National security or aliens? Why Politicians in America Now Take UFOs Seriously

On Tuesday, May 17, the Congress of USA held a historic session. Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon’s top intelligence officer, and Scott Bray, deputy director of Naval Intelligence, testified before the House Intelligence Subcommittee about the hundreds of sightings of UFOs reported by the military in recent years.

It was the first time in five decades that there was talk of UFO on Capitol Hill. or of “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs), as they prefer to call them.

The Moultrie and Bray hearing is the result of a series of decisions made by Washington to “destigmatize” -according to the words of the president of the legislative subcommittee, the Democrat André Carson- the reports on the subject.

STUDY OF THE UNKNOWN

In June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a report that gathered 144 sightings of UAPs collected by the military.

This report led the Undersecretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, to order the development of a plan to seriously address the issue, historically marginalized since the first reports dating from the 1940s in Eunited states.

Following this line, in November the Pentagon announced the creation of the Air Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).

The special team would be in charge of detecting, identifying and qualifying the objects, in addition to evaluating and mitigating any threat associated with UAPs.

In November 2021, the Air Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) was created, dedicated to collecting and analyzing reports on UAPs.

Within its creation, in addition, it was contemplated that the AOIMSG present an annual report and provide semi-annual information sessions before Congress.

Tuesday’s was the first session and, at first glance, the impact of the AOIMSG could be estimated taking into account that the sighting report went from 144 presented in July 2021 to 400.

These sightings would have occurred between 2004 and 2021, according to the report.

FOREIGN THREAT OR ALIENS?

Although the first mental image we create when hearing about UFOs (or UAPs) is that of the classic flying saucer, the subject is actually a major concern for security systems.

This was demonstrated by the hearing of Moultrie and Bray, who spoke of the implications it would have for US national and air security.

The Deputy Director of Intelligence, for example, noted that many of the reports could fall into categories such as jamming radars, atmospheric phenomena, programs developed by the government or private companies, or systems under development by foreign forces.

“My most important conclusion is that the government is seriously discussing UAPs and wants to understand their nature. Therefore, it is the duty of scientists to help the government in this search and remove the term UAP from our lexicon,” says Abraham Loeb in a statement that was sent to Trade.

Loeb is a prolific researcher and authority in the world of astronomy and astrophysics; In addition, he is director of the Institute of Astronomy at Harvard University and founder of the Galileo Project, dedicated to the systematic scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts.

For the expert, the position of both officials was totally predictable and valid; however, it highlights the role that the scientific community must play in the new scenario.

“Obviously, the two witnesses at the congressional hearing were concerned about the UAP as a national security threat. From their perspective, the reports are of paramount importance to first responders, and data from military patrol or training sites is linked to that. However, the task of scientists is complementary to that. They do not need to explain most reports. Even if only one object is of extraterrestrial technological origin, it would represent the most important discovery in the history of mankind,” comments the researcher.

Abraham Loeb, director of the Institute for Astronomy at Harvard University.

SCIENTIFIC VALUE

When the creation of the AOIMSG was announced, Loeb highlighted in conversation with Trade the importance of the access that scientists would enjoy to reports hitherto confidential, dismissed or incomplete.

After this first hearing before the parliamentarians, however, he believes that a more active position is needed on the part of these same scientists.

“The congressional hearing removed the taboo that existed for serious discussions of UAPs (but) may not have served the science. It is an additional duty of scientists to collect new data of higher quality than that obtained anecdotally by military personnel,” he points out.

As an example, the researcher comments on the initiative that he will undertake together with the Galileo Project: the creation of a system of telescopes that will continuously monitor the sky in search of unknown signals.

“It will be assembled on the roof of the Harvard University Observatory in the coming weeks. The system will continuously monitor the sky in the infrared, visible and radio bands, as well as record audio and muons. The data will be analyzed by state-of-the-art software that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify objects in the sky and interpret their properties. Once proven, we’ll make copies of the system and distribute them to various places. My hope is that in a year or two we can help the government decipher the nature of UAPs,” he adds.

Loeb’s comments go hand in hand with some conclusions reached during the congressional hearing. For example, within the reports, 18 stand out in which aerial phenomena were identified that apparently had sophisticated technology and that flew without “no discernible means of propulsion”.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff asked Deputy Director Bray if they were aware of any foreign forces with such technology.

Bray could not confirm that they are aware of any country that has developed ships that move without “any discernible means of propulsion,” as reported in at least 18 cases.

The answer was that they were not aware of any country having developed something like this. “I would just say that there is a series of events that we have no explanation for.” He pointed out before assuring that these types of events are the ones that arouse the most interest in the AOIMSG.

“If Congress is seriously discussing UAP, scientists must be involved,” Loeb notes. “But to determine if an anomalous object exists and exclude natural or human-made origins, we need to collect new data with the best instruments available today and not rely on substandard data collected in past decades.”