Not much unites Democrats and Republicans in Congress these days, but there’s one issue with surprising bipartisan support: taking the “U” out of “UFOs.”
Lawmakers have recently begun receiving secret briefings from the Pentagon as part of a new program – and Politico reports they’re not happy with what they’ve heard so far.
“Senator [Kirsten] Gillibrand believes that the [Defense Department] needs to take this issue much more seriously and get in motion,” an aide to the New York Democrat told Politico. “They have had ample time to implement these important provisions, and they need to show us that they are prepared to address this issue in the long-term.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who represents a district where there have been multiple UFO sightings, said in another report that he’s not happy either with explanations on what the feds now officially call “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs.
“I don’t trust the Department of Defense to get this right since leadership there has always been part of a cover-up,” Burchett told News Nation Now. “It is clear from the public evidence that we don’t have full control of our airspace. That’s a national security issue and it’s also unacceptable.”
The issue has gone from pop culture to national security in recent years after a series of sensational leaked videos show U.S. Navy pilots attempting to follow objects that are unlike anything known to our military.
In the clips, seasoned pilots struggle to even track the objects, much less identify them.
Some skeptics have tried to downplay the incidents, with debunker Mick West, a former video game designer, saying the “objects” aren’t even objects at all.
They’re a trick of the light.
“What we’re seeing in the distance is essentially just the glare of a hot object,” West told the San Diego Union-Tribune last year. “So we’re looking at a big glare, I think, of an engine — maybe a pair of engines with an F/A-18 — something like that.”
The new briefings are part of a push by lawmakers to identify the objects in the videos and others like them.
Instead, Politico says they’re simply getting reports similar to what the public has seen – sightings, rather than explanations.
That’s crucial given that the motive for the new push isn’t because Congress is full of “X-Files” fans, and it’s not because they’re worried about supposed extraterrestrials in a “War of the Worlds” scenario.
They’re concerned the real culprits are much closer to home, especially given that many sightings haven’t been at stereotypical remote cow pastures.
It’s U.S. military bases, ships, and other high-value locations.
“For me, there’s stuff flying over military installations and no one knows what it is, and it isn’t ours,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told TMZ last year. “If stuff’s flying over the top of your most sensitive installations, and it’s not ours, and no one knows whose it is – you should find out who it is, and tell us.”
One anonymous quote in the Politico report shows why Rubio is right to be concerned.
“I have seen everything we have [in the files] and I am very confident they are not ours,” an unnamed former senior intelligence official told the website.
That leaves one key question for lawmakers, especially if it turns out they’re not mere lens glares: If they’re not ours, then whose are they?
Burchett said he wants the American public to have a say – and he knows how to give it to them.
“We put pressure on the Pentagon — on funding and everything else — and say enough is enough, bring forth what you got and let the American public decide,” he said. “I trust the American public. Release it all.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert.