UFOs

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares92 Views

    Startling claims made at UFO hearing in Congress, but lack direct evidence

    by

    US government employees have been injured by UFOs and the US government has conducted a secret UFO retrieval program, a former department of defense official told a congressional committee on Wednesday, though the hearing lacked any direct evidence to back up the startling claims.The hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), which has become the more accepted term for UFO, also heard that the government has a “huge amount” of secret information on UAPs, including “photos, video, photos, other information”. But it also learned, following a query from Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, that there is no evidence of aliens having a secret underwater “base” on this planet.The hearing came more than a year after the Pentagon was accused of running a secret UFO retrieval program by whistleblower David Grusch, though no physical evidence has also ever emerged to back up these claims.The lack of concrete proof has been a consistent thorn in the side of those who believe the government is harboring UAPs, with Wednesday’s hearing again focussing on testimony from people who said they were aware of secret government programs, rather than witnesses presenting actual hard evidence.A statement from a Pentagon spokesperson said the department “has not found any verifiable evidence that any UAP observation represented extraterrestrial activity nor has the department discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”It followed a blockbuster congressional hearing last year in which Grusch, a former American intelligence official, claimed that the US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UAPs, as members of Congress investigate allegations the government is hiding knowledge of alien craft and beings from lawmakers.The two hearings reveal the remarkable extent to which discussions around UAPs – previously mostly the domain of conspiracy theorists and believers in aliens – have now penetrated the US military and the corridors of Congress.The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Department of Defense agency which investigates UAPs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Pentagon has previously denied the existence of any secret government programs to retrieve alien spacecraft and no evidence of these programs has ever emerged.A standout moment on Wednesday came when Nancy Mace, the chair of the hearing, questioned Luiz Elizondo, a former department of defense official who this year claimed in a memoir that the US is “in possession of advanced technology made off-world by non-human intelligence”.“Has the government conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs? Yes or no?” Mace asked. Elizondo, who was speaking under oath, said yes.“Were they designed to identify and reverse engineer alien craft? Yes or no?” Mace said. Elizondo said yes.Mace continued: “In your book, you mentioned government employees who’ve been injured by UAPs placed on leave and receiving government compensation for their injuries. Is that correct?” Elizondo said it was correct.Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence, said “expectation management” is important for those following the slow drip of claims about UAPs, but Pope said nevertheless the hearing had “moved things forward” – not least in creating more interest and more demand for transparency.“It’s building up that critical mass. Some people will be coming to this fresh,” he said.“There’s a whole bunch of people who probably haven’t heard of David Grusch because they missed that particular story, who will see this and say: ‘Wait a minute. They’re telling us that this is a crazy subject, no one takes it seriously. And [yet] there’s hearings in Congress?’”Wednesday’s hearing heard from Michael Shellenberger, a journalist and founder of the news site Public, who has reported that the Pentagon has a secret UFO retrieval program called “Immaculate Constellation”. Shellenberger claimed that “current or former government officials” had told him that the program had “maybe thousands” of pieces of evidence showing UAPs.“What the American people need to know is that the US, military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information: still photos, video, photos, other sensor information, and they have for a very long time,” Shellenberger said.“And it’s not those fuzzy photos and videos that we’ve been given. There’s very clear, high resolution [files].”Shellenberger told the committee he would not name the current or former government officials who had told him about the hidden evidence, but did share a 12-page report on Immaculate Constellation that he said was written by a whistleblower.UAPs have not always been a topic for serious congressional debate, with most politicians seemingly not wanting to become known as a believer in aliens. But members of Congress have sought to destigmatize the issue over the past couple of years by also framing the debate as not just an investigation into whether aliens exist, but also an investigation into secret, and potentially wasteful, government spending.“If we’re spending money on something that doesn’t exist, why are we spending the money, and if it does exist, why are we hiding it from the public?” Mace said on Wednesday.Nevertheless, alien investigation remains a topic fraught with obvious public relations pitfalls for politicians, and most of the committee members on Wednesday tried to avoid conspiracy-sounding language. Most, but not all.“I think it’s about 5% of our ocean that’s actually been studied by man,” Lauren Boebert, a some-time adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, noted to Shellenberger at one point.She continued: “Are there any accounts of UAPs emerging from or submerging into our water which could indicate a base or presence beneath the ocean’s surface?”Shellenberger said he had not heard of an underwater alien base, but did say a source had described an “orb coming out of the ocean and being met by another orb”.It remains to be seen how much Wednesday’s hearing achieved – “I hope this will open the door to more hearings in the future,” Mace said – but there is some hope for those seeking UAP disclosure: in the unlikely form of Donald Trump, who told a podcast earlier this year he would “love” to release more footage of UAPs.“The elephant in the room here is that we have a new administration in a matter of weeks, and we have a president-elect who has dropped some heavy hints about this, who is a maverick, a populist, a second-termer whose not going to be careful not to upset the bureaucracy or the deep state,” Pope said.“If [a secret government UAP program] is just very well hidden and under some sort of unique protection, the president, as commander in chief, can say: ‘I am ordering the de classification of this information, the release of these documents or materials’.” More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US Congress passes stripped-down measure to release UFO records

      by

      If the truth about UFOs is out there, the American government doesn’t want you to see it yet.Just months after US space agency Nasa appointed a research director of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and promised more transparency about what it knows, the US Congress has acted to throttle the flow of information that ultimately reaches the public.Measures to create a presidential commission to review UFO records, and to order the Department of Defense to declassify certain “records relating to publicly known sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)”, were stripped from the sweeping defense policy bill that passed Congress on Thursday with bipartisan support.What was left were provisions ordering the National Archives to collect reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin and nonhuman intelligence”, but giving various government departments broad authority to keep the records secret.It follows claims from whistleblowers during an eye-raising congressional hearing this summer that the government knew more than it was letting on about its work on UFOs, and had evidence of “non-human beings” gleaned from a top secret decades-long program.“We got totally ripped off. We got completely hosed. They stripped out every part,” the Tennessee Republican congressman Tim Burchett said of the bill, according to the New York Times.Burchett, who co-chaired the House panel in July and had promised to “uncover the cover-up”, introduced the measure that would have required the defense department to make public records that “do not reveal sources, methods or otherwise compromise the national security of the US”.He said the intelligence community had “rallied” to kill his proposal, and in other comments on Thursday blasted House colleagues as “gutless” because “they won’t stand up” for legislation before them.Separately, the Times cited an anonymous person with knowledge of discussions over the defense bill, who said defense department officials had “pushed back forcefully” on the moves towards openness.The Guardian has reached out the the defense department for comment.A report in the Hill published earlier this month said a “powerful” group of Republican lawmakers, including the House armed services committee chair, Mike Rogers, and intelligence committee chair, Mike Turner, were working to block the measure that would have created a presidential commission to review and declassify government UFO records.The Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, called it “an outrage” that the House had refused to incorporate the proposal, which, according to the Times, was a quid pro quo for the Senate rejecting Burchett’s offering, resulting in a simplified compromise bill containing neither that passed both chambers.“It means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades,” Schumer said.He did, however, call the bill as passed “a strong foundation for more action in the future”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe action stalls what had appeared to be a growing willingness by US officials to answer calls for greater transparency over UFOs.With July’s congressional hearing, and Nasa’s appointment of the space agency’s former Pentagon liaison, Mark McInerny, as its first director of UAP research, the government had slowly begun to embrace the idea of information sharing and public engagement after years of secrecy.Last month the Pentagon launched an online reporting tool for current or former federal employees to impart knowledge of “US government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945”, with the promise of a public portal to come.And one of the key recommendations of Nasa’s year-long independent study by experts was to encourage a global army of citizen skywatchers to help its research into the phenomena, as well as harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning as new tools to help evaluate and understand data that comes in.Nasa’s goal is to “shift the conversation about UAP from sensationalism to science”, its administrator, Bill Nelson, told reporters at the time.“There is a mindset. We all are entertained by Indiana Jones in the Amazon, and finding the Crystal Skull, so there’s a lot of folklore out there. That’s why we entered the arena, to try to get into this from a science point of view.”Nelson, however, pushed back on the suggestion Nasa had withheld evidence about extraterrestrial life, promising the agency would always be truthful and open about all of its findings. More

    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      The US government should tell the public what it knows about UFOs | Trevor Timm

      by

      It doesn’t matter the topic, there always seems to be a group of lawmakers who will stop at nothing to thwart government transparency – even when it’s a subject that could not be more bipartisan or in an obvious need for sunlight.This time, a small cadre of powerful Republicans have reportedly killed a provision in this year’s defense authorization that would finally bring some transparency to the US government’s knowledge around UFOs (now also known by the updated parlance of “unidentified aerial phenomena”, or UAPs).Over the summer, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, introduced a UFO transparency bill on the heels of testimony given to Congress b the retired air force officer David Grusch, who made several shocking claims about the US being in possession of alien spacecraft for decades. As Schumer described his bill “the measure would create a board just like with the JFK assassination records to work through the declassification of the many government records on UAPs … This model has been a terrific success for decades and should be used with UAPs”.Some took Grusch’s testimony very seriously, others viewed him as a crackpot, still others in between. Since it would take a lot more words than this column to litigate his myriad extraordinary claims, let’s forget about him for a moment and focus on what we do know for a fact about the general subject of unidentified flying objects.For decades, both military and commercial pilots have logged countless sightings of UFOs while flying that defy conventional or scientific explanation. The US government has studied the UFO phenomenon on and off since the 1950s and has kept at least some of what it knows secret. (Read journalist and author Garrett Graff’s meticulously researched and very fact-based new book on the subject.) Recently the US government itself has released several videos of these incidents, which has further fueled public interest and speculation about whether the incidents were extraterrestrial.Then, it was only nine months ago, shortly after a Chinese spy balloon floated over American airspace, that UFOs became front page news across the country. After the balloon was taken down, and with the air force on high alert and its radar systems tweaked to extra sensitivity, a series of UFOs were tracked and some even shot with US military Sidewinder missiles over both the United States and Canada.For a few days there was wall-to-wall coverage of these incidents, and the White House was holding press conferences to specifically address it. Members of the military were telling reporters that the objects were not balloons like the one China had lost control of, some reported at least one of the objects “interfered with [pilot’s] sensors” and had no visible propulsion 40,000ft in the air. The military spent millions of dollars to shoot them down, and closed a huge swath of airspace when they thought they spotted more. No one had a definitive explanation of what they were.And then poof! Everyone seemed to forget about it. The government never released video or photos of the objects it tracked (even though they obviously must have had some footage). They initially claimed they couldn’t recover any wreckage. When reporters and other concerned citizens attempted to Foia the evidence they were stonewalled completely, with the Pentagon claiming it was all classified. By then, the press had moved on and the Biden administration or the Pentagon hasn’t faced an ounce of scrutiny on the issue from mainstream publications since.It’s clearly in the public interest to get to the bottom of incidents like these, whether you believe these objects are of extraterrestrial origin or not. As Schumer himself said, “Unidentified aerial phenomena has generated intense curiosity from many Americans, and the risk for confusion and misinformation is high if the government is not willing to be transparent.” It also couldn’t be further from a partisan issue, as the bill had several Republicans in support of it. So why did this small group of Republicans – including the House speaker, head of the House intelligence committee and the Senate minority leader – kill this thing?One explanation is that these specific congressmen are in on a decades-long cover-up, yet somehow the long-serving Senate majority leader isn’t. I have a different theory: these congressmen also don’t necessarily know what is going on, but they are so addicted to government secrecy that they will reflexively fight for it, even when they have no rational reason. They fear creating a framework for more transparency, knowing if it’s a success it could possibly spur more legislative action in a similar vein.The JFK Records Act, which Schumer referenced as his inspiration, is an aberration in our modern history; it passed more than 30 years ago and there’s been nothing like it since. On most subjects, it’s impossible to get the government to quickly declassify documents – even when it’s of vital public interest. If this new provision would become law, we would then have an updated model for other areas of the government that Congress could target for declassification if they so choose.Say, for example, a commission on price gouging in the Pentagon that could expose tens of billions in fraud, or commissions who could more quickly declassify the various spying powers that are constantly abused by the NSA and FBI. The House intelligence committee, which seemingly exists to protect our intelligence agencies from scrutiny, is going to do everything in its power to stop that.The truth may be out there. But believers and skeptics alike should be able to unite on one thing: force the government to reveal what it knows and what it doesn’t know. We will all be better off.
      Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      How the search for UFOs reached the US Congress – podcast

      by

      Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of talk of UFOs. Which isn’t unusual in the US – over the decades, it has become for many enthusiasts a kind of obsession. But what is unusual is that recently this UFO chatter has gone beyond internet forums, YouTube channels and kooky podcasts. Now it’s arrived in Washington. In the past few years, the Pentagon has said pilots are seeing things up in the sky that they can’t explain. And a few weeks ago, spaceships got their day in Congress Adam Gabbatt has the enviable task of covering UFOs for the Guardian and he was there. He tells Michael Safi how the hearing unfolded and where the investigation is going next. And the Republican congressman Tim Burchett, who is co-leading the inquiry, explains why the latest hearing was a necessary step along the way to discovering what the US government really knows about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      UFOs back in spotlight as ‘surreal’ Washington hearing buoys believers

      by

      As the world heard tales of recovered alien bodies, crashed extraterrestrial spaceships, and an apparently violent plot to conceal both, not everyone was immediately willing to believe.The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, inadvertently swept up in this week’s remarkable UFO congressional hearing in Washington through her role on the House of Representatives oversight committee, seemed determined to not get too carried away by a surge of interest in UFOs that is transfixing much of the US.Speaking afterwards, the leftwing New York congresswoman instead sought to characterize her colleagues’ quest to uncover the government’s alleged alien cover-up as an investigation into national security and military furtiveness – not hiding little green men.“This committee has encountered instances before where either defense activity has not been forthright, whether that be from a contracting space or from the DoD space,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Guardian.“I do believe that there is a very large and looming question about what is being disclosed, what is being properly stewarded, and we have a responsibility across all subject matters to pursue that truth.”It was a commendably bland take on a two-hour-plus hearing which was unlike anything Congress had ever seen before.David Grusch, the former US intelligence officer who claims that the US government is harboring “intact and partially intact” and “non-human” pilots, appeared in Washington, under oath, to repeat the same.The US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected, and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UFOs, Grusch told the oversight committee. He added that unnamed federal agencies had even recovered “biologics” from these craft, which he described as “non-human”.Moreover, Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, said he had encountered “people who have been harmed or injured” in the course of the government’s efforts to keep this alien program secret. Grusch told the committee that after going public with his allegations he had feared for his life.Happily for Grusch, and for the scores of UFO enthusiasts who flooded to the hearing, some of the politicians listening appeared to be completely sold.“I believe they [aliens] exist. I knew that before I came in here,” Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, told the Guardian.“I don’t want to oversimplify it, but how are you going to fly one [a spaceship]? You got to have somebody in it. That seems to be pretty simple,” Burchett said.If Burchett’s statement seemed to ignore longstanding earth-bound technology which already commonly enables unmanned flight via drones, his enthusiasm will at least have buoyed onlookers. Given the Republican is co-leading the investigation into Grusch’s claims, he seems a good person to have convinced.Also onboard is Matt Gaetz, a rightwing Republican from Florida.Gaetz, Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, also from Florida, had caused a kerfuffle at a Florida air force base a week earlier when they turned up demanding to see evidence of a recently reported UFO incident.Gaetz said that having initially being denied access to the base, the trio were eventually shown an “image” of unidentified anomalous phenomena – a term preferred by some to UFO.“The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability either from the United States, or from any of our adversaries,” Gaetz said.Luna, who is co-leading the oversight committee investigation with Burchett, also seemed keen.“It is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans into thinking this is not happening,” she said during Wednesday’s hearing. A day later Luna told Axios that her interest in UFOs came from encountering one in 2018.Claims of UFOs, and of the government covering up aliens, have a long history in the US.In the 1940s and 50s, reports of UFOs, usually in the shape of a “flying saucer”, were commonplace, while Grusch himself has suggested – although not in Wednesday’s hearing – that Pope Pius XII negotiated the transfer of a UFO from Mussolini’s Italy to the US in 1944.It wasn’t until the past couple of years, however, that Congress really began to take notice.Grusch’s accusations might have ultimately prompted this investigation, but the discussion of UFOs has been lent something approaching legitimacy by leaked military videos which appear to show odd-shaped objects zipping about in American aerospace, and claims from US navy pilots of strange encounters.Two of those pilots – David Fravor and Ryan Graves – gave testimony on Wednesday. Graves, who has previously reported seeing unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”, said that other, unnamed pilots had come across “dark grey or black cubes inside of clear spheres” where “the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of the sphere”.Not everyone, however, was impressed with the new disclosures. Grusch has not personally seen any of the things he described, and his claims are based on interviews with people “with direct knowledge” of governmental goings on, which has raised eyebrows among skeptics.“Fravor and Graves for years have been telling this story pretty much as best as they can. And Grusch: I suspect he believes his story,” said Mick West, author of Escaping the Rabbit Hole. How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect.“So it didn’t really change that aspect of it for me. I already believe that they thought they were telling the truth, what I don’t think is that what they’re describing is an accurate representation of the facts.”West, a longtime investigator of alleged UFO encounters and claims, said sightings like the ones Fravor and Graves described could be attributed to radar issues or clutter, including balloons in the air.In terms of proving, unequivocally, that the US government has alien craft, and indeed aliens, West said it “will come down to the physical evidence”.“They say they know the exact locations of where these alien craft are. So if you want to tell the American public about the whole program, if Congress wants to do that, then they can just go and look at these craft,” he said.One issue which commonly raises doubts is that the US government has allegedly been able to keep its stash of UFOs secret – for decades.Given the leaks, scoops and whistleblowing on various governmental secrets and wrongdoing, this apparent ability to remain tight-lipped on what would be the biggest secret in human history would be remarkable.“And it’s not just the US government. It’s the whole world,” West said.Indeed, UFO sightings are not a uniquely American phenomenon. The UK, for one, has not been immune. In 2011 the British Ministry of Defence released 8,500 pages of reports on UFO sightings, dating back to the 1950s.The files included a report from one man who said he was “abducted” in October 1998, by aliens in a “large cigar-shaped vehicle with big projectiles on each side like wings”.“And what about all the other countries? There’s a lot of other landmass, lots of places for UFOs to crash. It doesn’t make any sense,” West said.Maybe it doesn’t, but there is evidence that international cooperation may be coming. In May the Pentagon held a UFO-focused briefing of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – which includes the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – with the promise of more meetings to come.And despite the lack of an extraterrestrial smoking gun, for longtime followers of UFO sightings, claims and developments Wednesday made for an extraordinary experience.“It was one of the most amazing and bizarre and surreal congressional hearings ever held,” said Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence.“You had to almost pinch yourself and do a double-take when you heard phrases like ‘non-human intelligences’ and ‘biologics’ unpacked in the testimony.”Grusch didn’t produce new revelations, repeatedly stating that he could not elaborate further in a public setting, something which Pope said made sense.But some of the politicians spoke afterwards, however, about the importance of getting Grusch’s claims into the record. Pope said that was an important step in the road to finding out what the government might have.“It was clear listening to what the various people on the committee said that they weren’t going to let this lie,” Pope said. “You got a sense of the anger that they had, at the implication that things were being hidden from them improperly.”One thing is certain: the UFO craze is not going away.The next things to look out for include a Nasa report due to be published this month, while the Department of Defense is due to issue a report of its own this summer. There will probably be more congressional hearings when representatives, who are about to leave Washington on a month-long recess, return in September.“We’re not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing. Sorry to disappoint about half y’all,” Burchett said at the start of proceedings on Wednesday.“We’re just going to get to the facts.”What those facts are, and when exactly they might be uncovered, remains to be seen. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      UFO hearing key takeaways: cover-up claims and Pentagon denials

      by

      In scenes that felt reminiscent of a science-fiction movie, the US Congress held a public hearing on claims the government is covering up its knowledge of UFOs.Unsurprisingly, the hearing generated huge interest in the US and around the world as it heard from three key witnesses, including David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official who in June claimed the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.UFOs have become a high-profile news story in recent years. The US military says it is actively trying to investigate the small number of sightings for which there is no obvious explanation.As the hearing unfolded there were no new revelations about aliens, but there were startling allegations from witnesses, and a general sense that a cover-up exists somewhere in the US government – as well as skepticism that that has anything to do with “little green men”.Here are the key takeaways:Claims of a cover-upThe US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected, and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UFOs, David Grusch told the hearing. Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, claimed he had been denied access to secret government UFO programs, said he has faced “very brutal” retaliation as a result of his allegations. He claimed he had knowledge of “people who have been harmed or injured” in the course of government efforts to conceal UFO information.Hints of violenceCongressman Tim Burchett asked Grusch if he has any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal extraterrestrial technology. Grusch replied: “Yes.”Burchett asked Grusch if he has heard of anyone being murdered. The former intelligence official answered: “I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.”Pentagon denialsBut the Pentagon has denied Grusch’s claims of a cover-up. In a statement, a defense department spokesperson said investigators had not discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently”.Other witnesses, other claimsOther witnesses at the hearing were David Fravor, a former navy commander who recalled seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004. Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who has since founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, a UAP non-profit, claimed that he saw UAP off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.The sightings were “not rare or isolated” and were being witnessed by military aircrews and commercial pilots “whose lives depend on accurate identification”, Graves said.Graves said UAP objects had been detected “essentially where all navy operations are being conducted across the world”. Asked if there were any common characteristics to the UAPs that have been cited by different pilots, Graves says sightings were primarily of “dark grey or black cubes inside of clear sphere” where “the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of the sphere”.Doubts lingerNot everyone was convinced by Grusch’s testimony. At times, he appeared less forthcoming under oath than he had been in media interviews.In the interview with NewsNation in June, Grusch claimed the government had “very large, like a football-field kind of size” alien craft, while he told Le Parisien, a French newspaper, that the US had possession of a “bell-like craft” which Benito Mussolini’s government had recovered in northern Italy in 1933.On Wednesday, he was reluctant to go into details on those claims, citing issues of security.Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian who is writing a book on the government’s hunt for UFOs, tweeted: “Very interesting to me that Dave Grusch is unwilling to state and repeat under oath at the #UFOHearings the most explosive – and outlandish – of his claims from his NewsNation interview. He seems to be very carefully dancing around repeating them.”Legislation to comeIn his closing remarks, Republican congressman Glenn Grothman described the hearing as “illuminating” and said he believed legislation would follow.Grothman, the chair of the House subcommittee on national security, the border and foreign affairs, said: “Obviously, I think several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      UFO congressional hearing: what to know and how we got here

      by

      A House of Representatives committee is set to hold an eagerly-awaited hearing on UFOs on Wednesday, which is expected to see remarkable claims regarding extraterrestrial life repeated in the most high-profile setting yet.David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official who in June claimed the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles, is among the witnesses slated to appear, and will repeat his allegations in front of a seemingly supportive line-up of congressmen and women.Both Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican representatives who are leading the oversight committee’s investigation into UFOs, appear receptive to Grusch’s claims. In early July, Burchett declared that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, and added that the US was “100%” seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.How did we get here?In June, Grusch, a former intelligence official, shocked people in the US and beyond when he claimed the US government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, alleged in a series of interviews that the government and defense contractors had been recovering fragments of non-human craft, and in some cases entire craft, for decades.Some of those craft were “very large, like a football field kind of size”, Grusch told NewsNation. He added that there had been “malevolent events” connected to UFOs.Grusch has not seen the alien craft himself, but said in an interview with the Debrief that his claims are based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”.Wednesday’s hearing was sparked by Grusch’s allegations that information on these alien vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress. Grusch said the government had a crash retrieval program which had collected downed UFO craft, and that his investigation into that program was stymied.That prompted the House oversight committee to order an investigation and hearing into what the government knows, or doesn’t know, about UFOs.Which witnesses will appear at the hearing?The star turn will be Grusch himself, and he will be joined by David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004.Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who in 2021 told the 60 Minutes news show he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”, will also appear.Has there been a smooth path to this hearing?Not really. In fact, Burchett gave a furious press briefing on Thursday, when he alleged that the investigation into Grusch’s claims had been “stonewalled” by federal officials.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” Burchett said. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”After Grusch initially aired his claims, the US defense department told NewsNation it has “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently”.Will we get proof of UFOs?It seems unlikely, but the hearing is likely to raise questions. We can expect to hear Grusch give a detailed version of his allegations regarding what the government knows about UFOs, and potentially more claims of evidence of aliens.We might hear new information, too. Since the oversight committee began its investigation Burchett, without naming his sources, has not been shy in claiming that the US has proof of extraterrestrials.On the Event Horizon podcast, Burchett was asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.“Oh, 100%. 100%. No question,” he said.Burchett has also said the US has evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and speculated that the extraterrestrial craft could be dangerous.“If they’re out there, they’re out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,” Burchett said. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Congress to hold hearing over claims US government has UFO evidence

      by

      The extraordinary accusation that the US government is harboring alien space craft is set to be examined in a congressional public hearing in Washington on Wednesday, as a number of American elected officials appear more receptive than ever before to the idea that extraterrestrials are real.The House oversight committee will hear from David Grusch, a former intelligence official who claims the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles. Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, has also suggested the US has collected “dead pilots”.Grusch’s allegation that the federal government was hiding this evidence of extraterrestrials from Congress sparked a firestorm in June, prompting the Republican-led oversight committee to launch an immediate investigation.Since then the intrigue around what evidence the government has, or doesn’t have, around UFOs has only intensified.Last week Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials. A bipartisan group of senators also waded into the discourse, when they proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.Other witnesses at the hearing are David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004, and Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who has claimed that he saw unidentified aerial phenomena – the term preferred to UFO by some experts – off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.It is Grusch, however, who will be the main draw.In June Grusch prompted headlines around the world when he alleged the US had operated a crash retrieval program which had recovered downed alien craft.He claimed in an interview with the Debrief that when he tried to investigate the program – as he had been charged to do in his role at the Department of Defense – he was prevented from doing so, and filed a whistleblower complaint.The oversight committee announced its investigation into Grusch’s claims a day later, and appears to have run into hurdles of its own.Last week Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican congresswoman from Florida, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” Burchett said.It is unclear whether new information will be revealed during Wednesday’s hearing, but it seems Burchett, during the course of his investigation, has found enough evidence to be convinced that extraterrestrials exist.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn an appearance on the Event Horizon podcast in early July, Burchett claimed alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, and claimed that the US has been hiding evidence of UFOs since 1947.Asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”, Burchett replied: “Oh, 100%. 100%. No question.”For all the excitement and inevitable media speculation, some have cautioned against reading too much into what we might hear.Grusch has not seen the alleged alien craft himself – he says his claims are based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials” – and skeptics have noted that accusations that the government is hiding information on UFOs are nothing new.“The story aligns with a lot of similar stories that have played out, going back to the 1980s and 1970s, that together allege that the US government has kept an incredible secret, the literal most extraordinary secret that mankind could have, for not just weeks or months, but years and decades, with no meaningful leak or documentary evidence to ever come forward,” Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian who is writing a book on the government’s hunt for UFOs, told the Guardian in June.“I think when you look at the government’s ability to keep secret other really important secrets, there’s a lot of reason to doubt the capability of the government to do that.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We’re done with the cover-up’: UFO claims to get their day in Congress

      by

      For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.Next week, the House oversight committee will hold its first public hearing as part of its investigation into UFOs, weeks after a whistleblower former intelligence official went public with claims that the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.David Grusch’s allegations about the government harboring alien craft – he has since suggested that the US has also encountered “malevolent” alien pilots – sparked the 26 July hearing, and beyond that, appear to have lit a fire under the Washington establishment.The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.In a briefing on Thursday, Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member from Florida, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” he said.Burchett said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials.He added: “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”In recent days the government itself has joined the UFO discourse. A White House official claimed that aerial phenomena “have already had an impact on our training ranges”, while a bipartisan group of senators have proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.The legitimization of UFO discussion has been propelled in part by claims from US military pilots of UFO encounters, along with leaked military videos showing inexplicable happenings in the sky.Following those revelations, in 2021 the Pentagon released a report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the term some experts prefer, which found more than 140 instances of UAP encounters that could not be explained. Since then, politicians appear to have moved past some of the stigma around extraterrestrial life.“There’s a sort of critical mass building now,” said Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).“And I think even though it’s easy to portray some of the politicians as mavericks, the fact that Republicans and Democrats are lining up, are united in their stance on this … I think we have crossed a line.”Grusch will appear at the hearing on Wednesday, along with David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004, and Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who in 2021 told the 60 Minutes news show he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.As Burchett has investigated the accuracy of Grusch’s claims, he has begun to make some bold declarations of his own. On the Event Horizon podcast, Burchett was asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.“Oh, 100%. 100%. No question,” he said.Burchett went on to claim that the US has been hiding evidence of UFOs since 1947, and speculated that the extraterrestrial craft could be dangerous.“If they’re out there, they’re out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,” Burchett said.“And if they can travel light years or at the speeds that we’ve seen, and physics as we know it, fly underwater, don’t show a heat trail, things like that, then we are vastly out of our league.”He is not alone.Days earlier, Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, hypothesized that UFO encounters “could actually be an ancient civilization that’s just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself”.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who, along with Democrats including Kirsten Gillibrand, has maintained a longtime interest in UAPs, has weighed in, as has the Donald Trump disciple Josh Hawley, who claims the US has “downplayed” the number of UFO sightings “for a long, long time”.On Thursday, Luna, the co-lead of the oversight committee investigation, echoed Hawley’s statements, alleging that “the Pentagon and the Department of the Air Force” had been particularly uncooperative.“When I take at face value the numerous roadblocks that we’ve been presented with, it leads me to believe that they are indeed hiding information,” she said.“I look forward to bringing this topic to light, and finding out the truth of what is really out there.”It is doubtful that the hearing on Wednesday will prove conclusively whether or not aliens exist. It is also unlikely the public will find out whether aliens, with their charcoal-briquette capable weaponry, have visited Earth.But still, the desire of politicians, of both sides, to wade into UFO discourse suggests that a corner has been turned, and Pope suggested Republicans’ and Democrats’ willingness to investigate could mean they are beginning to believe.“I think these politicians are doing it because they either know, or more likely strongly suspect that some of this is true,” Pope said.“I don’t think you would go all in – and they are going all in on this – if they weren’t pretty darn sure of themselves. Because the egg on the face if this all turns out to be drones – it would be staggering.” More