Here’s how to watch it live

by Junna Base November 13, 2024

“Americans deserve to understand what the government has learned about UAP sightings.”

Congress is poised to revisit the issue of UFOs in a public hearing on Wednesday.

More than a year has passed since members of the U.S. House of Representatives last heard testimony about strange aircraft whizzing uncontrolled through the country’s airspace, as well as allegations about the Pentagon’s reluctance to reveal much of what it knows. While steps have been taken toward transparency, some elected leaders say progress has been hampered by the Defense Department’s reluctance to release material about UFOs, which the government now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

The upcoming hearing is being held jointly by Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) and Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin), who were a sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would allow commercial airline pilots to report UAP sightings to the government.

A press release on the House Oversight Committee website describes the hearing as an “attempt to further pull back the curtain on secret U.S. government UAP research programs and the undisclosed results they yielded.”

“The American people are fed up with the federal government’s cover-up and refusal to release information,” Mace and Grothman said in a joint statement. “Americans deserve to understand what the government has learned about UAP sightings and the potential threats these phenomena pose.”

When will the UFO hearing take place?

The hearing will take place on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Here’s how to watch Congress debate UFOs

The hearing is open to the public and press and will be livestreamed on the House Oversight Committee website.

Watch the hearing below:

Who are the witnesses testifying?

Four witnesses are expected to testify on Wednesday. This includes:

Timothy Gallaudetan American oceanographer and retired U.S. Navy rear admiral who is now CEO of Ocean STL Consulting;
Luis Elizondoa former military intelligence official who resigned and went public in October 2017 after leading a Pentagon program investigating UFO sightings for 10 years;
Michael Golda former NASA deputy administrator for space policy and partnerships who is part of an independent NASA UAP study team;
Michael ShellenbergerJournalist and President of the Breakthrough Institute.

What happened after the last Congressional UFO hearing?

Congressional leaders last heard testimony in July 2023 about unidentified aircraft flying through U.S. airspace in a manner that military witnesses believed was beyond human technology.

David Grusch, a former Pentagon intelligence official, also made a sensational statement about an allegedly shadowy “decades-long” Pentagon program to recover and study not only crashed spacecraft but also alien pilots. Without providing any substantive evidence, Grusch accused the Pentagon under oath of knowing about extraterrestrial activity since the 1930s and of hiding the program from Congress while misusing funds for its operations.

While the Pentagon has denied the claim, its UFO Investigation Office released a new website last September following the hearing where the public can access declassified information about reported sightings.

Later that month, NASA released a long-awaited UFO report stating that there was no evidence of the extraterrestrial origin of unknown spacecraft. However, because Administrator Bill Nelson’s statement was a sign of the agency’s transparency, NASA appointed a director of UAP research.

In that time, the hearing has fueled a wave of documentaries, opportunistic marketing campaigns and speculation about UFOs, and reignited a pop culture obsession that first came into focus after the infamous Roswell Incident of 1947.

Given increased public interest, laws also targeted UAP transparency, with one law seeking to create a civil reporting mechanism and another directing the executive branch to release certain records.

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Eric Lagatta covers breaking and breaking news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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