Documents / Official release

Office of the Secretary of Defense: 022_SASC_Transcript_2023

Department of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. · 2023 · 50 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a stenographic transcript of an April 19, 2023 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, chaired by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, on the mission and budget of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. AARO released it in full in 2025. Director Sean Kirkpatrick testified that AARO has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity and that most reports resolve into mundane objects. He also presented trend data and two declassified MQ-9 videos, one of which was resolved as a commuter aircraft.

  • p. 15 …working with 7 our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform 8 U.S. government's…
  • p. 41 …So 3 NASA is providing a liaison for us. I have FBI liaison. I 4 have…
  • p. 43 …how the independent study being done by NASA complements 19 AARO's work? 20 Mr. Kirkpatrick…
  • p. 44 …25 Where NASA comes in and the study that they are doing, Page determined to be…
  • p. 45 …20 That is what NASA is focused on right now is what is -- what 21 are…
36
Scheduling@TP.One 800.FOR.DEPO
www.TP.One (800.367.3376)
1 could tell you what they know without risk of retribution
2 from the -- or violation of their NDAs.
3 Have you submitted a public-facing website product for
4 approval to your superiors and how long has it been under
5 review?
6 Mr. Kirkpatrick: I have. We submitted the first
7 version of that before Christmas.
8 Senator Gillibrand: And do you have an estimate from
9 them when they will respond and when you will have feedback
10 on that?
11 Mr. Kirkpatrick: No, I do not.
12 Senator Gillibrand: Okay. We will author a letter
13 asking for that timely response to your superiors.
14 When do you expect that you will establish a public-
15 facing discoverable and access portal for people to use to
16 contact your office as the law requires?
17 Mr. Kirkpatrick: So I would like to, first, say thank
18 you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have
19 thus far to us. I appreciate that. We have brought in
20 nearly two dozen so far. It has been very helpful.
21 I would ask that you continue to do that until we have
22 an approved plan. We have a multi-phased approach for doing
23 that that we have been socializing and have submitted for
24 approval sometime. Once that happens then we should be able
25 to push all that out and get this a little more automated.
Page determined to be Unclassified
Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841(a)(1)(C)
Date: 2/6/2025
022

Cases discussed

About this file

Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 50 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.