UFO Hearing Raises More Questions than Answers

The subject of UFOs has once again captured congressional attention, having been the focus of a House Intelligence subcommittee open hearing this morning. Just don’t call them UFOs. In recent years, government communications have largely replaced the classic term with the initialization “UAP” for “unidentified aerial phenomena.” But today’s hearing was still billed as the first of its kind in 50 years. And while it did clear some of the often-murky air around the topic, much remains unexplained.

Though some of us have been interested in this sort of thing for many years, today’s hearing was the latest sign of a renewed public interest in these phenomena. This renewal seemed to begin with the 2017 revelations about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, an apparent government effort to investigate sightings of mysterious “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Since then, we’ve seen a slow but steady release of more information, some of it via a report mandated by Congress (through an effort largely spearheaded by Florida senator Marco Rubio) released last year. The latter revealed, among other things, that some UAP sightings remain unexplained, and most “probably do represent physical objects.”

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Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

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The subject of UFOs has once again captured congressional attention, having been the focus of a House Intelligence subcommittee open hearing this morning. Just don’t call them UFOs. In recent years, government communications have largely replaced the classic term with the initialization “UAP” for “unidentified aerial phenomena.” But today’s hearing was still billed as the first of its kind in 50 years. And while it did clear some of the often-murky air around the topic, much remains unexplained.

Though some of us have been interested in this sort of thing for many years, today’s hearing was the latest sign of a renewed public interest in these phenomena. This renewal seemed to begin with the 2017 revelations about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, an apparent government effort to investigate sightings of mysterious “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Since then, we’ve seen a slow but steady release of more information, some of it via a report mandated by Congress (through an effort largely spearheaded by Florida senator Marco Rubio) released last year. The latter revealed, among other things, that some UAP sightings remain unexplained, and most “probably do represent physical objects.”