Congress to hold first open hearing on UFOS in five decades next week

Congress is set to hold the first open hearing on UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena, in more than 50 years next week.

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray will testify before the House Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation on May 17.

“The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks – especially those we do not fully understand,” Indiana Rep. André Carson, a Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said in a statement Tuesday.

A report released last summer by the Director of National Intelligence examined 144 cases of UFOs, or as the government calls them, unidentified aerial phenomena, and could only explain one.

More than half of the reported incidents were detected by multiple sensors, including “radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation,” according to the report.

Other incidents featured “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics,” such as the ability to “remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion.”

The Department of Defense established the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group last November to “detect, identify and attribute objects of interests.”

“DOD takes reports of incursions – by any airborne object, identified or unidentified – very seriously, and investigates each one,” the department said at the time.