New UFO Footage From US Military Highlights Congressional Hearing ( CNET )

 

The Pentagon's UFO task force brought clips to Capitol Hill for a historic briefing.

 

US military officials unveiled new footage of UFOs -- or what they're now calling unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP -- during a 90-minute committee hearing in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday morning. 

Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence Scott Bray shared clips recorded by military personnel with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the first public hearing on the topic in over 50 years.

One of the videos taken in 2019 from a US Navy ship through night vision goggles shows an unidentified triangular object. Bray then shared another clip of the same phenomenon observed at a later date from a different location. He explained that analysts suspect the object was actually an optical effect "correlated with unmanned aerial systems in the area." 

That is, something that's likely a drone appears as a triangle because of the effect of light from the object passing through the goggles and then through the lenses of the SLR camera that recorded the clip.

Bray also shared another short video, taken in 2021, from the cockpit of a military jet appearing to show a spherical object for a fraction of a second.

"In many other cases we have far less than this," Bray said, adding later that there is currently no explanation for the object. "There are a small handful [of sightings] in which there are flight characteristics or signature management we can't explain with the data that we have."

 

The hearing comes 11 months after the release of a brief report from the director of national intelligence on UAP that led to the creation of a task force to investigate the issue. A defense spending bill signed by President Biden in December requires regular reports and briefings to Congress on the topic.

Bray said the task force now has a database of over 400 UAP reports.

Ronald Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, told the committee that the task force aims to eliminate the cultural stigma around UAP and that the newly formed Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group will facilitate identification of UAP "in a methodical, logical and standardized manner."

In a lighter moment, Moultrie also said he identifies as a fan of the wider sci-fi subculture that often connects UFOs with potential extraterrestrial intelligence.

"I have gone to [science fiction] conventions. There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "[I] don't necessarily dress up."

But there were no disclosures of any contact with E.T. or evidence of aliens during the hearing.

Bray also said that the military has never communicated with, fired upon or collided with a UAP, although there have been 11 documented near misses, as mentioned in last year's unclassified report from the director of national intelligence.   

All in all, there was little new information revealed during the session, aside from the new footage, but that was enough to make it one of the most intriguing congressional committee hearings in many months. 

Eric Mack

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