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
38 Mr. GOLD. I will just say, I am a recovering attorney, so please take it easy on me on the science. But all breakthroughs have been heretical at first, and that is the challenge that we face, particu- larly with something as extraordinary as this, which is why gath- ering the data is so important. And I will just end by saying, by the way, the overclassification of material is in no way limited to UAP. That is occurring through- out the government, as well as the inability to get people classifica- tions in a timely and efficient measure and then to have those clas- sifications be broad enough to be useful. So, this is a larger issue that I hope that Congress will remedy. Ms. MACE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Biggs. Mr. BIGGS. Thank you. Ms. MACE. I have been generous. All right, Mr. Burlison, I will recognize you for 5 minutes of questions, please. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Elizondo, I—or, does any branch of the U.S. Government or defense contractors possess technology? Mr. ELIZONDO. Sir, there is documentation, that I believe was submitted for the record, that was approved for release by the U.S. Pentagon, by the Department of Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review. And it states that one of the reasons why my predecessor program, AAWSAP, was trying to collect material of unknown origin and—— Mr. BURLISON. And was it successfully collected? Mr. ELIZONDO. It was not. What happened is that there was an aerospace contract company that requested to divest itself of the material—— Mr. BURLISON. OK. Mr. ELIZONDO [continuing]. That was collected in the 1950s. Un- fortunately, that did not actually occur. Mr. BURLISON. So, let us dive into that. That is the Bigelow Aerospace, correct? Mr. ELIZONDO. Yes, sir. Mr. BURLISON. So, there was a journalist, Christopher Sharp, who said that there was a transfer between Lockheed Martin, Bigelow Aerospace, and the CIA allegedly blocked this. Can you describe that? Mr. ELIZONDO. What I can say is that it was blocked. Why it was blocked, I can only surmise. I was part of some conversations later on with some of those contract personnel where they had told all of us that is accurate. What we required was a memo from the Secretary of the Air Force in order to make that complete, and that never occurred. And so, when Secretary Mattis became Secretary of Defense, I decided it would be appropriate for me to try to receive a memo from him, as SecDef, as Secretary of Defense, if we could not get a memo from the Secretary of the Air Force to transfer that material. Mr. BURLISON. So, if that material exists today, who is in posses- sion? Mr. ELIZONDO. Sir, I would not be able to have that conversation in an open hearing. We would probably have to have that in closed.
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.