Pentagon officials were unable to identify a mysterious flying object during testimonies at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday that showed a previously classified video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
The recording showed a fleeting color image of a reflective spherical object speeding past a military fighter jet. The congressional hearing was the first in more than a half-century to focus on military reports of unexplained phenomena; the current term for such is UFOs.
Unidentified Flying Objects
It also marks an opportunity for lawmakers to prod the Pentagon for more information and allows government officials to clarify why explanations were not forthcoming. They also outlined their plans for improving data collection.
The Pentagon officials involved in the hearing testified under oath that the government had not collected materials from any alien landing on Earth. Their statements pushed back on at least one favored conspiracy theory. But the highlight of the hearing was a split-second image that was shot last year through the window of an FA-18 fighter jet, as per the New York Times.
The image showed a spherical object in the distance, and the pilot also reported observing something in the sky. The phenomenon remains unexplained and is a prime example of how difficult it is to determine what a short video clip may show.
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Pentagon officials also played a video recording and presented an image that was shot through night-vision lenses that showed glowing green triangles moving through the air. The first video, which was shot on the West Coast in 2019, puzzled military officials. But the small triangles in the second recording, which was captured from the East Coast this year, were determined to be drones.
According to CNN, during the House hearing, key lawmakers warned that unidentified aerial phenomena must be investigated and taken seriously as a potential threat to national security. A bigger concern for many officials and intelligence and military personnel was that a foreign adversary, such as China or Russia, could be fielding some sort of next-generation technology in American airspace.
National Security Threat
In a statement, the panel chairman holding the hearing, Democratic Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana, said that unidentified aerial phenomena must be treated as threats. He continued to say that the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis.
Carson noted that pilots had started to avoid reporting or were immediately laughed at when they did. Department of Defense officials relegated the issue to the backroom or swept it under the rug entirely in fears of a skeptical national security community.
The situation has forced the United States military to classify and characterize reports of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) more systematically. Two top-tier military witnesses shared progress in identifying the phenomena that are more commonly known as UFOs using modern technologies, a range of experts, and various other tools.
The Tuesday hearing follows a preliminary report that was submitted last year to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It outlined the progress to date on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, Space reported.
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