After UFO hearing, Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman calls for declassifying military documents

The Wisconsin congressman who chaired a high-profile committee hearing on UFOs says the military should be required to release classified information after a designated period.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, chaired last week’s House hearing on “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAPs, at which a former intelligence official claimed the U.S. government was concealing evidence of alien life. David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer, told Congress he had learned of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program.” Grusch, who has been characterized as a whistleblower, did not offer evidence for his claims and declined to answer some questions from committee members, saying it would involve classified material.

The hearing was fodder for wild speculation online, though officials with NASA and the Pentagon have said they do not have evidence of extraterrestrial materials, let alone beings.

Appearing Friday on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Central Time,” Grothman acknowledged that the hearing had by far the most public interest of any he’s seen recently. And he said there is a legitimate public interest in understanding what the government knows about UAPs that have been spotted. 

“Is it something that other nations have developed that we are nowhere near developing? We ought to know that,” Grothman said. “And if it is something from outer space, and there are other people monitoring us, well, we ought to know that.” 

Grothman said he wants to see “a little more transparency from the military” on the matter.

Claims made by Grusch go far beyond what information has been publicly released. But reports of unexplained flying objects have been the subject of inquiry by U.S. intelligence officials in recent years. After multiple reports and some video of strange aerial phenomena, in 2021, a Pentagon task force published its findings in an investigation of UAPs. While the report did not rule out extraterrestrials, its authors found that “there are probably multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations,” including “airborne clutter” such as drones and balloons, “natural atmospheric phenomena” and still-classified technology owned by the U.S. government or by its foreign adversaries.

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In addition to Grusch’s testimony, the hearing included testimony by two former Navy pilots who said they had themselves witnessed flying objects they could not explain.

Grothman said he will receive a briefing on classified information in coming months and plans to meet with Grusch “and see what more he has to say.” But overall, he used the hearing to push for greater transparency from the military on its observations. 

A bipartisan amendment to the defense budget in the U.S. Senate would require declassification of military documents on UAPs “no later than 25 years” after their creation. Grothman said he supported the idea of speeding declassification, and suggested that 15 years might be a better limit.

“We went through a period in the late 1960s, the early ’70s in which there were a lot of rumors that these things were out there,” Grothman said. “As far as I know, to this day the files are not released on what pilots saw in the ’60s and ’70s.”

With the public’s attention on UFOs, other elected officials are being asked to weigh in on the existence of aliens. On Friday, a reporter put the question to Gov. Tony Evers: Does he believe?

“No,” Evers answered with a shrug.