ANALYSIS – Decades after the infamous Roswell incident captivated Americans, the House of Representatives has convened a landmark panel on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), also known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

In what would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, the hearing is the most serious acknowledgment yet that the mysterious sightings require scrutiny at the highest levels of government.

The debate about UAP has become a hot topic in recent years following multiple leaked photographs and video recordings from the U.S. Navy showing UAP craft operating at high speed over American airspace, often with no visible propulsion and maneuvering in ways that baffle aeronautics experts.

A leaked navy video, captured in July 2019, for example, shows a sphere-shaped unidentified object flying over water near San Diego before apparently disappearing into the ocean.

At the hearing, three witnesses testified under oath about their experiences with UFOs. Significantly, former military and intelligence officials testified to the panel Wednesday that they have seen UFOs and said they could pose risks to national security. 

All three witnesses said the UAP may be probing for weakness in the U.S. military system.

The highly credible former officials called for the U.S. government to share what it knows about the phenomena.

But the Pentagon’s UAP task force, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, says it hasn’t been able to substantiate claims that any federal programs have possessed or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial materials.

Still, during two hours of testimony on July 26, three witnesses shared their encounters with flying objects that they say defy explanation:

1) David Grusch, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer, claims the U.S. has been running a secret program to retrieve and reverse engineer UAPs for decades, and has been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s.

Grusch said he believes the U.S. government is in possession of UAP based on interviewing 40 witnesses over four years with direct knowledge of the program. 

Perhaps more sensationally, in response to a question regarding aliens, he replied “biologics [life forms] came with some of these [UAP] recoveries.”

2) Ryan Graves, a former navy fighter pilot, testified his squadron repeatedly encountered mysterious flying objects which could remain stationary despite hurricane-level winds – claiming he saw them off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on one sighting:

Graves said his aircrew saw UAP during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va. Two jets encountered “a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere” and the object came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft, he said. It was estimated to be 5 to 15 feet in diameter, he said.

3) Retired U.S. Navy commander David Fravor recounted a 2004 encounter with a “Tic Tac” shaped UAP that moved in a way that baffled aviators. Fravor said it had no visible rotors or wings. 

It was “moving very abruptly over the white water, like a ping-pong ball,” he added, noting that he flew his aircraft closer to get a better view of the UAP, but “it rapidly accelerated and disappeared.”

But this is only the latest and most significant public inquiry into the UFO threat.

In 2021 the U.S. intelligence agencies were called to deliver a report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) to Congress.

The first unclassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) made public what the Pentagon reportedly knows about UAP, renewing interest in the mysterious objects which have grown into a modern myth in American society.

ODNI produced a second UAP report in 2022.

Whether UAP is the result of advanced foreign technology or from a more otherworldly source, government officials are now demanding to know more about them. And so is the public.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.