Congressman: “I believe aliens exist”
Mysterious UFOs are back in the spotlight amid US congressional hearings. One whistleblower accused the US government of a massive cover-up — and claims of «extraterrestrial» life suggest that the problem of unexplained aerial phenomena is here to stay.
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When the world heard tales of alien bodies found, crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft, and an apparently violent plot to cover up both, not everyone immediately wanted to believe it, writes The Guardian.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who inadvertently found herself at last week's remarkable UFO hearings in Washington D.C. thanks to her role on the House Oversight Committee, seemed determined not to get too carried away by the surge in UFO interest sweeping across much of the US.< /p>
Speaking afterwards, the leftist New York congresswoman instead attempted to characterize her colleagues' push to expose the alleged government cover-up of alien activity as an investigation into national security and military secrecy rather than a «little green men» cover-up.
“This committee has seen cases before where either defense activity was not overt, whether in the area of contracts or the area of the Department of Defense,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Guardian. “I do believe that there is a very large and brewing question about what is disclosed, what is properly controlled, and we have a responsibility on all subjects to find out this truth.”
It was a commendably gentle approach to a two-hour-plus hearing unlike anything Congress has ever seen before, notes The Guardian.
Former US intelligence officer David Grush, who has long claimed that the United States government is hiding «intact and partially intact» unidentified flying objects and «alien» pilots, appeared in Washington under oath to repeat the same thing.
The US government ran a «multi-year» program that collected and attempted to reconstruct crashed UFOs, Grush told the oversight committee. He added that unnamed federal agencies even recovered «biological agents» from these machines, which he described as «inhuman».
What's more, Grush, who led the analysis of unexplained anomalies (UAP) at the Department of Defense agency USA until 2023, said he encountered «people who have been harmed» in the course of the government's efforts to keep this alien program a secret. Grush told the committee that after making his allegations public, he feared for his own life.
Luckily for Grush and the dozens of UFO enthusiasts who poured into the hearings, some of the politicians listening seemed to be completely engrossed, continues The Guardian.
“I believe they [aliens] exist. I knew that before I came here,” Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, told The Guardian. “I don't want to oversimplify, but how are you going to operate this [spaceship]? You must have someone for this case. It seems pretty simple.”
If Burchett's statement seemed to ignore the long-standing ground-bound technology that is already widely used for unmanned aerial vehicles, his enthusiasm at least cheered up the onlookers: The Guardian notes, not without sneer: leads the investigation into Grush's claims, he seems like a good person who can be persuaded. Also on board is Matt Goetz, a right-wing Republican from Florida.”
Matt Goetz, Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, also from Florida, had brawled at a Florida Air Force base a week earlier when they showed up demanding proof of a recently reported UFO incident.
Goetz said they were initially denied in access to the base, but the trio were eventually shown a «picture» of unidentified anomalous phenomena, a term some prefer to refer to UFOs.
“The image was something that I can't associate with any human ability of either the United States or any of our adversaries,” Goetz said.
Anna Paulina Luna, who, with Burchett directs oversight committee investigation, also appears interested.
“It is unacceptable to continue to make Americans think this is not happening,” she said during a hearing on Wednesday. A day later, Luna told Axios that her interest in UFOs came about after meeting one in 2018.
Claims of UFOs and government cover-ups for aliens have a long history in the US, The Guardian recalls.
In the 1940s and 50s, reports of UFOs, usually in the form of a “flying saucer,” were commonplace, while Grouch himself suggested — though not at Wednesday's hearing — that Pope Pius XII was negotiating the transfer of UFOs from Italy to the US as early as 1944.
However, only in the last couple years, Congress really started to take notice.
Grush's allegations may have ultimately fueled this investigation, but the discussion of UFOs has been given something close to legitimacy by leaked military footage that appears to show oddly shaped objects whizzing through the US aerospace industry and claims by US Navy pilots. about strange encounters.
Two of those pilots — David Fravor and Ryan Graves — testified on Wednesday. Graves, who previously reported seeing unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast «every day for at least a couple of years,» said other, unnamed pilots encountered «dark gray or black cubes inside transparent spheres» where » the top or tips of the cube touched the inside of the sphere.»
Not everyone was impressed, however, by the new revelations, notes The Guardian. Grush has not personally seen any of what he described, and his claims are based on interviews with people «directly aware» of the government's actions, which surprised skeptics.
“Fravor and Graves have been telling this story as well as they could for years. And Pears: I suspect he believes in his story, said Mick West, author of Escape the Rabbit Hole. “So it didn't really change that aspect for me. I already believe they think they are telling the truth, but I don't think what they describe is an accurate reflection of the facts.”
West, a longtime researcher of alleged UFO sightings and claims, believes sightings such as those described by Fravor and Graves could be due to problems with radar or interference, including balloons in the air.
As for the unequivocal evidence that the US government has an alien ship, and indeed aliens, West said it would “come down to physical evidence.”
“They say they know the exact location of these alien ships. So if you want to tell the American public about the whole program, if Congress wants to do that, then they can just go and look at these ships,” he said.
One of the questions that is commonly questioned is that the US government has allegedly been able to keep its UFO stockpile secret — for decades.
Given leaks, sensationalism and exposure of various government secrets and wrongdoing , this apparent ability to remain silent about what could be the biggest secret in human history would be remarkable.
“And it's not just the US government. It's the whole world,” West said. Indeed, The Guardian notes, UFO sightings are not exclusively an American phenomenon. The UK, for example, is also not immune from this. In 2011, the UK Department of Defense published 8,500 pages of UFO sighting reports dating back to the 1950s.
The files included a report from one person who said he was «abducted» in October 1998 by aliens in «a large cigar-shaped vehicle with large wing-like projectiles on the sides.»
«And what about everyone else countries? There are many other areas of land, many places where UFOs can crash. It doesn't make any sense,” West said.
This may not be the case, but there is evidence that international cooperation may be starting. In May, the Pentagon held a UFO-focused briefing for the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, which includes the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, promising more meetings in the future.
And despite the lack of conclusive evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, for long-time fans of UFO sightings, claims and events, this past Wednesday was an extraordinary event, recognizes The Guardian.
“It was one of the most amazing, bizarre and surreal Congressional hearings ever held,” said Nick Pope, who worked as a UFO investigator for the UK Department of Defense in the early 1990s. I almost had to pinch myself and do a double take when you hear such phrases as “superhuman intelligence” and “biological drugs” in the testimony.”
Grush did not make new revelations, repeatedly stating that he could elaborate on this in public, which Pope said made sense. However, later some politicians started talking about the importance of recording Grush's statements in the minutes. Pope said it was an important step towards finding out what the government could have.
“It was clear, listening to what the various people on the committee were saying, that they weren't going to let this lie,” Pope said. “You got a sense of the anger they felt about something being hidden from them inappropriately.”
One thing is for sure: the UFO craze is here to stay, states The Guardian. The next things to watch out for include a NASA report due this month, while the US Department of Defense is due to release its own report this summer. There will likely be more congressional hearings when the representatives, who are due to leave Washington for a month's break, return in September.
“We will not bring little green men or flying saucers to hearings. Sorry to disappoint about half of you,” Burchett said at the start of Wednesday's meeting. «We're just going to get down to the facts.» What these facts are and when exactly they can be revealed remains to be seen.