In an open hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) before the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee on May 17, 2022, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Mr. Scott Bray shared this video of a US Naval aviator encounter with an unknown object in a fleeting pass. The video in this post, captured by the pilot in the cockpit of a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet, demonstrates the typical speed at which military aircraft may approach an unknown object.
Bray told lawmakers he had no “explanation for what this specific object is.”
Testifying together with Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie, both men told lawmakers that so far, the Task Force does not believe that the objects have extraterrestrial origins.
Rep. André Carson, a Democrat of Indiana and the chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, and Counterproliferation, said at the hearing that UAPs “are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way.
“For too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis. Pilots avoided reporting or were laughed at when they did. DOD officials relegated the issue to the backroom or swept it under the rug entirely, fearful of a skeptical national security community,” Carson said. “Today, we know better. UAPs are unexplained, it’s true. But they are real. They need to be investigated. And any threats they pose need to be mitigated.”
According to CBS News, investigators were able to identify one of the 144 reports analyzed in their study of unidentified objects “as a large, deflating balloon.” But the other 143 reports of UAP from 2004 to 2021 remain a mystery.
There is little doubt that the unidentified objects are real objects, whatever they may be, because at least 80 of the 144 incidents were detected by multiple sensors, the report found. “UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security,” the report said.
The authenticity of several videos and images showing objects under investigation by the UAP Task Force has been confirmed by the Pentagon in recent years. Last year, the Defense Department confirmed three images posted by MysteryWire and a video posted by a UFO filmmaker had been taken by Navy personnel.
In 2020, the Pentagon released three videos — FLIR, GOFAST, and GIMBAL — showing encounters military aviators had with unidentified objects. The fighter pilots who witnessed the object in the FLIR video from 2004 spoke to “60 Minutes” last year about their experience.
The Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) was established by the Pentagon in 2021 to succeed the Navy’s UAP Task Force, with the intention of better coordinating the reporting and investigating incidents.
As we have previously reported, the last public congressional hearing on UFOs was held in the 1960s before the disbandment of “Project Blue Book,” a US Air Force (USAF) program that investigated and analyzed reports of UFOs.
The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated Dec. 17, 1969. Of a total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remained “unidentified.”
The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;” a review of the University of Colorado’s report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during 1940 to 1969.
As a result of these investigations, studies and experience gained from investigating UFO reports since 1948, Project Blue Book concluded that no UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the USAF was ever an indication of threat to our national security.
Photo credit: Joey Roulette/Reuters and U.S. Navy
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