Rep. André Carson oversees first public UFO hearing in decades

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Two top defense intelligence officials answered questions Tuesday about unidentified aerial phenomena, or UFOs, during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.

The hearing was conducted by the House Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, which is chaired by U.S. Rep. André Carson, of Indiana’s 7th Congressional District.

Ronald Moultrie, defense undersecretary for intelligence and security, and Scott Bray, deputy director of naval Intelligence, both testified at the hearing.

Rep. Carson says he has called for transparency on unidentified aerial phenomena for years.

“For too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis,” Carson said during the hearing. “Today, we know better. UAPs are unexplained, it’s true. But they are real. They need to be investigated. And any threats they pose need to be mitigated.”

Carson said last week on Twitter:

The meeting focused on a Pentagon program called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.

It was established last year after the U.S. intelligence community released a preliminary assessment of 144 reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” since 2004.

“We are absolutely committed to being as transparent as we can with the American people,” John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, said before the hearing.

Kirby says the Department of Defense will try to “make sure there’s a better process for identifying these phenomena and analyzing that information in a more proactive, coordinated way that it’s been done in the past.”

He also says the Pentagon will attempt to mitigate any safety issues that arise since many reports of unidentified aerial phenomena have been made near training areas.