If the truth really is out there when it comes to what the U.S. government knows about UFOs, we may get a little closer to it this week.
On Wednesday (July 26), the United States House of Representatives will hear testimony from three witnesses regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, a new term that encompasses not just unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the air, but also any craft or phenomena that are seen in space or underwater that can't be identified.
The hearing will be held by the House's Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs and will include testimony from former U.S. military and intelligence community personnel who claim to have come in contact with craft that defy physics and known flight capabilities or have even seen evidence of "non-human intelligence."
The hearing will be livestreamed on YouTube by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee starting at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Wednesday (July 26). Watch it live here courtesy of the committee.
Related: The US Congress is holding UFO hearings this week. What might we learn?
Wednesday's hearing will include testimony from two former U.S. Navy aviators, Ryan Graves and David Fravor, both witnesses to separate highly publicized encounters with what appeared to be unconventional aircraft operating in U.S. military airspace.
In addition, the hearing will call David Grusch as a witness. Grusch was the subject of a report published last month in which the decorated former combat officer and veteran of the Pentagon's intelligence community claimed to have received "extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin." While Grusch's statements have been controversial to say the least, they have received attention from both major news outlets and U.S. politicians.
Some members of the U.S. Congress have also insinuated that there is indeed hidden UFO/UAP knowledge that has been hidden from the public. "The Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats have kept this information hidden for decades, and we're finally going to shed some light on it," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said in a House Committee on Oversight and Reform statement. "We're bringing in credible witnesses who can provide public testimony because the American people deserve the truth. We're done with the cover-ups."
Graves, who has been vocal about the need to better understand the UAP issue as it pertains to airspace safety, calls these unidentified phenomena an "urgent and critical national security issue" that deserve better scientific scrutiny. "If UAP are foreign assets, we must respond appropriately. If UAP continue to defy conventional explanation — we must invest in scientific research," Graves said in a press statement.
This congressional hearing is only the latest in a long line of major milestones concerning UFOs/UAP and the U.S. government and its federal agencies. Nearly a year ago to the day, the U.S. Department of Defense created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which aims to collect and analyze all of the data available to the U.S. military and intelligence community related to UFOs.
In an April 2023 hearing, the director of AARO stated the office "has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics." Those comments now stand in stark contrast to the claims of the witnesses who will testify at Wednesday's hearing.
NASA also recently held a public meeting of its independent UAP study group, and a report from the group is forthcoming.
