Congressional UFO hearing live: Navy veterans and witnesses expected to expose government secrets

Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison is pressing Luis Elizondo, effectively, on his recent comments on the late night paranormal radio show Coast-to-Coast AM.

When not under oath, Elizondo discussed failed efforts by defense contractor Lockheed Martin to ‘divest’ itself of a crashed UFO that it had struggled to reverse engineer for decades.

Under oath, Elizondo has been more reticent to name the company specifically, noting again the strictures of what was approved for release by ‘Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR).’

Rep Burlinson appears to be a fan of sometime DailyMail.com contributor Chris Sharp, referencing his reporting on this failed effort to move the alleged UFO crash parts to Budget Suites billionaire Robert Bigelow’s Bigelow Aerospace.

This unsuccessful effort, made public by the Pentagon’s AARO historic UFO reports was code named ‘Kona Blue.’

Rear Adm Gallaudet told the committee that he invited, as one of his personal guests to the hearing, former Navy F-18 fighter pilot Lieutenant Ryan Graves.

Gallaudet is an advisor to Lt. Graves’ nonprofit Americans for Safe Aerospace — which is focused on destigmatizing the UFO issue so that pilots can report these potentially fatal airborne anomalies and incursions without fear of career reprisals.

Another witness before the panel today, Mike Gold, is also an advisor to this 501(c)3 nonprofit.

Some pointed questions by the committee allowed Gold to tout one workable and economical solution to the current problem: ‘NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which NASA administers for the FAA.’

‘This system is a confidential, voluntary, non-punitive reporting system that receives safety reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, ground operators, maintenance technicians, and UAS operators that provides a unique data source for emerging UAS safety issues,’ according to the NASA’s advisory panel on UFOs from last year, which Gold co-authored.

Responding to a question from Florida Rep Anna Paulina Luna, Luis Elizondo told the committee that UAP seem intelligently piloted.

He cited a secure digital communication where a pilot described the UFO as having seemingly ‘stalked’ their aircraft.

Elizondo also discussed multiple cases where these UFOs ‘seem to anticipate our manuevers.’

Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins has been pressing Michael Shellenberger on any details he can provide on his anonymous source: the author of this report on ‘Immaculate Constellation.’

‘The person is a current or former US government employee,’ Shellenberger said cautiously.

When pressed to get into more details, he declined.

Then, when asked by Rep Higgins if he ‘can’t say or won’t say,’ Shellenberger replied ‘I won’t say because I protect my sources.’

Michael Shellenberger was asked about the mysterious ‘Immaculate Constellation’ – a secretive UFO data retrieval program has been hidden from Congressional oversight since 2017, he has claimed.

‘It’s mission is to document UAPs,’ Shellenberger said under oath.

Shellenberger said his sources consist of former and current government officials, while refraining from revealing their position or gender.

He claimed that this projected has captured thousands of ‘high-resolution imagery’ of UAPs.

‘The American people need to know that the US military is sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information, still photos, video photos or sensor information, and have for a very long time,’ said Shellenberger.

‘It’s not those fuzzy photos and videos, we’ve been given those very clear high-resolution.’

Elizondo has said that the United States government is ‘in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries.’

Luis Elizondo also just said under oath, that he managed a highly classified SAP for the White House under the National Security Council, as his last job before quitting the Pentagon in 2017 ahead of his now well-known public whistleblowing.

This is a fairly major, verifiable new piece of information to say under oath — and it will surely be fodder for those who have worked to poke holes in Elizondo’s past public comments.

Giving voice to skeptics and those who are generally allergic to this topic, Florida congressman Jared Moskowitz pressed ex-NASA UAP IST member Mike Gold on why the US space agency should be devoting resources to probe this topic at all.

Gold’s answer hewed close to his prepared statement’s conclusion: ‘Science is driven by anomalies. Anomalies are the foundation upon which scientific breakthroughs are built.’

‘The Theory of General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, virtually all of our scientific progress has been based on discovering and studying anomalies,’ Gold’s statement said.

Rep. Moskowitz is pressing Elizondo on the paperwork he was compelled or maybe encouraged to sign in a Secured Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) that restricts him from speaking about certain Special Access Programs (SAPs) — like the key projects involving UFOs, crashes and reverse engineering.

It’s quite shocking. He’s asked Elizondo if he was allowed to let a lawyer review this paperwork before signing.

Elizondo’s response appears to indicate that this process is not especially open, without being overtly coercive.

Mike Gold championed for an end of stigma surrounding UAPs within the American space agency due to its popularity and trust among the public.

‘NASA personnel stepping forward and participating in such discussions would make a powerful statement to the scientific community that UAPs should be taken seriously and researched accordingly,’ said Gold.

Gold was part of the agency’s UAP independent study group in October 2022, which focused solely on unclassified data.

Over nine months, NASA’s UAP IST promised to lay the groundwork for future studies on the nature of UAPs for scientific and other organizations.

I think many who read Shellenberger’s investigative report on ‘Immaculate Constellation’ — or who heard him speak about it on Joe Rogan — might have assumed he was shown the classified Senate briefing at the heart of his story, but not allowed to hold on to a copy.

Apparently, there’s no need to speculate on that now: Shellenberger’s pre-written testimony included the journalist and academic waving before the committee a copy of that report and a promise to share it with House Oversight.

Like a lot of what happens within Capitol Hill hearing rooms, there’s a bit of theatrics to this, but nevertheless it was done under oath and carries real weight.

Luis Elizondo proposed three actions from Congress while speaking under oath. He urged Congress and the President to create a single-point-of contact for military members to report UAP issues.

The next was that the US create a national UAP strategy that promotes transparency and aims to restore American’s trust ‘at a time when the public’s trust is at an all-time low.’

Finally, Elizondo urged Congress to create a protected environment for whistleblowers, allowing them to feel safe and protected when coming forward with information.

Certainly, once the prepared opening testimonies have been fully uttered into the record — lawmakers are going to want to ask Elizondo about his claim that there is a secret Cold War to recover and reverse engineer crashes flying saucers.

‘I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race,’ Elizondo said in his opening statement, ‘one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies.’

Perhaps Elizondo’s use of the phrase ‘I believe’ may soften the explosiveness of this claim, but it will be fascinating to hear what details that Elizondo might be willing to offer on this when asked by the committee.

Fresh controversy has already arrived before a word has been spoken at the hearing.

Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the Pentagon‘s current UFO investigations at the new All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), has accused the committee’s first witness of being a ‘still bitter’ prospective hire.

Responding to Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet’s prewritten testimony, Dr Kirkpatrick accused the retired government official of harboring ‘predisposed tendencies for conspiracies without evidence’ which made him ‘unsuitable for a job’ at AARO that ‘required objectivity and evidence-based reason.’

Rear Adm. Gallaudet’s testimony accused AARO of targeting him for ‘an hours-long influence operation’ which attempted to convince him of ‘the validity of [AARO’s] severely flawed historical records report’ as part of a ‘disinformation’ effort.

Further errors and omissions in AARO’s short, unclassified report were documented by The Debrief and former Department of Defense official Christopher Mellon.

Four witnesses are slated to testify today starting with PhD oceanographer and retired US Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet.

Rear Adm Gallaudet has become a vocal champion of military witnesses to so-called USOs (Underwater Submerged Objects) since at least 2021.

Next up will be ex-Pentagon counterintelligence official Luis Elizondo, whose work getting the now infamous Navy UFO videos to the New York Times in 2017 launched this modern era of public awareness about these weird phenomena.

Michael Gold, a lawyer and former former NASA associate administrator, will speak third, mostly about the need for engaged and transparent scientific investigation into these unexplained vents.