A group of four House lawmakers—three Republicans and one Democrat—has signed on to a letter calling for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to stand up a new select committee specifically tasked with seeking out the details about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) they believe the government has been keeping secret for years.
“Mr. Speaker, we ask that you immediately establish a Select Committee, outside the jurisdiction of any standing committee, and with subpoena authority, to go about the task of collecting information from the Pentagon and elsewhere for the benefit of the public and to discharge our constitutional, legislative and oversight roles,” reads the letter, which was signed by Reps. Matt Gaetz, (R-Fla.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.).
The lawmakers issued the letter on Thursday, the day after a hearing by the House Oversight Committee that focused on UFOs, also referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or simply UAPs.
During the hearing, witnesses and lawmakers discussed systemic problems with uncovering details about UFOs. In his testimony, former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch described learning of a “multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” and said the program has operated at a level of secrecy beyond normal congressional oversight.
“This issue is much bigger than the news cycle: it represents a confluence of concerning governmental actions that indicates a lack of forthrightness on the part of the Pentagon and intelligence community,” the lawmakers wrote. “No governmental program, no matter how sensitive, can be outside the view of Congress. And yet, the Executive Branch routinely redacts and entirely withholds information in other domains that we are entitled to, and is doing so here.”
The letter argues that a standalone select committee dedicated to the UFO issue could provide more effective oversight on the issue, working through issues of budget transparency and overclassification, and dealing with government agencies that show unwillingness to respond to congressional oversight efforts.
The lawmakers also presented the questions surrounding UFOs as a national security concern.
During the hearing, former Navy F-18 fighter jet pilot David Fravor described a 2004 incident in which his F-18 was dispatched to investigate an aerial phenomenon that had been appearing on a Navy ship’s radar for about two weeks. He described encountering a “small, white, Tic Tac-shaped object” that moved rapidly across the water’s surface before vanishing and then appearing at a location about 60 miles away less than a minute later, despite having no identifiable means of propulsion.
“The Tic Tac Object that we engaged in Nov 2004 was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next 10 [plus] years,” Mr. Fravor said.
Alleged efforts to reverse engineer this UFO technology has lawmakers worried about this technology falling into the wrong hands or otherwise becoming weaponized.
“The idea that there could be weapons projects that are unsanctioned or that we don’t have oversight of, I mean, that’s problematic,” Mr. Moskowitz told NTD News after the hearing on Wednesday.
Despite the secrecy surrounding the U.S. government’s control of UAP technology, Mr. Burchett said he doesn’t believe the motives of the U.S. government have been nefarious, but could not say the same for countries like China and Russia.
“If you have espionage from other countries and things like that, I’d rather we have that than China or Russia,” Mr. Burchett told NTD News after the hearing.
It remains to be seen how Mr. McCarthy will handle the request to establish this new select committee. NTD News reached out to the speaker’s office but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.
Mr. Burchett said Mr. McCarthy had given his blessing for Wednesday’s UFO hearing.