>> the subcommittee will come to order and without objection the chair may declare recess at any time. before we get started, i want to recognize a moment of silence for the victims of white supremicist hate crime in buffalo, new york. the subcommittee has focused intently on that threat in open and closed hearings. ntly on that threat in open and closed hearings. it's utterly devastating to see more victims of this violence. buffalo, our heart breaks for you. [moment of silence] >> with that, i ask my colleagues to join-- pardon me, we will now turn to the business of this hearing. more than 50 years ago the u.s. government ended project blue book, an effort to catalog and understand sightings of objects in the air that could not otherwise be explained. for more than 20 years that project treated unidentified anomalies in our air space as a national security threat to be on monitored and investigated. in 2017 we learned for the first time the department of defense had quietly restarted a similar organization tracking what we now call unidentified aerial phenomena, or uap's. congress rewrote the charter for that, called the airborne object identification and synchronization group, and today we'll bring that organization out of the shadows. this hearing and oversight work has a simple idea at its core. unidentified aerial phenomena are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way. for too long, the stigma associated with uap's has gotten in the way of intelligence. pilots were reporting or laughed at when they did. and relegated it to the back room or swept it under the rug. fearful of a skeptical national security community. today we know better. uap's are unexplained, it's true, but they are real. they need to be investigated, and many threats they pose need to be mitigated. under secretary moultrie, mr. bray. thank you for coming today. first we need you to update us on the status of the legislation creating that was passed in december, the deadline for implementation is fast approaching about you the group does not even have a named director. we need to know, sirs, the status of the organization and the obstacles to getting it up and running. secondly, you have to convince the audience today and most especially our military and civilian aviators, the culture has changed, that those who report uap's be treated as witnesses not as kooks. thirdly, you need to show us, congress, and the american public whose imaginations you've captured. you're willing to follow the facts where they lead. you know, we fear sometimes that the dod is focused more on emphasizing what it can explain not investigating what it can't. i'm looking for you to assure us today that all conclusions are on the table. one final note, we're mindful to understand that they're not starting from scratch. this is the third version of this task force in dod, and civil society groups like the mutual ufo network, mr. korbel and others have been collecting data for years. i hope you can explanes how to leverage this to move it along. the last time the congress had hearings on uap's was half a century ago, i hope it doesn't take another 50 years for congress to hold another. i'll turn to ranking member for his comments. thank you for being here, to appreciate to begin the open dialog between congress and the executive branch on this important topic. while it invokes imagination, besides the hype there are issues posed by uap's. i'm more interested in russian and china hypersonic weapons development and so slow to share with ukrainians. however, as this may better help us understand activities of russia and china, i'm on board. preventing potential adversary like russia and china. and this committee has an obligation to understand what you're doing to determine whether any uap's are new technologies or not and if they are, where are they coming from? in general, trying to understand what are called known, unknowns. and when it comes to sensors, known unknowns are challenges that we don't understand yet. they're completely unknown and require an expanded effort. the intelligence community must balance addressing known threats to ournation's national security with preventing technical surprise. we must continue to follow the facts with are they lead us and ensure there are no technical surprises. they must take it seriously. when there are phenomena when they could pose a threat, and signs to foreign adversaries for a streak technological surprise against the united states. it's essential that our violence and others feel they can report uap's without any stigma for doing so. this is the open, unclassified portion of our hearing, we'll have a closed classified part later. it's important for the public to know that classification exists for national security not to try to hide the truth. if we're looking at any technologies that are developed by foreign governments, we are going to run into classified information about what new systems and technologies we know and are in the works here or abroad. but where it does not risk national security it should be shared with our allies and the public when feasible. we hope you can have that assurance today. it's my hopes that they'll try to determine the nature of uap's we've observed and we'll keep congress apprised of this intelligence and i'll keep them with this topic. i'll yield back. the gentleman yields back and now turn to our distinguished chairman adam schiff for any comments. >> thank you for holding this on unidentified aerial phenomena on leadership on this issue. holding a portion of our discussion in open session is critical to the cause of transparency and openness which was congress's intent on authorizing and funding this new task force. the larger effort to study and characterize uap reports important steps towards understanding these phenomena. what we know and don't know and i look forward to hearing more during both the open session and closed setting. how dod and the ic are undertaking that task. uap reports have been around for decades. we haven't had an orderly way for them to be reported. and they need to be understood stood as a national security message and that needs across the dod, ic and the whole of u.s. government. when we spot something we can't understand or identify in our air space, it's the job of those we trust to investigate and report back. that's why it's important that we hold this open hearing for the public to hear directly from the department of defense on the steps it's taking to track, analyze and transparently communicate the work done on this issue. it's the responsibility of the government in the panel to share as much as we can to the american people since the success secrecy breeds distrust and speculation. i look forward to hear how the up task force is and how they're able to shed light on one of the world's most enduring mysteries. i thank you gentlemen for your work and be very interested to hear what you have to say to me among the most fascinating questions are those phenomenon that we can measure, this is instruments report there is something there. if not the human eye confusing objects in the sky. there is something there measurable by instruments and seems to move inconsistent of what we know from physics and science and that poses questions of interest as well as potential national security significance. we look forward to hearing what you have to say, and thank the chairman again for his leadership on this issue and i'll yield back. >> the chairman yields back. thank you, with that we'll start our hearing under secretary moultrie, the floor is yours, sir. >> thank you. >> chairman schiff, committee chairman carson, ranking member crawford, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it's a privileged member to be here today to address your questions recording unidentified aerial phenomena or uap. i'm pleased to be joined by mr. scott bray who will speak to the phenomena task force and laid the foundation for the efforts we'll discuss today. first i'd like to thank congress for supporting the efforts. the ndaa for fiscal year 2022 has helped to establish a dedicated office for processes, procedures, for timely collecting, analysis and aup uap. what are are they? when encountered cannot be immediately identified. however, it's the department's contention by combining appropriately structured data with rigorous scientific analysis any object we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified and if necessary, mitigated. we know there are service members have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena. because there is flight safety and security risks we are committed to focus and determine their origins, the inspection of after adversarial phenomena and we understand there's a cultural stigma. it's have our operators and personnel into a standardized data process. making reporting an imperative will be instrumental to the defense. the defense and security interprize provides support for our fighters and across all doe mains. to optimize how uap works, we're establishing an office within the office of the secretary of defense. that office's function is clear, to facilitate the previously unknown or airborne objects, in methodical standardized manner. these will ensure that we are working closely with operational personnel on training and reporting requirements, developing data and intelligence requirements, standardizing and integrating processes and procedures for collection, optional surveillance analysis and reporting, leveraging our research and development capabilities to improve detection, characterization and identification of uat's. and developing and mitigating procedures. this will maximize and build upon existing relationships with the office of the director of national intelligence, f.a.a., dhs and the fbi and we are a committed to the department of energy, noaa, dea, nasa and the national labs and importantly, our international partners and allies. with regard to the importance of transparency, the department fully committed to the principle of openness and accountability to the american people. however, we are also mindful of our obligation to protect sensitive sources and methods. our goal is to strike that tell cat balance. one that enables us to maintain the public's trust while preserving those capabilities to support of our service personnel. in closing, the department is committed to this effort and welcomes a challenge. we thank you for your committed support and look forward to your questions. >> chairman schiff, chairman carson, ranking member crawford and committee members. thank you for the opportunity today to highlight the ongoing work of the department of defense recording unidentified aerial phenomena. >> since the early 2000's we've seen increasing unauthorized or reports of sightings are frequent and continuing. we attribute this increase in reporting to a number of factors, including our work to destigmatize reporting and the increase in new systems such as quad copters and unmanned aerial systems in our air space, identification of what we can call as clutter, mylar balloons air trash and improvements in the capabilities of various sense so ares to detect things in our air space. almost two years ago in 2020, director nordquist in the department of the navy built on the navy's initial efforts to respond to reports from aviators on unidentified objects object served in our training. first, incursions in our training rangers by unidentified jobs represent serious hazard to flight. in every aspect. safety of our air crews is paramount. second, intrusions by unknown aircraft or objects have potential threats to our security and operations. our aviators train as they would fight. any intrusions that may reveal our capabilities, tax particulars or procedures are of great concern to the navy and the department of defense. from the very beginning, we took these reports very seriously. we instituted a data driven approach to the investigations where we could collect as much data as possible, and use all of the available resources to analyze and make informed decisions on the best way to address our findings. our main active was to transition from an anecdotal or a narrative-based approach to a rigorous, science and technology engineering and focus study. this data driven approach requires input from a variety of sources. in the early stages for reporting and processing to make it as easy as possible to report engagement to get the wide range of reporting that we needed. we spent considerable efforts engaging directly with our naval aviators and building relationships to help destigmatize the sightings or encounters and we workedh naval aviation leadership. and they have step by step procedures for reporting on uap on their knee board in the cockpit and in their post-flight deprevious procedures. the direct results of those efforts have been increased reporting and a number of sensors on any objects. the message is clear, if you see something, you need to report it. the message has been received. recently i received a call from a senior aviator, called me personally after landing to talk about an encounter he had just experienced. those were just the initial steps. we also made a concerted effort to assemble subject matter experts for other u.s. governments and partnerships, and partnerships with academic research labs and we've brought many allies and international partners into our discussions on uap. >> there are if physics, optics just to name a few, in areas where we may not have organic expertise. in short we've endeavored to bring an all hands on deck approach to understand this phenomena. what have we learned so far? any given observation may be fleeting or longer. it may be recorded or not. it may be observable by one more more assets. there's rarely an answer and let me tell you about this in real-time. >> there it was. >> that's in many cases, that's all that a report may include. and in many other cases, we have far less than this. as we detailed in both the unclassified and classified versions by the office of national intelligence. this often limited amount of high quality data about the nature and intent of aup. if and when the individual uap incidents are resolved they likely fall into one of five potential categories, airborne clutter, phenomenon, u.s. program or adversary system or something that allows for a wholing of difficult cases and possibility of surprise and scientific discovery. we stand by those initial results. since the release of that report, the uap data base has grown to contain approximately 400 reports, the stigma has been reduced and we've made character of similar encounters. let me share another video image taken years apart in different areas. in this video, u.s. navy personnel recorded what appears to be triangles, some flashing, reported several years ago off the coast of the reports. this was recorded while the u.s. navy ship observed small unmanned aerial systems in the area and importantly, the video was taken through night vision goggles. these remain unresolved for several years. several years later, and off a different coast, u.s. navy personnel again in a swarm of unmanned aerial systems and again through night vision goggles and slr camera recorded this image, but this time other u.s. navy assets also observed manned aerial systems nearby and we're reasonably confident that these correlate to systems in the area. the triangular appearance is a result of night passing through the night vision goggles and then passed by an slr camera. i don't mean to suggest that everything we observe is identifiable, but the-- this is a great example of how it takes considerable effort to understand what we're seeing in the examples that we are able to collect. in this example we accumulated sufficient data from two similar encounters have two different time periods in two different geographic areas to at the point us draw conclusions. that's not always the case. we recognize that can be unsatisfying or insufficient. there's a popular topic, what they may be and where they originate. by nature we're curious and seek to understand the unknown. as a life long intelligence professional, i'm impatient, i want immediate explanations for this as much as anyone else. however, understanding can take significant time and effort and why we've endeavored to concentrate on this data-driven process and given the nature of our business, national defense, we've had to sometimes be less forth coming with information in open forums than many would hope. if uap do indeed represent a potential threat to our security. the processes that we use to observe, record or study these phenomena need to be classified at appropriate levels. we do not want. we do not want potential adversaries to see or what we understand to the conclusions that we make and therefore, public disclosures must be considered on a case by case basis. what's next? we're concentrating on a team of transition to the new organizations and future analysis of complicated issues of uap issues will greatly benefit from the infrastructure of the process and their procedures that we felt to date. i'm confident as a task force under the navy leadership to pass forward that will allow us to anchor assessments and the anecdotal evidence. we remain committed to the goal as we know the usdi organization does as well. thank you for your interest and continued support for the last force. the teams made a progress, but we have the more detailed analysis that's yet to be done. we can maintain that for data driven analysis and phenomena. look forward to your question. >> and this is the third of this task force and one of the congress' concerns is executive branch in the administration and both parties, has been sweeping uap under the rug by events that can be explained and avoiding those that cannot be explained. what can you say to give the american people confidence that you aren't just focusing our attention on low hanging fruit with easy explanations? >> congressman, i'll start and then mr. bray, please feel free to weigh in. so the way that we're approaching this is with a more thorough standardized methodology than what we had in the past. first and foremost, the secretary of defense is chartering this effort. this is not someone lower in the department of defense and he has assigned that task to the office of the secretary of defense, the undersecretary for edges it, that's me, i'm responsible for looking at intelligence matters and security matters, this is potentially both. so when you start concerning the-- ourselves with the safety of our personnel, the safety of our installations and bases, there's no other higher priority than what we have than actually getting after this. and as you had stated, we have been assigned that task to actually stand up an office, and which i believe the names will likely change, but we have moved forward in terms of moving to establish that office. we have, as of this week, picked a director for that effort, very established and aaccomplished individual. we've identified spaces. we've worked with personnel across the department of defense with the services and which is on board helping us work through this standardized methodology for now, bringing in data and analyzing that data and recording that data in the appropriate method and means so we can get it either to our service personnel, for safety or get it to you and the congress and to the public to ensure that you have oversight of what we're doing. and this started by the secretary of defense, standardized and really a methodical approach, something we're doing that has not been done before. >> can we get some kind of assurance,. analysts will look at analysis and-- >> and we're open to all that we may encounter. >> quickly before i pass it to the ranking member and schiff. i want to thank you for taking the time. and had a good time meeting with you. it's fair to say that you are a science fiction fan, is that correct? >> it's fair to say that i'm an inquisitive mind that spent 40 years in the intelligence field and focused on science and science fiction, that's fair. >> could you tell us about it? >> look, my generation grew up looking at space sagas and the apollo program. so, all of us who grew up in the '60s were just thrilled by watching our first astronaut land on the moon. that was a momentous occasion and people who were of different generations, didn't believe that happened. i still have relatives and friends that don't believe it happened. science fiction to them. that's the progress that we've made and i was enthralled by that and i've taken it to heart and enjoyed the challenge of what may be out there and i've mentioned to you that yes, i have followed science fiction and i've gone to conventions and i'll say it on the record, got to break the ice somehow. but, you know, i have done that, but there's nothing wrong with that. don't necessarily dress up, but i do, you know, do believe that it's important to show that the department of defense has, you know, we have character and we're people just like you, just like the american people. we have our-- we have our inquistiveness and we have questions, we want to know what's out there just as you do. we get questions not just from you, but family members night and day not just committee hearings. finding what's out there is important, but first and foremost it's important for us to do that to ensure that we have people, personnel, aviators and bases and installations are safe and the curiosity factor is something else that we want to know because that's the human race. you know, that insatiable desire to know. >> thank you, sir, ranking member crawford. >> mr. moultrie, you said you don't necessarily dress up. [laughter]. that wasn't a real strong statement. gentlemen, thank you for being here today. we appreciate it. and thank you, mr. moultrie for breaking the ice, we do appreciate that. the inability to understand objects in our sensitive operating areas is tantamount to an intelligence failure we want to avoid. it's not about finding alien spacecraft, but delivering across the strategic system. how can it lead to surprises. >> and what we do on a normal basis look for the unknown, unknown as you said in your opening remarks, across all. and we've been looking at the space domain, looking at space objects, looking at space weather, space phenomena. and we've been looking at things in the air domain and as you know, i'll talk more about this in classified session, but we have a concerted effort to awn adversarial platforms and programs. and we do that also on the ground domain and we're interested in what happens in the underwater or sea domain, if you will, subsurface domain. if there are objects that are aviators or air crews are encountering and this air domain, and their sensors are discovering or detecting some of these objects, we want to bring that into the normal process that we have for identifying unknown unknowns. we want to make sure that we have the intelligence requirements that allow us to not only look at the event by the time it occurs forward, but maybe retrospectively we want to get to that, was there some developmental program that we, to get to your technical surprise issue, sir, that we should have known about. if so, how do we put that intelligence requirement in place to ensure that we are following an adversarial development or any other development that may be out there. so, that's what we want to do in terms of normalizing this and bringing it into the normal process how we identify known unknowns. >> you mentioned fidelity and i think it's important to talk about the relationship from the navy as a lead agency on this, how do you interact with space force, air force, to create that degree of fidelity. we're talking about sensors and so on. and i guess where i have some concerns, many of the images that we see commonly in this committee and even in open source, the resolution and the clarity that would allow a robust technical intelligence analysis is challenging. so, are they prepared to address the quality for collection and do you have the adequate sensors that you need to collect that data? >> one of the things we have is to-- and the video shows that mr. bray displayed, sometimes it's very fleeting data that we have on some of these objects. we want to make sure that, one, our systems are calibrated to collect on objects. our sensors today are calibrated for specifically things. we want to make sure that they're calibrated for things of that nature. things of this size, things of this velocity, if i can use at that term. that once we have that that that data is stored in some standardized method that we can distract and feed into the system real-time and not to take some prolonged period of time to get that data, but our goal is absolutely to have that high-fidelity information that we get from all sensors and we want to be able to integrate that with what may have off ground-based sensors. whatever we have on the ground, whatever we may have from other sensors that we may have in different domains, we want to integrate that all and get the picture as we would with other unidentified objects or things attracting as part of our normal intelligence responsibilities. >> thank you. last question, mr. bray. if you would, i'm a navy pilot, i've encountered a uap. walk me through the protocol once i see something i think that should be reported. >> the first thing they would do, debriefing, contact their intelligence officer and the intelligence officer would first filing-- first data preservation to ensure that whatever sensor data may be on the aircraft that we preserve that so it's available for later analysis. second they would fill out a form that includes details like where they were operating, altitudes they were, operating speeds, what they observed. whatever sensor data they may have recorded from that and then that report is filed. it goes two places, one, it goes through the operational chain of command so that operational units are aware of what is being observed and also, to the uap task force so that they can take that data, data base it, and quite often have individuals from the task force contact the aviator and ask them additional questions if there were things that weren't clear in the report. that things goes into a data base where we compare it with others that we have. comparing for locations, altitudes, speeds, shapes. if any emissions were detected from the platform, all of that so that we can try to reach the conclusion from that. >> thank you. >> yield back. >> yielding back, chairman schiff. >> thank you. mr. bray, could you show that image that looked like it was out after plane window and walk up to the screen and tell us what we should be looking at in the image. >> i'll ask if you can stop it at a certain point. he and are we looking outside of a civilian aircraft window? is that what we're looking at. >> okay. and the-- (inaudible) [inaudible conversations] . >> it right through here. (inaudible) >> is that it right there? >> (inaudible) >> can you point to the screen again, what we're supposed to be looking at? (inaudible) >> okay, if you could stop that frame. (inaudible) >> right here. right here by the window. here we go. see that part right there. have a hard time stopping it. >> okay. >> as you can see, it's difficult. . >> the last shot we're working at is not easy to stop. >> describe what we've seen in that. what are we observing. >> what you see here is aircraft that is operating in a u.s. navy training range that has observed spherical object in that area and as they fly by it, they take a video. it looks reflective in this video, somewhat roux he flektive reflective and quickly passes by the cockpit of the aircraft. >> is this a phenomena that we can't explain. >> i do not have an explanation for what this specific object is. >> is this one of the situations that that's the object we're looking at there? thank you. and is this the situation where it was observed by the pilot and also recorded by the aircraft's instrument? >> we'll talk about the multi-sensor part in a later session. but in this case, we have at least that. >> in the director of national intelligence 2021 unclassified report, the odni reported 144 uap's between 2004 and 2021. 80% of which were recorded on multiple instruments. and i take it, with respect to some of those, you had a pilot seeing them, that was observed by a pilot. >> right. >> and you had multiple instruments recording it so you have three sensors, the hume sensor and two technical sensors, detecting that? >> for the majority of incidents that we had in the last year's report, the majority had multi-sensor data. when i talk about the 400 reports that we have now, that number will certainly go down because a lot of those new reports that we have are actually historic reports that are narrative-based. so that percentage will go down just as a factor of the fact that the destigmatization has resulted in for narrative reports. >> that's the object we're looking at there? >> that's it. >> last year's report also said that of those 144, 18 of them exhibited unusual flight characteristics, appeared to advanced technology and some of them appeared to remain stationary and move against the wind and move abruptly or move at considerable speeds without considerable means of propulsion. that's pretty intriguing. and if you're able to answer in this setting. are we aware of any foreign adversary capable of moving objects without any discernible means of propulsion? >> i think i would-- without discernible means of propulsion, i would say that we're not aware of any adversary that can move an object without discernible means of propulsion. the question then becomes in many of the cases where we don't have discernible propulsion in data that we have. in some cases there are sensor artifacts that may be hiding some of that. there's certainly some degree of something that looks like signature management that we've seen from some of these uap, but i would caution -- i would simply say that there are a number of events in which we do not have an explanation in which there are a small handful in which there are flight characteristics or signature management that we can't explain with the data that we have. we'll continue-- those are the ones of most interest to us. earlier when you asked how you avoid technological surprise, it's by collecting data and importantly calibrating the assumptions that you go into with how do you that analysis. within the uap task force, we have one basic assumption, that is that generally speaking, our sensors operate as designed. and we make that assumption because many times these are multi-sensor collections. we make no assumptions about the origin of this or may or may not be technology, and that's the key to avoid technological surprises by calibrating those assumptions. >> and finally, with respect to the second two videos showing the small triangles, the hypothesis is that those are commercial drones that because of the use of night vision goggles that appear like triangles, is that the operating assessment? >> some type of drone, some type of manned aerial system and it's simply that that light source resolves itself through the night vision goggles onto the srl as a triangle. >> have we approved that high positive sis and flown a drone with that same technology to see whether we could produce that effect. >> uap is aware of studies that have done that. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> doctor. >> thank you mr. chairman and threw all for being here. my first question here is through this process where there's been sightings, have the sightings been stationary or have they always been sighted from a moving object, from a plane or a ship that may have been moving. have these reports been from a stationary object observed in the sky? >> the uap task force has reports from a stationary observer. >> there's a difference observing something when you're moving as well as, physics, that's why i asked that question. are we capable or have we made any breakthroughs to be able to sight something and make some determination at all of its km significance, whether it's a solid or a gas? is there any such capabilities? >> from-- >> i'm not asking what i'm-- >> from some of the returns, it's clear that the majority-- it's clear that many of the observations that we serve are from the physical objects from the sensors that we have. >> well, gas is a physical, and do you see where i'm going with this. i'm trying to determine what it is we're looking at so we can decide if something is a solid or a gas and has there been any conclusion on its capabilities. like the capabilities of movement, of turning, going 180 degrees or 90 degree turns, something along that line that we've been able to determine? >> within the-- i should point out that there's not a single explanation, they're made up of a lot of different things that are identified. >> basically we really don't know much on that. that's all i'm trying to get. i'm pleased that you have protocol right now for our military, but are there any non-military reports coming forward of similar events or is it all coming from military? >> the uap task force has a good working relationship with the f.a.a., with other parts of the u.s. government so that we can ingest reports from those reports. >> do we have any reports non-military? >> yes. >> thank you, that's my question. and do we need to put out protocol for civilians in that arena through f.a.a.? do you think that would be appropriate or helpful? >> i think that standardized reporting without a doubt is key to helping us get-- to ascertain what some of these are. >> i would think it would be important as well. do we-- there are, as bow sides the u.s. that have these experiences and record those, correct. >> that's correct. >> is it all of our allies or is it alleys and adversaries? what have you learned publicly? >> some of that, sir, i think we'll save for closed session. >> and that's my next question, publicly have others made neg, that would not be considered closed. i don't want to you necessarily say what they said. >> and china has its own version of the uap task force so clearly a number of countries have observations in the things in the air space that they can't identify. >> do we share data with some, with all, are they sharing with us? >> we share data with them and some share data with us. >> but not necessarily all that have reported something? >> that's correct. >> and i think a that's an important thing and for the other session, actually that we don't discuss that now because you know, obviously, something like this can be a national security challenge for us, know he doubt about it and if they're developed by an adversary through some breakthrough technology, they consider it disruptive to our military actions, or at least serve as disruption, my thought it would be be careful who we share our data with and don't necessarily trust some of the data that we may get from someone else. with that i'll yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. one of the objectives of this open hearing is to try to erode some of the stigma that attaches to, in particular, our military men and women reporting this. it's obviously really very serious because should one of our adversaries have developed a technology that we don't know about it. we need to know about it yesterday and obviously, any sort of stigma that prevents our military from reporting this data is comprehensively as possible, is it not, security threats. the chairman asked that we run that video again. most people when we see a video we're used to seeing things from a car, seeing things from a sidewalk, very few people have the experience of observing something through night vision goggles at mach. talk about it, whichever of you is most appropriate. how radically different observation is at high speed and three dimension than for most of us who walk around and drive cars? >> so the first thing i think is important to note about this, there are lots of things when you are moving very fast and an object is between you and a stationary reference point like the ground, it gives a lot of different impressions about how quickly something is or isn't moving and actually means that it is challenged, especially with narrative based data, to get a lot of information on that. that's why the sensor data is so important and things happen quickly as you see there and sometimes things that happen very quickly, something may be moving slow. the aircraft is moving fast. how fast that object is manufacturing as it goes by is probably very slow. i guess my point is observation, either a visual observation or an electronic observation, looks radically different than it does to most people. even instruments, instruments are on gimbles and that sort of this i think and that create an unusual crew, to those of you used to seeing things in two dimension. the second question, i think mr. bray, you said something i want to unpock a little bit. a number of these uap's, you said, we can't explain. and again, in the service, sort of reducing speculation and conspiracy theories, we can't explain can range from a visual observation on a foggy night, we don't know what it is, to we've found an organic material that we can't identify. those are radically different worlds. when you say we can't explain, give the public a better sense where on that spectrum of we can't explain where we are, are we holding materials, organic or inorganic that we don't know about. or lights that are infrared. give us an indication when you say we can't explain. >> when i say we can't explain, there's a lot of information like the video we showed, there's simply too little data to create a reasonable explanation. there are a handful of cases that our analysis hasn't been able to fully gather what happened. and those are the cases where we talk about where we see some indications of flight characteristics or signature management that are not what we had expected. and when it comes to material that we have. we have no material. we have detected no immunizations within the task force that would suggest it's anyone nonterrestrial in origin. when i say unexplained. everything from too little data to we simply, the data that we have doesn't point toward an explanation. we've made no assumptions about what this is or isn't and we'll take that wherever the data takes us. >> when you say we can't explain. everything you can't explain is in a bucket called data. is that correct? that would mean data collected by sensors, observations and everything that we can't explain quote, unquote is in a bucket called data. >> a narrative report, the victims had a little information on it would be in our data base and unresolved. >> i would add that it's insufficient data, that's one of the challenges that we have. insufficient data on either the object sits he have. or insufficient data to plug into the organization or agency that may have had something in that space at that time. so it's a data issue that we're facing in some instances, congressman. >> understand that, yield back. >> the gentleman yields back, mr. gallagher. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you for allowing me to join this hearing. i appreciate the witness's testimony. mr. moultrie, as the chairman mentioned, there were initiatives called project blue book. it's reported in our recent projects, and could you describe any other initiatives that the dod or dod contractors have managed after project blue book ended and prior to a-tip beginning. did anything pre-date project blue book? >> i can't explain what reinstated project blue book. everything that people talked about over the years. i'm familiar with blue book, i'm familiar with a-tip. i haven't seen other documented studies that have been done by dod in that regard. so you're not aware of anything between project blue book and a-tip. >> and what has been done in those, it hasn't been brought to my attention. >> additionally, are you aware of any other programs focused on uap's have a technological engineering perspective? are you aware of any of those focused on the topic, other than to he is in the investigations? >> i'm not aware of any contractual programs or anything related to this other than what we're doing in the navy task force and what we're about to launch in terms of our efforts. >> same question for you, mr. bray. >> same answer, not aware of anything outside of what we're doing in the task force. >> just to confirm, you're not aware of any engineering resources focused on the efforts besides what we've mentioned today? >> once again, i'll say no contractual or programmatic efforts involved. the reason why i qualify it that way. i can't speak to what people may be looking at in the department. i'm looking at something that may be identified and i can't speak to that and speak to the official programs on the record. >> it's been reported there have been uap observed and interacting with sensitive, not just ranges, but some in the nuclear site, and 10 were rendered were inoperable, a glowing red orb was seen. i'm not commenting on this, but i'm asking you about the accuracy of that report. >> that data is not within the holdings of the uap data force. >> are you aware of the report? that the data exists somewhere? ... >> it's a pretty high-profile incident. i don't claim to be an expert but that's out there in the ether. you're the guys investigating it. who else is doing it? >> that something was officially brought to our attention we would look at it. there are many things out that that are not officially brought to our attention. >> how would it be officially brought? i'm bring it to your attention. >> certainly there is authoritative figure that says there's an incident that occurred would like you to look at this but in terms of tracking what may be inundated this is something occurred at this time at this place, there's probably a lot of leads we would have to follow on. i don't think with the resources. >> i don't claim to be an authoritative figure but i d like you to look into it. if you can dismiss it and said this is not worth wasting resources on. finally are you aware of a document appeared around 2019 sometimes called the admiral wilson memo? >> i am not. i'm not personally aware of that. >> this is a document in which a given not commenting on the veracity, hoping to help with that in which a former head of dia claims have conversation with a dr. eric wilson and claims to have sort of been made aware of certain contractors or dod programs he tried to get full access to and was denied access to you. so you're not aware of that? >> i'm not aware. >> in my ten seconds remaining i would ask mr. chairman, unanimous consent to enter that memo into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate it. >> mr. krishnamoorthi. >> thank you, mr. chair. tank you to if you for your public service. first question is, there have been no collisions between any u.s. assets in one of these uaps, correct? >> we have had at least 11 near misses. >> maybe we will talk about the 11 near misses or any place where there's close proximity. i assume, tell me if i'm wrong, there's been no attempt, there's no communications or any kind of communication signals that emanate from those objects that we detected, correct? >> that's correct. >> have we attempted to communicate with those objects? >> no. >> so we don't even put out an alert saying, you know, u.s., you know, identify yourself. you are within our flight path or something like that. we have said anything like that? >> we have not put anything out like that. generally speaking, for example, in the video we showed earlier it appears to be something that is unmanned, appears to be something that may or may not be a controlled flight and so we have not attempted any communication with that. >> okay. and i assume we've never discharge any armaments against a uap, correct? >> that's correct. >> how about wreckage? have come across any wreckage of any kind of object that has now been examined by you? >> the uap task force doesn't have records that isn't explainable, that is inconsistent with being of terrestrial origin. >> do we have any sensors underwater to detect on submerged uaps? it is in that is in the ocean or indices? >> i would be more appropriate addressed in closed session. >> okay. i think one of the biggest questions that i have is, we say with a lot of probability, we say quote-unquote probably do represent physical objects, closed quote. when we say probably, is that because we cannot conclusively say that their physical objects? >> in the task force report when i say probably represent physical objects most of them represent physical objects. there could be some that are more of a meteorological phenomena something like that that may not be a physical object in the sense that most people think of something to go up in touch. >> the ones would you say most of them represent physical objects can you say they are definitely like with with % certainty that they are physical objects? >> i can say with certainty a number of these are physical objects. >> okay. we can't rule out some of the may not be physical objects? >> some certainly could be a sensor anomaly or something like that, some could be. >> now how about with regard to uaps, we talked about uaps on training areas but obviously there's some sensor bias. i think we put sensors in training areas. how about with regard to non-training areas? do we track what's an open source and what civilians and others have tracked, and have found similarities to what they have observed in terms of uaps in non-training areas to the ones that are in training areas? >> the task force has worked very hard to make sure the data set will working with is a data set that we are have very gd control over that data. so we had some partnerships with faa so we get some of that so we get the reporting in but if it comes to just open-source reports or someone says they saw something that generally does not make it into our database. >> basically it sounds like we have good partnership with faa, but apart from fa we don't have partnerships with other agencies or other entities that might be tracking so we can and large our data set to make a person. >> was we will. that's the goal of the next effort will be to expand the relationship with, over the rest of government and the interagency. so we can understand what they are seeing, what we are seeing, we can correlate on each of assaulting -- >> sorry to interrupt. i think we might have a bias right now going on with regard to just reporting on uaps being in training areas when we don't really track what's happening elsewhere. last question. have our encounters with uaps altered the development of our, either our offense, offensive or defensive capabilities or even her sensor capabilities? >> best in closed session. >> great, thank you. >> mr. lahood. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i want to thank the witnesses for being here today. obviously this topic of uaps has attracted a lot of interest in people that are curious about this hearing today. as we talk about, i would say there's a lot of what i would call amateur interest groups that are involved in the uap field. my question is, when there are unsubstantiated claims or manufactured claims of uaps or kind of false information that is put out there, what are the consequences for people that are involved with that of groups that are involved with that? >> so one of the concerns we have is that there are a lot of individuals and groups that are putting information out there that, that could be considered somewhat self-serving. we are trying to do what's in the best interest of, one, the department of defense and two what's in the best interest of the public to ensure we can put factual-based information back into the mainstream, back into the bloodstream of the reporting media that we have so people understand what's there. it's important because we are tempting as this hearing hasn't drawn out to understand one, what may just be natural phenomena, two, what may be sensor phenomenology or things that are happening with sensors, three, what you you eat maybe the judgment counterintelligence threats to places that we have our bases are insulations, or security threats to our platforms. and anything that diverts us off of what we have with the resources that of an allocator to us send us off in these chases and hunts that are just not helpful. they also contribute to the undermining of the confidence that the congress and the american people have that we are trying to get to the root cause of what's happening here, report on that. and then pay that back into our national security apparatus so we are able to protect the american people and our allies. it is harmful. it is hurtful but hopefully if we get more information out there we will start to lessen the impact of some of those reports. >> suggest taking that a step further, so that misinformation, false narratives, manufactured, so what are the consequences? are the legal consequences? other examples you can give us were people been held accountable? >> i can't give you any examples were somebody has been legally held liable for putting something out there but -- >> i guess what is the deterrent for people engaging in this activity? >> i don't, i don't know. i don't have that answer. that's something that, welcome a dialogue with congress to talk about that with the members who have legislation the laws to say what should be the legal ramifications that we can do to potentially hold individuals accountable, whether it be citizens or information that might be injected into our media by other forces or other countries, if you will. >> in terms of dod's review and analysis in this field is there a standard in place when it comes to uaps? is there a guidance you look to that is codified in law or otherwise within the unity that sets out the standards for uaps and what to look for? >> that's part of what the group we are standing up now will be charted to do. for my organization we will be looking at policy and standards we have to come to you and look to you to promulgate them across our government. >> thank you. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. welch. >> thank you. going to follow on the line questions from mr. lahood. chairman, , what seems incrediby difficult for you is there's to almost competing that different narratives. one is its come no one knows whether there's extraterrestrial life. it's a big universe and it would be pretty presumptuous to have a hard and fast conclusion, and that if there is, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there is some explanation coming here and that and allies a lot of the report you get. i think mr. lahood was asking about that. people must think there's extraterrestrial life and it is not all beyond the pale that it would be a visit here. the other hand, dod has the responsibility make sure that our national security is protected in that if there are surveillance drones or active drones that can disable our systems, that has to be analyzed, has to be stopped. so how do you divide con how do you separate your responsibilities where you get all these reports from folks who may be good faith, maybe not, believe that you should be investigating every possible report of an extraterrestrial incident? also with you, mr. moultrie. >> congressman, thank you for the question. it's important that as a part of this effort really build up the relationship that we have with others including nasa. for the reasons you just pointed out. so there are elements in our government that are engaged in looking for life and other places and they have been doing that for decades. they've been searching for extraterrestrial life there are astrobiologists have been doing this. we are part of that same government and so our goal is not to potentially cover up something if we were to find something. it's to understand what may be out there, examine what it may mean for us if there are any from a defense perspective 80 national security implications, ramifications. by then to work with organizations whether it's a weather phenomenon with noaa competition for extras life for in the case of extra trust life with someone like nasa. >> the transparency actually is very important. >> completely. >> to the public consumption. >> completely. >> we are going to have a classified briefing. in fact, going into the details of what kind of secrets that we can't share here. what is it, what are we protecting? i don't know if you can answer this question in this open forum. but, in fact, your perception of what it is we have to -- >> right that now which rey important for us to protect is how we know certain things. there are a lot of things we know, whether it be about the thinking of other leaders around the world, the weapon systems being developed or how we detect things that maybe threats to us. many of those things on the result some of our most sensitive sources and methods. we would use those thanks not just for this effort but those same sources and methods are used to help protect us from adversaries and others who might need to do us harm. there are not separate uap sensors come separate uap processing computer is not a separate uap dissemination chain or whatever. so it's the same process if it's the same system where that helps us do all that. we need to protect and that because this is something that we're looking at but we are sure there will be other things will look at individual that when he the same stages, same sorts of methods to help us do. we're protecting the fact this nation has developed king abdullah's that enable us to know what may be threat to us and to counter those threats before they become something of a national issue. >> thank you very much. what to thank both of you for your appearance today. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. gentlemen, john videos is there a range of other information that the executive branch has that will be valuable to the american people while protecting sources and methods obviously? the details of individual encounters including the time place and details of an encounter, does the -- have a clear and repeatable process for considering public release as part of the process? >> chairman carson -- >> do you commit to building that process? >> the uap task force, the security classification guide that we have an operating that i approved really was meant to protect the sources of methods and meant to protect any knowledge that an adversary intelligence entity may gain from understanding what we are tracking, how we track it or when we are tracking it or if we are not. and so that is been an important piece in the balance between transparency and preserving our war fighting advantage. because the u.s. military does train as it would fight. what i will commit to is at least for that material that's under my authority as deputy director of naval intelligence, for information that we have when it does not involve sources and methods and when we can with a reasonable degree of confidence determined that it does not pose a foreign intelligence our national security threat, and it's within my authority to do so i meant to declassify that. i believe very much in the transparency of this and we work very hard to balance that with our national security needs. >> i will add, congressman, just over the last three or four months i think that the intelligence community and the national defense apparatus had disclose more information on various events than it has an probably the previous ten years. you have our commitment to work close with the director of national intelligence and others in the declassification and downgrading of intel apparatus to ensure we can get whatever information we can out to the american people and to the public writ large. >> greatly appreciate it. ranking member crawford. >> thank you, mr. chairman. representative stephani is in route i believe but in the interim if i could if you'll indulge i just have a couple real small questions. one is do have an example, can you cite a specific example of an object that can't be explained as having been human made or natural? >> i mean, the example that i would say that is still unresolved at a think everyone understands quite will is a 2004 incident from nimitz. we have data on that and it still remains unresolved. doesn't mean it resolves to being something, right, that is easily explainable or difficult, well, difficult to explain. but i can't point to something that definitely was not man-made but i can point to a number of examples which remain unresolved. >> gotcha. with regard to videos that have appeared in open-source gems can for example, does and salt making little videos is and how to prevent leaks potentially classified it as other material? >> so as we established organization we will have a process for classified and compartmental holdings and we'll find a way of getting positive control over those. we have our sensitive axes programs that allow us to put what we call -- about things and is controlled axes programs that last but caps of ethics. we will have that in place. our goal entering we are us sharing that with the appropriate analyst and the appropriate exploiters if you will come with a look at the data what we don't do is bring something in to a dod database or a dod holding and then has so many rapids around is not available to those who really need to look at it and to exploit it. that's one of the reasons where establishing relationships with the interagency, with the icy and others to build to do that but we will do our best to maintain positive control over the materials we have within our holding. >> thank you. chairman schiff. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just going back to the 2021 report under the category of uap epididymis to advance of technology, those 18 incidents in which some of the uap appear during stationary, maneuver abruptly or at considerable speed without some means of propulsion that goes on to say in his moment of case of military aircraft systems process right a frequency energy associate with uap sightings. i couldn't tell from that whether that small number of cases was a part of the subset of 18, that is, among the 18 which appear to move with unusual pattern or flight characteristics, did some of those also emit radiofrequency energy? >> i would have to check with our uap task force on that. i believe, without getting into specifics that we can do in the closed session, at least some that we've detected our emissions from were not behaving oddly otherwise. >> and in the significance of measuring the radiofrequency energy is what, that we suspect that this was some form of aircraft in which there were radio transmissions? >> the biggest thing you're looking for is any indication of an effort to jam whatever centers that we may have looking at it. >> but i would also add to that, that radiofrequency as you know, congressman, is to control various platforms, too. the fact emanation is coming off of any platform whether it be a uav or another platform could be radiofrequency activity related to that entity transmitting out or something transmitting to that platform. and, of course, we have a sensitivity with our platforms picking it up with you some of the recent we try to prevent people from using their cell phones on airplanes and things like that. it's very sensitive to our emanations. that's a part of what will be looking as a something we can collect on and can we start to characterize the signaling environment around the emanations that may become off some of these uaps? >> so that energy then that was recorded could be either an effort to jam or to be effort to control uap or any other communication with that crap? >> i would say that's accurate. >> right. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, chairman. as the odni report makes clear one possible explanation for uaps is we're detecting u.s. aircraft either secret their programs or even test prototype prototypes. i won't ask you in deciding obviously to describe any secret unity programs. that said, i do want to make sure that u.s. government isn't chasing its own tail. firstly, do you have a clear and repeatable process to check with compartment programs at whether uap sightings is attributable to a u.s. aircraft? secondly, does staff have the clearances and read ons that they need to investigate all of these incidents? and thirdly, when your staff cannot be read on, are your questions to those who are read on even being answered. >> was i'll start then i'll pass that to mr. bray. so we are very conscious of the potential blue on blue issue or u.s. on u.s. and so we've established relationships with organizations and entities that are potentially flying or developing platforms are the own interests. our goal is to continue and we have, i think with that the process for some time to deconflict activities that we may have to ensure that we are not potentially reporting on something that may be a developmental platform or a u.s. operational platform that is performing either testing or performing mission. we will have that in place. with all we have those discussions with organizations and entities. we want to ensure where protecting their equities. want to ensure where protecting their sources and methods also getting at what we have here. we want to deconflict to those. >> the uap task force had a process in place to work with other elements of department offense and other elements of the government to ensure that there's a simple twist possible to deconflict those. when we reference that in the report, i should say that we were simply accounted for the fact that there could possibly be one or two data points that had leaked through but we are quite confident that was not the explanation. >> how are you all liaison in with space command? specifically, how are you partnering with the part of the u.s. space command responsible for space domain awareness? and how, if at all, are you partnering with the space force to analyze uaps? >> the uap task force has a very good relationship with space force as it is does with thet of the department of defense. we have told analysts in from space force to ensure that we are a busy ourselves of that expertise as well as any other materials than they have that would be helpful. >> and as you know space force and -- they have responsibility for space domain awareness. what we've done is we've coordinated with space force. we coordinate with their jq and she is on board in terms of helping us plug in to what they have and for us to this interactive exchange of information and data. we are doing that with all the services, not just with space force. >> thank you, sir. >> any additional questions? chairman schiff? all right. with that i want to thank you all for taking the time out. else want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for participating in this very historical and important hearing. i think it's one of the few times we can demonstrate some degree of bipartisanship around uaps and ufos, so i love it. appreciated, thank you. we will see you all. we were recessed this hearing for the moment and return and a closed session at noon. 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