Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the transcript of a joint hearing held November 13, 2024 by two subcommittees of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, chaired by Rep. Nancy Mace. The witnesses were Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold. They addressed government secrecy, AARO's transparency, a Pentagon document on the alleged Immaculate Constellation program, threats to pilot safety, and UAP activity near nuclear and military sites. Members also discussed UAP disclosure legislation.
“Department of Defense”20 pages
10 of the Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify today regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. Confirmation that UAPs are real came to me in January 2015, when I was serving as the Commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. At the time, my personnel were par- ticipating in a predeployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast. It included the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, and this exercise was overseen by the United States Fleet Forces Command, led by a four-star admiral who, at the time, was also my superior officer. During this exercise, I received an email on the Navy’s secure network from the operations officer of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. The email was addressed to all the subordinate commanders, and the subject line read, in all capital letters, ‘‘URGENT SAFETY OF FLIGHT ISSUE.’’ The text of the email was brief but alarming with words to the effect, ‘‘If any of you know what these are, tell me ASAP. We are having multiple near midair collisions, and if we do not resolve this soon, we are going to have to shut down the exercise.’’ Attached to the email is what is now known as the Go Fast video captured on the forward-looking infrared sensor of one of the Navy F/A–18 aircraft participating in the exercise. The now declassified video showed an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal. The implication of the email was clear. The author was asking whether any of the recipients were aware of classified technology demonstrations that could explain these objects. Because the DoD policy is to rigorously deconflict such dem- onstrations with live exercises, I was confident this was not the case. The very next day, that email disappeared from my account and those of the other recipients without explanation. Moreover, the Commander of Fleet Forces Command and the operations officer never discussed the subject even during weekly meetings specifi- cally designed to address issues affecting exercises like the one in which the Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group was participating. This lack of follow-up was very concerning to me. As the Navy’s chief meteorologist at the time, I was responsible for reducing safe- ty of flight risks, yet it appeared to me that no one at the flag offi- cer level was addressing the safety risk posed by UAPs. Instead, pilots were left to mitigate these threats on their own without guid- ance or support. I concluded that the UAP information must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agen- cy. That is, a compartmented program that even senior officials, in- cluding myself, were not read into. Last year’s UAP hearing before this Oversight Committee con- firmed that UAP-related information is being withheld from senior officials and Members of Congress. And, just this week, I learned from former DoD official Chris Mellon that satellite imagery of UAP from a few years ago still has not been shared with Congress. Equally concerning, last year’s UAP hearing also revealed that elements of the government are engaged in a disinformation cam-
Hearing transcript, from the hearings collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 52 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.