Washington

A hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), a term officially now used for Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, was held in the United States on Wednesday. Claims were made about flying orbs being spotted coming out of the ocean, strange lights in the skies, disc-like objects, mysterious spacecraft never seen on Earth, and more. 

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The US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability held the hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth" in Washington DC.

Four experts testified on the matter, with some of them claiming that the US government has been hiding evidence of extraterrestrial visitors and other-worldly objects for years. A former Department of Defense official told the committee that the US government has conducted a secret UFO retrieval programme. 

Another claim was that the UFOs have injured government employees on a few occasions. However, none of the claims came with evidence.

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Wednesday's hearing included some former high-level officials who would have been in the knowhow of several secrets. A former US counterintelligence officer, a retired US Navy rear admiral and a former NASA associate administrator spoke to the committee.

Underwater alien base?

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They called on the government to stop stigmatising the topic of UFOs and come clean on UAP data which they said should be brought out of the "black" classified world and into the public domain.  

Claims were made that the US government has evidence of aliens in the form of "photos, video, photos, other information". 

Meanwhile, Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert said that she had heard theories that aliens had built a secret underwater “base” on Earth. "Are there any accounts of UAPs emerging from or submerging into our waters which could indicate a base or presence between the ocean's surface," Boebert asked. 

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She pressed further, asking, "Are there any technological capabilities that have been observed in these oceanic UAPs to defy our current understanding of physics or human engineering capabilities?"

She did not get an answer to the questions but vowed to bring out the truth in front of the people of America. 

Pentagon office on UAPs

UFOs have been a recurring topic of discussion for years. The Pentagon created the All-Doman Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2022 to investigate UAP reports and any data the government might have about UFOs. However, critics have raised doubts about the office's intentions and methods.

"AARO is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to bring forward the truth about the government's activities concerning UAPs," Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) said during the hearing. 

She slammed AARO for lack of transparency and hiding its budget. "If there is no 'there' there, then why are we spending money on it? And by how much? Why the secrecy?"

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said that there is evidence that we are detecting things that we don't understand and are worth investigating.

Luis Elizondo, a former US counterintelligence officer said at the hearing that "excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel and the public — all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos." 

UFO hearing last year

The previous hearing on the matter in 2023 also saw similar claims flying around. The most startling revelation was made by retired Major David Grusch who alleged that the US government had recovered nonhuman "bodies" from crash sites. He claimed that it had in place a secret reverse-engineering programme to study the advanced extraterrestrial vessels.