The Senate Armed Services Committee is looking to hold a UFO hearing after the November elections, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) office confirmed to The Hill.
The hearing announcement follows an increase in sightings of what’s officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, including one purportedly near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. It would also come more than a year after an explosive House hearing in July 2023, when three former Pentagon officials testified about their experience with or sightings of UAP, warning that a lack of information on the phenomena could pose national security risks.
Now Gillibrand, who in 2022 helped start the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — created to assess reports of UAP — wants a progress update on the office’s work.
“It’s a priority for me. I think it’s very important that we continue to make things publicly available,” Gillibrand earlier this month told Matt Laslo’s D.C. “Ask a Pol” podcast.
She wants “a progress report on how many unidentified aerial phenomena we’ve assessed and analyzed” and for the office to “give examples of what we have identified and give examples of what we haven’t identified.”
Gillibrand, who chairs the subcommittee under the Senate Armed Services Committee on emerging threats and capabilities, added that she wants AARO “to continue to build credibility.”
Her office confirmed Tuesday to The Hill that there will be a hearing, likely in November.
In last summer’s headline-making House hearing on UAP, during which former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch alleged the government was hiding technology of foreign or even extraterrestrial origin, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) requested the inspector general of the intelligence community to investigate the claims further.
But lawmakers have been frustrated with any progress since then, with Burchett suggesting in April that he believes the U.S. government was involved in a “cover-up” of information on UAP.
A Pentagon report on UAP, released in March, concluded that there is no evidence the U.S. has reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, pushing back on claims that it’s hiding off-world spacecraft.