CBS Washington — A House panel held the first public congressional hearing on unidentified flying objects in more than half a century on Tuesday, with top Pentagon officials saying the number of "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) reported by pilots and service members had grown to about 400.
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray testified before a House subcommittee about how the Defense Department is organizing reports of UAPs after a congressionally mandated report released last year found most of the incidents analyzed remain unidentified.
Rep. André Carson, a Democrat of Indiana and the chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, and Counterproliferation, opened the hearing by saying UAPs "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 good intelligence analysis. Pilots avoided reporting or were laughed at when they did. DOD officials relegated the issue to the backroom or swept it under the rug entirely, fearful of a skeptical national security community," Carson said. "Today, we know better. UAPs are unexplained, it's true. But they are real. They need to be investigated. And any threats they pose need to be mitigated."
There is little doubt that the unidentified objects are real objects, whatever they may be, because at least 80 of the 144 incidents were detected by multiple sensors, the report found. "UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security," the report said.
At the public portion of the hearing, which was followed by a classified session, Bray said the number of reported incidents had grown to approximately 400 since last year's report. He said the sightings are "frequent and continuing" and often occur in military training areas or other designated airspace.
