Key lawmakers double down on solving the enduring mystery of UFOs

In an intriguing (and little-known) 2021 incident, a U.S. spy satellite captured multiple images of a mysterious “Tic Tac”-shaped craft flying over water. Within hours, intelligence analysts compared the object to an extraordinary 2004 incident involving another “Tic Tac”-shaped craft.

In that encounter, four naval aviators were left stunned as a strange elongated object with no wings or engines conducted jaw-dropping maneuvers. Eyewitnesses ultimately briefed members of Congress on the incident, which included several perplexing detections by radar and infrared (heat) sensors. Meanwhile, other aircrews told Congress of their daily, years-long encounters with unknown objects exhibiting highly advanced – and distinctly un-balloon-like – flight characteristics.

The briefings, by America’s most highly trained service members, made an impression on lawmakers.

In 2020, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), then-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, tasked the U.S. government with drafting a landmark report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The following year, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), backed by a bipartisan cohort of defense- and intelligence-focused lawmakers, sponsored historic legislation establishing a powerful UAP analysis office.

Beyond granting the new office sweeping authority to leverage “any [military or intelligence] resource, capability, asset, or process” to investigate UAP encounters, the legislation requires that the government develop a detailed “science plan.”

But this is no run-of-the-mill science project. Congress instructed defense and intelligence agencies to study UAP “that exceed the known state of the art in science or technology.” In particular, the legislation requires the development and testing of “scientific theories” to understand the objects’ highly advanced capabilities in “propulsion, aerodynamic control,” “materials” and “power generation.”

Congress, in short, is instructing the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to buckle down and scientifically explain the many perplexing incidents reported by military aviators in recent years.

Scientists and analysts have their work cut out for them. Over the 17-month period ending in August 2022, the UAP office received 366 new reports. Officials determined that objects in just over half of these encounters “exhibit[ed] unremarkable characteristics.” This implies that over 150 recent UAP reports involve objects demonstrating “remarkable characteristics” not easily ascribable to balloons, drones or airborne “clutter.” At the same time, partially redacted incident reports show how aviators, after methodically eliminating prosaic explanations, are often left stunned by encounters with unknown objects.

Importantly, when a budgeting error left the new UAP office without sufficient funding for the “scientific plan” to study the advanced technology observed by servicemembers, key lawmakers stepped in.

Six former presidential candidates – Sens. Bennet (D-Colo.), Gillibrand, Graham (R-S.C.), Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Rubio and Warren (D-Mass.) – joined an ex-vice presidential nominee (Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)), the chairman (Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)) and vice chairman (Rubio) of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as a former astronaut (Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)), in urging the government to reallocate funds to implement the plan.

Make no mistake: An ever-growing bipartisan cohort of lawmakers doubling down on the scientific study of highly advanced UFO technology is a noteworthy development. It is unlikely that such prominent legislators, some undoubtedly with higher political aspirations, would wade into such a long and deeply stigmatized topic without good reason.

Of note, Congress’s focus on highly advanced UAP technology is supported by publicly available data. Following the release of three well-known Navy UAP videos, a small group of individuals conducted sophisticated mathematical analyses of the encounters. Beyond confirming servicemembers’ eyewitness accounts, three-dimensional reconstructions reveal intriguing new details about the incidents. In sum, repeatable, verifiable analyses indicate that the objects captured on video demonstrated the highly advanced technology ascribed to them.

At the same time, the government’s (congressionally enforced) focus on unidentified anomalous phenomena is already paying national security dividends.

While a small group of intelligence analysts monitored three Trump-era incursions by suspected Chinese balloons in real time, the information was not disseminated more broadly throughout the U.S. government. The lack of coordination left high-level national security officials in the dark about the intrusions. Only after Congress raised concerns did the Pentagon formally centralize reporting and analysis of unidentified airborne objects. As a result, intelligence analysts pieced together key details about a global Chinese balloon surveillance program.

It should come as little surprise, then, that lawmakers are taking unidentified anomalous phenomena seriously. Far more intriguingly, many of the most prominent members of Congress are publicly committing themselves to the scientific study of the highly advanced technology observed by service members.

Regardless of the nature of the mysterious objects – whether foreign surveillance platforms or otherwise – the enduring UAP mystery must be solved.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter @MvonRen.