chairman schiff chairman carson ranking
member crawford and committee members
thank you very much for the opportunity
to be here today to highlight the
ongoing work of the department of
defense uh regarding unidentified aerial
phenomena since the early 2000s
we have seen an increasing number of
unauthorized and or unidentified
aircraft or objects in
military-controlled training areas
and training ranges and other designated
airspace
reports of sightings are frequent and
continuing
we attribute this increase in reporting
to a number of factors including our
work to destigmatize reporting an
increase in the number of new systems
such as quadcopters and unmanned aerial
systems that are in our airspace
identification of what we can classify
as clutter mylar balloons and other
types of air trash
and improvements in the capabilities of
our various sensors to detect things in
our airspace
almost two years ago in august of 2020
deputy secretary defense nordquist
directed the establishment of the
unidentified aerial phenomena task force
within the department of the navy the
uap task force was built on the
foundation of the navy's initial efforts
to respond to the reports from our
aviators on unidentified objects
observed in our training ranges
the basic issues then and now are
twofold first
incursions in our training ranges by
unidentified objects represent serious
hazards to safety of flight
in every aspect of naval aviation safety
of our air crews is paramount
second
intrusions by unknown aircraft or
objects pose potential threats to the
security of our operations our aviators
train as they would fight
so any intrusions that may compromise
the security of our operations by
revealing our capabilities our tactics
techniques or procedures
are of great concern to the navy and the
department of defense
from the very beginning we took these
reports very seriously we instituted a
data-driven approach to the
investigations where we could collect as
much data as possible and use all
available resources to analyze and make
informed decisions on the best ways to
address our findings our main objective
was to transition uap efforts from an
anecdotal or narrative based
approach to a rigorous science and
technology engineering focused study
this data-driven approach
requires input from a wide variety of
sources
in the early stages the task force
worked to standardize the reporting
mechanisms and processes to make it as
easy as possible
for personnel to report any engagement
so that we were getting that wide range
of reporting that we needed we also
spent considerable efforts engaging
directly with our naval aviators and
building relationships to help
destigmatize the act of reporting
sightings or encounters
and we work with naval aviation
leadership to provide additional
equipment to record any encounter navy
and air force crews now have
step-by-step procedures for reporting on
the uap on their knee board
in their in the cockpit and
in their post
flight debrief procedures
the direct result of those efforts has
been increased reporting with increased
opportunities to focus a number of
sensors on any objects the message is
now clear
if you see something you need to report
it
and the message has been received in
fact recently i received a call from a
senior naval aviator with over 2000
flight hours he called me personally
from the flight line uh after landing uh
to talk about uh an encounter that he
had just experienced
those were just the initial steps we
also made a concerted effort to assemble
subject matter experts from across the
department of defense and the
intelligence community and other us
government agencies and departments we
forge partnerships with the research
development and acquisition communities
with industry partners with academic
research labs and we've brought many
allies and international partners into
our discussions on uab
additionally subject matter experts from
a wide variety of fields including
physics optics metallurgy meteorology uh
just name a few have been brought in to
to expand our understanding in areas
where me we may not have organic
expertise
in short we've endeavored to bring an
all hands on deck approach
to the to better understand this
phenomena so what have we learned so far
any given observation may be fleeting
or longer it may be recorded or not it
may be observable by one or multiple
assets
in short there's rarely an easy answer
for example let me share with you the
first video that we have here today
which shows an observation in real time
there it was
that's
in many cases
that's all that a report may include
and in many other cases
we have far less than this
as we detailed in both the unclassified
and classified versions of the
preliminary assessment released by the
office of director of national
intelligence last june this often
limited amount of high quality data
and reporting hampers our ability to
draw firm conclusions about the nature
or intent of uap
as detailed in the odni report if and
when individual uap incidents are
resolved they likely fall into one of
five potential explanatory categories
airborne clutter natural atmospheric
phenomena us government or u.s industry
developmental programs foreign adversary
systems or
a other bin that allows for a holding
bin of difficult cases and for the
possibility of surprise and potential
scientific discovery
we stand by those initial results
since the release of that preliminary
report the uap task force database has
now grown to contain approximately 400
reports the stigma has been reduced
we've also made progress in resolving
the character of a limited number of uap
encounters for example let me show you a
couple of another video and image
taken years apart in different areas
in this video
u.s navy personnel recorded what appears
to be triangles some flashing recorded
several years ago off the coast of the
united states
this was recorded while the u.s navy
ship observed a number of small unmanned
aerial systems in the area
and importantly the video was taken
through night vision goggles with a
single lens reflex camera
these remained unresolved for several
years
several years later
and off a different coast
u.s navy personnel again in a swarm of
unmanned aerial systems and again
through night vision goggles and an slr
camera
recorded this image
but this time
other us navy assets also observed
unmanned aerial systems nearby and we're
now reasonably confident that these
triangles correlate the unmanned aerial
systems in the area the triangular
appearance
is a result of light passing through the
night vision goggles and then being
recorded by an slr camera
i don't mean to suggest that everything
that we observe uh is is identifiable
but
um
the um
it but this is a great example of how it
takes considerable effort to understand
what we're seeing in the examples that
we are able to collect
in this example we accumulated
sufficient data from two similar
encounters from two different time
periods in two different geographic
areas to help us draw these conclusions
that's not always the case though we
recognize that that can be unsatisfying
or insufficient in the eyes of many this
is a popular topic in our nation with
various theories as to what these
objects may be and where they originate
by nature
we are all curious and we seek to
understand the unknown and as a lifelong
intelligence professional i'm impatient
i want immediate explanations for this
as much as anyone else
however
understanding can take significant time
and effort it's why we've endeavored to
concentrate on this data-driven process
to drive fact-based results and given
the nature of our business national
defense we've had to sometimes be less
forthcoming with information in open
forums than many would hope
if uap do indeed represent a potential
threat to our security then the
capabilities systems processes and
sources we use to observe recorded study
or analyze these phenomena need to be
classified at appropriate levels
we do not want we do not want potential
adversaries to know exactly what we're
able to see or understand or how we come
to the conclusions we make therefore
public
disclosures must be carefully considered
on a case-by-case basis
so what's next we're concentrating on a
seamless transition to the new
organization and future analysis of
complicated issues of uap issues will
greatly benefit from the infrastructure
the process and the procedures that
we've developed to date i'm confident
that the task force under navy
leadership has forged a path forward
that will allow us to anchor assessments
in science and engineering vice
anecdotal evidence we remain committed
to that goal as i know the usdi uh
organization does as well
so thank you very much for your interest
in continuing support for the uap task
force the team's made a lot of progress
but we really are just establishing the
foundation
for the more detailed analysis that's
yet to be done and with your continued
support we can sustain that momentum
necessary to produce data-centric
analysis and understanding the phenomena
i look forward to your questions thank
you hi everyone i'm brian kilmeade i
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