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.
“The Times”27 pages
30 And let me compliment Administrator Nelson, that there would not have been a UAP Independent Study Team if it was not for his leadership and courage. We are talking about data and where we can get data from. As I described, NASA has whole archives of data, much of which, I be- lieve, will likely have information that will help inform UAP; we need only look. And, again, in an era with AI and ML, we can rel- atively quickly and easily go through it. So, I think it is something that we should encourage NASA to do. However, per Chairman Grothman’s comment about UAP focus- ing on national security sites, I believe there is something, sir, that you may have heard of called ‘‘sensor bias,’’ that because we have got more cameras, more monitoring of national security, we do not know how extensive UAP activity may be over civilian areas. Now, this is to the second part of your question, where we are not collecting the data. We are not collecting sufficient data from pilots. We are not collecting sufficient data from civilian and com- mercial activities. And this is, again, where ASRS, I think, could substantially change that, get the data out there, and allow us to do good science. Mr. FROST. Yes. Thank you. I mean, on the data, you know, I am a really big proponent of transparency, but obviously there is always a little bit of balance that we have to have in government on transparency as well. I mean, last year, NASA appointed a Director of UAP Research and Response, to the recommendation by the Independent Study Team. In the final report, there’s a quote: ‘‘Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated obser- vations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definite and scientific conclusions about UAP.’’ Can you just talk really quickly about that balance of security and transparency? Mr. GOLD. So, I can say, having served at NASA, it is the most transparent organization I have ever been in. When we would have conversations with executive leadership, things would leak out al- most instantly. So, I can assure you, intentionally or not, NASA is very transparent. I do not know if many of you have worked with engineers or scientists; they love to talk. So, I believe that NASA is a paradigm of transparency, but we must have the ability and the data to be able to be transparent with. Mr. FROST. Uh-huh. Mr. GOLD. And if we are not gathering that, if we are not looking at it, then we cannot bring NASA into the game and get to that good science that you need. Mr. FROST. You know, it was about a year ago, I was touring a facility with a pretty senior government official. We went by a cer- tain hangar, and they said, ‘‘Yes, that is—you know, a company leases that out. We do not really know what is going on in there. We have no way of knowing what is going on in there.’’ And there was a few of those, in fact, while we were driving around this facil- ity. To what extent do you think that some of the UAP out there comes from off-the-books or unauthorized experimental aircraft?
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.