By Rebecca Shabad —
NBC News
Two senior Pentagon officials on Tuesday exposed the efforts of the federal government to collect information on unidentified flying objects (UFO, in Spanish; UFO, in English) in the first public hearing that Congress holds on these mysterious encounters in more than 50 years. .
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott W. Bray said that since the publication last year of a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a task force tasked with studying the phenomena reported that its database has grown to "approximately
400 reports"
of unidentifiable objects.
Bray assured that they have received more reports because people have felt more comfortable sharing these encounters in the sky.
"The stigma has been reduced
," Bray said.
Bray points to a screen during the hearing at the Capitol on Tuesday. Alex Brandon / AP
Many of these new reports actually refer to earlier events, Bray said.
The report published in June 2021 noted that the Government cannot explain 143 of the 144 cases of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) reported by military pilots between 2004 and 2021.
[A US Navy video leaks that appears to show a UFO flying over the California coast]
According to Bray, since the early 2000s an
“increasing number of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft or objects”
have been seen in military-controlled training areas and other designated airspace.
"Reports of sightings are
frequent and continuous
," said Bray, who explained that there has been an increase not only due to the effort to destigmatize their reporting, but also due to the increase in unmanned aerial systems, disorder,
mylar
balloons
, aerial debris, and improvements in sensor capabilities in US airspace.
According to Bray, there have been at least 11 encounters between military aircraft and UFOs that almost ended in a crash.
He indicated that the military has not tried to communicate with those objects.
The US fears that the alleged UFOs are ships from China or Russia
June 4, 202102:43
Some objects cannot be properly identified, the officials added.
Bray, for example, played during the hearing a video taken from the cockpit of a pilot operating at a US Navy training range showing a “spherical object” passing in front of the aircraft. .
[Pentagon reports sighting of at least 120 UFOs in the last 20 years]
"As they're flying close to it, they take a video — you see it looks reflective on this video, somewhat reflective, and it's passing quickly through the cockpit of the plane," Bray said.
And he added: "I don't have an explanation of what this specific object is."
To expand government efforts to study these unidentifiable objects, the Pentagon has established a group within the office of the secretary of defense, said Ronald S. Moultrie, assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and security.
"The office's role is clear: to facilitate the identification of previously unknown or unidentified aerial objects in a methodical, logical and standardized way," Moultrie said.
The effort will involve collaboration between the Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
Also collaborating are the Department of Energy and NASA, national laboratories and international allies.
A woman builds a tower for followers of the UFO phenomenon in Colorado
April 29, 202200:25
Rep. André Carson, a Democrat from Indiana and chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee, said in his opening remarks that Tuesday's hearing was intended to bring this government effort "out of the shadows."
“The stigma attached to unexplained aerial phenomena has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis,” Carson said.
“Pilots avoided reporting or were laughed at when they did.
Defense Department officials relegated the matter to the back burner or hid it altogether, fearful of a skeptical national security community.
Today we know that is not so.
Unexplained aerial phenomena have no explanation, it is true, but they are real.
They need to be investigated and many of the threats they pose need to be mitigated.”
The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, said in his speech that reports on these objects "should be understood as a matter of national security."
"There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it appears to be moving in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics or science in general," said Schiff, who said these reports "raise questions of tremendous interest." .
The commission will go into a closed session with the two Defense officials on UFOs on Tuesday afternoon.
