As anyone who’s been following recent developments in the UAP (formerly known as UFO) field already knows, Tuesday marked the first public hearing on the topic in decades. Arguably, the public portion of Tuesday’s proceedings was light on the sort of revelations many may have been holding out hope for, although it included several reiterations of the seriousness with which some lawmakers are now treating this continually expanding body of research.
Congressman André Carson—the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee—provided a brief summary of the government’s involvement in this area during his opening remarks. Project Blue Book, notably, received a mention, as did more recent UAP developments including the Department of Defense having at one point “quietly restarted” a similar program.
“This hearing and oversight work has a simple idea at its core: unidentified aerial phenomena are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way,” Carson said, as seen above. “For too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis. Pilots avoided reporting or were laughed at when they did.”
Claiming government officials now “know better,” Carson reminded participants of the hearing and those viewing at home that UAPs—while they are indeed “unexplained”—are a very real issue in need of continued investigations.
Watch Tuesday’s full hearing up top. Below, see archived clips from some of the footage discussed during the hearing, via the Black Vault.
Amid coverage of the hearing, a number of familiar names associated with the larger UAP issue also expressed everything from understandable frustration to well-earned pride regarding the historic moment. Chris Mellon, a To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences alum and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, said in a tweet that Tuesday’s hearing served as “a reminder both of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.”
That was a frustrating hearing as well as a reminder both of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.
Meanwhile, Tom DeLonge—the Angels & Airwaves frontman and blink-182 co-founder who currently serves as interim CEO of To the Stars—commemorated the moment by reminding the public how we got to this current point in UAP history.
“This was by far the most punk rock thing I’ve…EVER done,” DeLonge, whose directorial debut Monsters of California recently released its first teaser trailer, said in an Instagram post.
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, meanwhile, took a harsher approach in his comments about Tuesday’s hearing, saying “we just got hosed, basically.”
If the truth is out there #UFOs #UAP hearing Rep Congressman Tim Burchett says the American public didn’t get it. @CTVNews
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California later spoke with TMZ about the hearing, notably reiterating the stance that UAPs represent a potential security issue and speaking out against retaliation being brought against military officials or others who come forward with sighting reports.
