Mr. UFOs Go to Washington

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee had a hearing on UAP (aka UFOs). Most of what was said is already public knowledge, but it allowed witnesses to testify under oath, get information into the congressional record, and publicize the issue. The highlights:

High-level Whistleblowers

Two key witnesses were Dr. Tim Gallaudet, a retired 2-star admiral, and Luis Elizondo, previously a GS-15 as head of an official UAP task force.^[1] Both testified outright that UAPs represent intelligent life:

Rep. Robert Garcia: What do you believe UAPs could be or are?

Dr. Timothy Gallaudet: Strong evidence that they're non-human higher intelligence.

Luis Elizondo: I echo my colleague's comment, sir.

A Sympathetic and Bipartisan Congress

Interestingly, the roughly dozen representatives from both parties were all very open to the possibility of UFOs, for example, this exchange with Chairwoman Nancy Mace:

Rep. Nancy Mace: How can the government deny we have recovered craft if they're paying people because they've been injured by recovered craft?

Luis Elizondo: Ma'am, that's a great question...

Nancy Mace: ...It's a crazy idea, right? The hypocrisy and the logic.

Meanwhile, the Gen Z Democratic congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost, asked that "federal leaders take the necessary steps to ensure that UAP does not pose threats to the American public." Who'd have guessed that UFOs would be getting politicians to reach across the aisle?

Accusations Thrown at DoD’s Own UFO Investigation

AARO, the Pentagon's UAP investigative agency was led by former CIA agent Sean Kirkpatrick,^[2] who had some choice words for one of the witnesses:

Mr. Gallaudet is clearly still bitter that I didn't hire him into AARO when he came looking for a job.

While Gaulladet said of AARO:

Earlier this year I met with the DOD's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. And what I thought would be a 90-minute meeting just to meet with leadership turned out to be an hours-long influence operation on me...they tried to have me question very valid UAP reports like the Tic Tac incident. And even coming to stating possibly that the Tic Tac was American technology.

We'll just have to do our best to figure out who's telling the truth.

Advocating for Previously Killed Legislation

Finally, representative Robert Garcia also advocated for the UAP Disclosure Act, which had been blocked in the House:

As part of the House defense authorization bill, the NDAA, I had filed an amendment to include the UAP Disclosure Act...the amendment was blocked, but thankfully the Senate included the amendment by Senator Rounds and Schumer for the UAP Disclosure Act... we should be pushing and ensuring the UAP Disclosure Act, which is bipartisan in its support, should move forward.

Now with UAP transparency bills being blocked, perhaps we've entered the movement's "then they fight you" stage.