A bipartisan proposal to create a more expansive military and intelligence program to study UFOs is urgently needed to determine whether unexplained sightings by Navy and Air Force pilots pose a threat or are evidence of some “other entity,” the lead sponsor said Wednesday.
“If it is technology possessed by adversaries or any other entity, we need to know,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said in her first interview about the effort. “Burying our heads in the sand is neither a strategy nor an acceptable approach.”
Gillibrand is behind an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that is being debated this week to create an ‘‘Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office” with authority to pursue “any resource, capability, asset, or process of the Department and the intelligence community” to get to the bottom of the sightings of “unidentified aerial phenomena," or UAPs.
It would also require regular public reports about sensitive topics that until recently were considered to be on the fringe, including whether the government has any materials from the incidents of UFOs or data on any biological or health effects linked to any encounters.
“We’ve not had oversight into this area for a very long time,” Gillibrand said. “I can count on one hand the number of hearings I had in 10 years on this topic. That's fairly concerning given the experience our service members have had over the last decade.”
The measure goes well beyond a similar provision that was adopted as part of the House version of the bill, or previous public efforts to study UAPs.
Gillibrand, a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, said she was heavily influenced by the “repeated reports over the last two or three years of these increased sightings by Navy pilots and Air Force pilots.”
She believes the fact that the possible explanations are so varied is why a dedicated effort is required.
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