UFOs 'are real' and 'need to be investigated,' House committee chair says
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday conducted its first hearing on UFOs since 1966, CNN reports.
"Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are a potential national security threat. And they need to be treated that way," said Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation.
The hearings revealed that there have been 11 near misses between unknown objects and U.S. military assets but that no direct evidence has been found that would indicate "either extraterrestrial life or a major technological advancement by a foreign adversary," per CNN.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In 2020, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence created the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force to "destigmatize" reporting UAPs and to "standardize the collection and reporting of UAPs across the intelligence community at the unclassified level."
Witnesses said Tuesday that sightings are "frequent and continuing," with a database that tracks UAPs having grown to around 400 incidents.
"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," Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray told the panel.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.
-
The ‘menopause gold rush’Under the Radar Women vulnerable to misinformation and marketing of ‘unregulated’ products
-
Voting Rights Act: SCOTUS’s pivotal decisionFeature A Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act could allow Republicans to redraw districts and solidify control of the House
-
No Kings rally: What did it achieve?Feature The latest ‘No Kings’ march has become the largest protest in U.S. history
-
Dinosaurs were thriving before asteroid, study findsSpeed Read The dinosaurs would not have gone extinct if not for the asteroid
-
SpaceX breaks Starship losing streak in 10th testspeed read The Starship rocket's test flight was largely successful, deploying eight dummy satellites during its hour in space
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Coloradospeed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
