facebook†
