It will focus on a Pentagon program created last year after the U.S. intelligence community published a preliminary estimate of 144 “unidentified aerial reports” since 2004 – and can only explain one.
The subcommittee of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives on Counter-Terrorism, Counterintelligence and Counter-Proliferation will hold a public hearing on May 17 at 10 am ET. It will be followed by a closed, secret hearing on the Pentagon’s program, known as the Aircraft Identification and Management Synchronization Group.
The two witnesses are Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald C. Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott W. Bray.
“The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously assess and address any potential risks to national security – especially those we do not fully understand,” said Andre Carson, chairman of the Indiana Democrats’ subcommittee. hearing, in a statement.
House Democrat Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, added that the hearing “will allow the public to hear directly from experts and leaders in the intelligence community about one of the greatest mysteries of our time and to break the cycle of excessive secrecy and speculation with truth and transparency. “
The New York Times was the first to report on the hearing.
At a briefing Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Department of Defense would try to “make sure we have a better process for identifying these phenomena by analyzing this information in a more proactive and coordinated way than has been done.” in the past”. He said the Pentagon would also try to “mitigate all the safety issues” that arise, as “many of these phenomena” are reported near training areas.
But Republican Arkansas Rick Crawford, a leading Republican in the House of Representatives ‘subcommittee on intelligence, questioned Democrats’ move to hold the hearing, given other national security concerns.
“As China and Russia develop hypersonic weapons and the Biden administration uncovers alleged U.S. military operations in Ukraine, we have much more serious threats to intelligence than flying saucers,” Crawford said.
This story was updated with additional developments on Tuesday.
CNN’s Eli Kaufman contributed to this report.
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