Hearing / briefing · 17 May 2022 · U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. (House side)

HPSCI open hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

The House Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and counterproliferation, chaired by Rep. André Carson, held this open hearing on 17 May 2022, the first public congressional hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years. Full committee chair Adam Schiff also spoke.

The witnesses were Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence. Bray reported that the UAP database had grown to about 400 reports, showed videos, and testified: "We have not had a collision. We have had at least 11 near misses." He said the task force had no material and had detected nothing to suggest anything non-terrestrial in origin.

Rep. Mike Gallagher used the hearing to have the "Admiral Wilson memo" entered into the record. The transcript is filed here.

Sources: HPSCI hearing transcript (2022)

Facts and claims

Key moments: Congressional hearings on military reports of Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAP) - May 17th, 2022

  1. 3:03 André Carson: Carson: the Pentagon must show that those who report UAPs are “treated as witnesses, not as kooks”; AOIMSG is the third version of this task force.
  2. 9:03 Adam Schiff: Schiff: among the most fascinating questions are objects measured by multiple instruments, “and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics or science more broadly.”
  3. 10:23 Ronald Moultrie: Moultrie: “UAP are airborne objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified”; the Department believes structured data and rigorous analysis can likely identify any object.
  4. 13:55 Scott Bray: Bray: since the early 2000s there has been an increasing number of unauthorized or unidentified objects in military training areas; “Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing.”
  5. 14:32 Scott Bray: Bray: Deputy Secretary Norquist established the UAP Task Force in the Navy in August 2020, building on the Navy's response to aviators' reports from training ranges.
  6. 19:00 Scott Bray: Bray: the ODNI's five explanatory categories stand — airborne clutter, natural phenomena, U.S. programs, foreign adversary systems and “other”; the database has grown to about 400 reports.
  7. 20:03 Scott Bray: Bray shows Navy night-vision footage of flashing “triangles” recorded off the U.S. coast; a later similar case convinced the task force they were drones, the triangle shape an artifact of the goggles and SLR camera.
  8. 38:11 Scott Bray: Bray replays the F/A-18 video: a reflective spherical object flashes past the cockpit in a Navy training range; “I do not have an explanation for what this specific object is.”
  9. 41:40 Scott Bray: Bray: “we are not aware of any adversary that can move an object without discernible means of propulsion”, though sensor artifacts may hide some of it.
  10. 42:32 Scott Bray: Bray: there is “some degree of something that looks like signature management”, and a small handful of cases with flight characteristics and signature management the data cannot explain.
  11. 47:57 Scott Bray: Bray: allies have seen these objects and “China has established its own version of a UAP task force”; data is shared with some countries.
  12. 53:02 Scott Bray: Bray: “When it comes to material that we have, we have no material”, and no emanations detected that would suggest anything nonterrestrial.
  13. 54:41 Ronald Moultrie: Moultrie tells Rep. Gallagher he knows of Blue Book and AATIP but of no official DoD UAP study between them, and both deny knowledge of any contractor UAP technology program.
  14. 56:57 Mike Gallagher: Gallagher asks about the reported Malmstrom incident in which ten ICBMs went offline under a red orb; Bray: the data is not in the task force's holdings — “I have heard stories.”
  15. 58:43 Mike Gallagher: Neither Moultrie nor Bray is aware of the “Admiral Wilson memo”; Gallagher enters it into the record.
  16. 59:47 Scott Bray: Bray: no collisions, but “at least 11 near misses”; no communication signals detected from the objects and no attempt to communicate with them.
  17. 1:16:04 Scott Bray: Asked for an example that cannot be explained, Bray cites the 2004 Nimitz incident: “We have data on that, and that simply remains unresolved.”
  18. 1:21:31 Ronald Moultrie: Moultrie and Bray: there is a repeatable process to deconflict sightings with classified U.S. programs; the task force is confident that is not the explanation.

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