US Senate Committee to hold open hearing next week on UFO sightings
The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services will be conducting an open hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) or Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) next week on April 19 (Wednesday), confirmed press secretary Cole Stevens.
The hearing has been scheduled to address the growing concerns surrounding the allegedly growing UAP incidents. The lawmakers are also expected to bat for increased transparency and funding for investigation into the UAP sightings.
Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) will also be speaking at the hearing which will be conducted by Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee.
Lawmakers demand funding
The announcement comes in the backdrop of Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of AARO publicly slamming the Department of Defence for not providing funds for a second year in running.
“The lack of full funding for AARO is a significant concern. We need to ensure that our government is taking the UAP issue seriously and dedicating the necessary resources to improve our understanding and response capabilities,” Gillibrand was quoted as saying by Roswell Daily Record.
She also targetted Under Secretary of Defence (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord by stating her department was disappointed at not receiving the funding.
“Understanding that we cannot get into specific budget figures in this forum, can you discuss why AARO was not fully funded?”
In recent years, Pentagon has pushed ahead with the decision of investigating military sightings of UFOs. This has led to the release of hundreds of classified reports which suggest that we may not be alone on planet Earth.
In May 2022, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, two top officials of the Pentagon appeared before the US House of Representatives intelligence subcommittee and showed the declassified UFO videos.
They said that reports of UFOs are ‘frequent’ and have been on the rise for more than a decade. They also added that US officials were unable to explain some of these sightings.
US Navy refuses to release UFO videos
However, the US Navy, responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last year, announced that it will not be releasing any more unseen UFO videos in public domain as it will harm national security.
“The release of this information will harm national security as it may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/Navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities. No portions of the videos can be segregated for release,” said Gregory Cason, deputy director of the Navy’s FOIA office.
(With inputs from agencies)
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