[inaudible conversations] the subcommittee will come to order and without objection the chair can declare recess. A moment of silence for the victims of white supremist hate crime in buffalo, new york. The subcommittee has focused intently on that threat in open and closed hearings. Its utterly devastating to see more victims of this violence. Buffalo, our heart breaks for you. [moment of silence] with that, i ask my colleagues to join pardon me, we will now turn to the business of this hearing. More than 50 years ago the u. S. Government ended project blue book, an effort to catalog and understand sightings of objects in the air that could not otherwise be explained. For more than 20 years that project treated unidentified anomalies in our air space as a National Security threat to be on monitored and investigated. In 2017 we learned for the first time the department of defense had quietly restarted a Similar Organization tracking what we now call unidentified aerial phenomena, or uaps. Congress rewrote the charter for that, called the airborne object identification and synchronization group, and today well bring that organization out of the shadows. This hearing and oversight work has a simple idea at its core. Unidentified aerial phenomena are a potential National Security threat, and they need to be treated that way. For too long, the stigma associated with uaps has gotten in the way of intelligence. Pilots were reporting or laughed at when they did. And relegated it to the back room or swept it under the rug. Fearful of a skeptical National Security community. Today we know better. Uaps are unexplained, its true, but they are real. They need to be investigated, and many threats they pose need to be mitigated. Under secretary moultrie, mr. Bray. Thank you for coming today. First we need you to update us on the status of the legislation creating that was passed in december, the deadline for implementation is fast approaching about you the group does not even have a named director. We need to know, sirs, the status of the organization and the obstacles to getting it up and running. Secondly, you have to convince the audience today and most especially our military and civilian aviators, the culture has changed, that those who report uaps be treated as witnesses not as kooks. Thirdly, you need to show us, congress, and the American Public whose imaginations youve captured. Youre willing to follow the facts where they lead. You know, we fear sometimes that the dod is focused more on emphasizing what it can explain not investigating what it cant. Im looking for you to assure us today that all conclusions are on the table. One final note, were mindful to understand that theyre not starting from scratch. This is the third version of this task force in dod, and Civil Society groups like the mutual ufo network, mr. Korbel and others have been collecting data for years. I hope you can explanes how to leverage this to move it along. The last time the congress had hearings on uaps was half a century ago, i hope it doesnt take another 50 years for congress to hold another. Ill turn to Ranking Member for his comments. Thank you for being here, to appreciate to begin the open dialog between congress and the executive branch on this important topic. While it invokes imagination, besides the hype there are issues posed by uaps. Im more interested in russian and china Hypersonic Weapons development and so slow to share with ukrainians. However, as this may better help us understand activities of russia and china, im on board. Preventing potential adversary like russia and china. And this committee has an obligation to understand what youre doing to determine whether any uaps are new technologies or not and if they are, where are they coming from . In general, trying to understand what are called known, unknowns. And when it comes to sensors, known unknowns are challenges that we dont understand yet. Theyre completely unknown and require an expanded effort. The Intelligence Community must balance addressing known threats to ournations National Security with preventing technical surprise. We must continue to follow the facts with are they lead us and ensure there are no technical surprises. They must take it seriously. When there are phenomena when they could pose a threat, and signs to foreign adversaries for a streak technological surprise against the united states. Its essential that our violence and others feel they can report uaps without any stigma for doing so. This is the open, unclassified portion of our hearing, well have a closed classified part later. Its important for the public to know that classification exists for National Security not to try to hide the truth. If were looking at any technologies that are developed by foreign governments, we are going to run into classified information about what new systems and technologies we know and are in the works here or abroad. But where it does not risk National Security it should be shared with our allies and the public when feasible. We hope you can have that assurance today. Its my hopes that theyll try to determine the nature of uaps weve observed and well Keep Congress apprised of this intelligence and ill keep them with this topic. Ill yield back. The gentleman yields back and now turn to our distinguished chairman adam schiff for any comments. Thank you for holding this on unidentified aerial phenomena on leadership on this issue. Holding a portion of our discussion in open session is critical to the cause of transparency and openness which was congresss intent on authorizing and funding this new task force. The larger effort to study and characterize uap reports important steps towards understanding these phenomena. What we know and dont know and i look forward to hearing more during both the open session and closed setting. How dod and the ic are undertaking that task. Uap reports have been around for decades. We havent had an orderly way for them to be reported. And they need to be understood stood as a National Security message and that needs across the dod, ic and the whole of u. S. Government. When we spot something we cant understand or identify in our air space, its the job of those we trust to investigate and report back. Thats why its important that we hold this open hearing for the public to hear directly from the department of defense on the steps its taking to track, analyze and transparently communicate the work done on this issue. Its the responsibility of the government in the panel to share as much as we can to the American People since the success secrecy breeds distrust and speculation. I look forward to hear how the up task force is and how theyre able to shed light on one of the worlds most enduring mysteries. I thank you gentlemen for your work and be very interested to hear what you have to say to me among the most fascinating questions are those phenomenon that we can measure, this is instruments report there is something there. If not the human eye confusing objects in the sky. There is something there measurable by instruments and seems to move inconsistent of what we know from physics and science and that poses questions of interest as well as potential National Security significance. We look forward to hearing what you have to say, and thank the chairman again for his leadership on this issue and ill yield back. The chairman yields back. Thank you, with that well start our hearing under secretary moultrie, the floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Chairman schiff, Committee Chairman carson, Ranking Member crawford, distinguished members of the subcommittee, its a privileged member to be here today to address your questions recording unidentified aerial phenomena or uap. Im pleased to be joined by mr. Scott bray who will speak to the phenomena task force and laid the foundation for the efforts well discuss today. First id like to thank congress for supporting the efforts. The ndaa for fiscal year 2022 has helped to establish a dedicated office for processes, procedures, for timely collecting, analysis and aup uap. What are are they . When encountered cannot be immediately identified. However, its the departments contention by combining appropriately structured data with rigorous scientific analysis any object we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified and if necessary, mitigated. We know there are Service Members have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena. Because there is Flight Safety and security risks we are committed to focus and determine their origins, the inspection of after adversarial phenomena and we understand theres a cultural stigma. Its have our operators and personnel into a standardized data process. Making reporting an imperative will be instrumental to the defense. The defense and security interprize provides support for our fighters and across all doe mains. To optimize how uap works, were establishing an office within the office of the secretary of defense. That offices function is clear, to facilitate the previously unknown or airborne objects, in methodical standardized manner. These will ensure that we are working closely with operational personnel on training and reporting requirements, developing data and intelligence requirements, standardizing and integrating processes and procedures for collection, optional surveillance analysis and reporting, leveraging our research and Development Capabilities to improve detection, characterization and identification of uats. And developing and mitigating procedures. This will maximize and build upon existing relationships with the office of the director of National Intelligence, f. A. A. , dhs and the fbi and we are a committed to the department of energy, noaa, dea, nasa and the National Labs and importantly, our International Partners and allies. With regard to the importance of transparency, the department fully committed to the principle of openness and accountability to the American People. However, we are also mindful of our obligation to protect sensitive sources and methods. Our goal is to strike that tell cat balance. One that enables us to maintain the Publics Trust while preserving those capabilities to support of our service personnel. In closing, the department is committed to this effort and welcomes a challenge. We thank you for your committed support and look forward to your questions. Chairman schiff, chairman carson, Ranking Member crawford and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity today to highlight the ongoing work of the department of defense recording unidentified aerial phenomena. Since the early 2000s weve seen increasing unauthorized or reports of sightings are frequent and continuing. We attribute this increase in reporting to a number of factors, including our work to destigmatize reporting and the increase in new systems such as quad copters and Unmanned Aerial Systems in our air space, identification of what we can call as clutter, mylar balloons and air trash and improvements in the capabilities of various sense so ares to detect things in our air space. Almost two years ago in 2020, director nordquist in the department of the navy built on the navys initial efforts to respond to reports from aviators on unidentified objects object served in our training. First, incursions in our Training Rangers by unidentified jobs represent serious hazard to flight. In every aspect. Safety of our air crews is paramount. Second, intrusions by unknown aircraft or objects have potential threats to our security and operations. Our aviators train as they would fight. Any intrusions that may reveal our capabilities, tax particulars or procedures are of great concern to the navy and the department of defense. From the very beginning, we took these reports very seriously. We instituted a data driven approach to the investigations where we could collect as much data as possible, and use all of the available resources to analyze and make informed decisions on the best way to address our findings. Our main active was to transition from an anecdotal or a narrativebased approach to a rigorous, science and Technology Engineering and focus study. This data driven approach requires input from a variety of sources. In the early stages for reporting and processing to make it as easy as possible to report engagement to get the wide range of reporting that we needed. We spent considerable efforts engaging directly with our naval aviators and building relationships to help destigmatize the sightings or encounters and we worked with Naval Aviation leadership. And they have step by step procedures for reporting on uap on their knee board in the cockpit and in their postflight deprevious procedures. The direct results of those efforts have been increased reporting and a number of sensors on any objects. The message is clear, if you see something, you need to report it. The message has been received. Recently i received a call from a senior aviator, called me personally after landing to talk about an encounter he had just experienced. Those were just the initial steps. We also made a concerted effort to assemble subject Matter Experts for other u. S. Governments and partnerships, and partnerships with Academic Research labs and weve brought many allies and International Partners into our discussions on uap. There are if physics, optics just to name a few, in areas where we may not have organic expertise. In short weve endeavored to bring an all hands on deck approach to understand this phenomena. What have we learned so far . Any given observation may be fleeting or longer. It may be recorded or not. It may be observable by one more more assets. Theres rarely an answer and let me tell you about this in realtime. There it was. Thats in many cases, thats all that a report may include. And in many other cases, we have far less than this. As we detailed in both the unclassified and classified versions by the office of National Intelligence. This often limited amount of high quality data about the nature and intent of aup. If and when the individual uap incidents are resolved they likely fall into one of five potential categories, airborne clutter, phenomenon, u. S. Program or adversary system or something that allows for a wholing of difficult cases and possibility of surprise and scientific discovery. We stand by those initial results. Since the release of that report, the uap data base has grown to contain approximately 400 reports, the stigma has been reduced and weve made character of similar encounters. Let me share another video image taken years apart in different areas. In this video, u. S. Navy personnel recorded what appears to be triangles, some flashing, reported several years ago off the coast of the reports. This was recorded while the u. S. Navy ship observed small Unmanned Aerial Systems in the area and importantly, the video was taken through night vision goggles. These remain unresolved for several years. Several years later, and off a different coast, u. S. Navy personnel again in a swarm of Unmanned Aerial Systems and again through night vision goggles and slr camera recorded this image, but this time other u. S. Navy assets also observed manned aerial systems nearby and were reasonably confident that these correlate to systems in the area. The triangular appearance is a result of night passing through the night vision goggles and then passed by an slr camera. I dont mean to suggest that everything we observe is identifiable, but the this is a great example of how it takes considerable effort to understand what were seeing in the examples that we are able to collect. In this example we accumulated sufficient data from two similar encounters have two different time periods in two different geographic areas to at the point us draw conclusions. Thats not always the case. We recognize that can be unsatisfying or insufficient. Theres a popular topic, what they may be and where they originate. By nature were curious and seek to understand the unknown. As a life long intelligence professional, im impatient, i want immediate explanations for this as much as anyone else. However, understanding can take significant time and effort and why weve endeavored to concentrate on this datadriven process and given the nature of our business, National Defense, weve had to sometimes be less forth coming with information in open forums than many would hope. If uap do indeed represent a potential threat to our security. The processes that we use to observe, record or study these phenomena need to be classified at appropriate levels. We do not want. We do not want potential adversaries to see or what we understand to the conclusions that we make and therefore, Public Disclosures must be considered on a case by case basis. Whats next . Were concentrating on a team of transition to the new organizations and future analysis of complicated issues of uap issues will greatly benefit from the infrastructure of the process and their procedures that we felt to date. Im confident as a task force under the Navy Leadership to pass forward that will allow us to anchor assessments and the anecdotal evidence. We remain committed to the goal as we know the usdi organization does as well. Thank you for your interest and continued support for the last force. The teams made a progress, but we have the more Detailed Analysis thats yet to be done. We can maintain that for data driven analysis and phen