Next week’s Senate UFO hearing should focus on government research, not Skinwalker Ranch
The Roswell Daily Record reports, and the Washington Examiner has confirmed, that a Senate Armed Services Committee subcommittee will hold a public hearing next Wednesday on the topic of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, or what the government refers to as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAP. Led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the hearing is likely to center on testimony from Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. The AARO was established following congressional action to improve reporting and analysis on UFOs.
I think it important that those involved in next week’s hearing attempt to balance two imperatives. Namely, navigating intractable bureaucratic realities and focusing on key national security interests.
CHINA, OR THE PROBLEM WITH F-22 FIGHTER JETS LEAVING OKINAWA BUT ARRIVING IN POLAND
The intractable bureaucratic reality here is that many in the government and military, including those with remits attached to UFO-related research, are loath to engage with this issue. Their rationale does not reflect a grand conspiracy but rather two other factors. First, their interest in instead focusing on conventional threats such as those posed by China and Russia. Second, their discomfort with an issue that involves political discomfort, unconventional mystery, complex data, and stigma. Even if they dislike this reality, members of Congress must accept it as they ask questions of Kirkpatrick and others.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely fine, for example, to write reviews of documentaries that look at strange topics such as those UFOs that seem to appear near schools. It’s fine that noted UFO opinion journalists such as George Knapp consider the UFO subject alongside reported phenomena at Utah’s Skinwalker Ranch. It’s also fine for TV shows such as the History Channel’s Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch to provide entertainment. But a congressional focus on these expanded issues, at least at this point, will bleed credibility and resources away from effective scrutiny of the exigent UFO issues. It will also only empower those who may have some interest in concealing pertinent information from the public.
Congress should thus focus on the preeminent national security interests related to UFOs. I believe these are twofold.
First, efficiently categorizing UFOs that have a conventional explanation. The vast majority of UFOs, after all, are misidentified aircraft, weather phenomena, balloons, or the product of confusion. As I reported in March, it is especially important that the government not repeat prior errors of categorizing what are very likely foreign intelligence capabilities within the pool of truly unknown UFOs.
The second national security interest rests on identifying the origin, capability, and intent of a truly extraordinary but far smaller subset of UFOs.
These UFOs evince performance capabilities far beyond anything in the known possession of any other nation. Credible witnesses and data suggest these UFOs have operated in U.S. airspace since at least the late 1940s. AARO should thus be questioned on matters such as pattern analysis in relation to UFOs operating near national security priority interests.
Nuclear weapons facilities, for example. While some of the UFOs relevant in this area are almost certainly conventional drones, others are of a far more unconventional nature. Robert Hastings wrote an important book on the more unconventional events. Scientists are advancing relevant research. And the AARO has reportedly met with former U.S. military officers who say they witnessed extraordinary UFO events at nuclear sites. Regardless, the military and government are more aware of the nuclear connection point to UFOs than is commonly understood by the public. This includes the prospective vulnerability underwater-operating UFOs may pose to submarine forces, for example. Other possible UFO patterns that the AARO is investigating should also be at the forefront of congressional scrutiny. As with China’s People’s Liberation Army, artificial intelligence will be a key element of these efforts in the coming years.
Top line: Congress must balance the need to advance its understanding of this issue with the reality that a too expansive line of inquiry will damage its investigation.
This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Washington Examiner can be found here.
