Congress is "actively being stonewalled" in its efforts to obtain additional powers to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs, according to a Republican lawmaker.
On July 26, the House Oversight Committee held a session during which David Grusch, a United States Air Force veteran formerly of the National Reconnaissance Office, said he was aware of "concerning reports from multiple esteemed and credentialed current and former military and intelligence community individuals" regarding the existence of a secret government UAP program. However, Grusch said he lacked the authorization to share classified evidence with the committee, and thus couldn't answer many of their questions.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to establish a select committee with the power to subpoena witnesses. This could also help with acquiring a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), where Grusch would be able to share more sensitive information.
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Tim Burchett (R-TN), who are leading the charge for a select committee, discussed the difficulties they are facing at an event on UAP hosted by The Hill.
Luna claimed efforts to get Grusch the necessary security clearance to discuss classified documents are "actively being stonewalled."
Burchett said: "It just creates more and more conspiracy theories because our federal government is so arrogant and so bloated. They'll just run out the clock."
During Grusch's July 26 committee appearance, the former intelligence officer claimed the U.S. government has been running a "multi-decade" secret UAP program, and that it had recovered "non-human" biologics. Grusch said he had faced "very brutal" retaliation in response to his speaking out, adding he knows of "people who have been harmed or injured" in the government's bid to hide information.
However, a Pentagon spokesperson denied it has found "any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."
In June, Grusch claimed the American government had recovered then covered up "non-human origin" vehicles during an interview with NewsNation.
He said: "These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed.
"When you recover something that's either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots and, believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it's true."
However, Sean M. Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon's recently created All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) created to record UAP, claimed the agency had no evidence of alien life during a committee appearance in April.
He commented: "I should also state clearly for the record that, in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics."
Footage of several mysterious lights filmed in Montgomery County, Ohio, on Sunday has been shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, though some users have suggested they could just be parachutists.
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James Bickerton is a Newsweek U.S. News reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is covering U.S. politics and world ... Read more
