OPINION: Second UAP Senate hearing highlighted the need for better data

This week, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Director Sean M. Kirkpatrick was the sole witness in a public hearing at the Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, chaired by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). This was the second in two public hearings on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs also referred to as UFOs), held merely a year apart over the past half-century.

UAPs cannot be ignored by the U.S. government because they may represent advanced technological capabilities of adversaries that pose national security threats. This was evident from Kirkpatrick’s presentation, which revolved around these concerns. He noted that 650 reports are being studied by two teams within AARO: one led by intelligence experts and the other by scientists and engineers. For each UAP report, the inferences from the two teams are compared and vetted, with the goal of transforming UAP to SEP (“Someone Else’s Problem”), namely an item to be handled by other government agencies. The reporting procedures and filters for cataloging data will improve over time, as more UAP are reported and studied. Half of the existing reports involve nearly spherical objects, which could potentially be balloons.