Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon – U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation
Transcript for the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon – U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation (HHRG-117-IG05)
The House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation is one of the four subcommittees within the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence through the 117th United States Congress. It is sometimes referred to as the “C3” subcommittee as a nickname.
This meeting took place on May 17, 2022
Honorable Moultrie and Mr. Bray, thank you for coming here today -- we appreciate it -- to begin the open dialogue between Congress and the executive branch on this important topic.
While this topic evokes the creative imaginations of many, aside from all the hype and speculation, there are important underlying issues posed by UAPs. Despite the serious nature of this topic, I have to say I am more interested in our understanding of Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapon development or understanding why this administration was so slow to share actionable intelligence with the Ukrainians. However, in as much as this topic may help us better understand unknown activities of Russia and China, I am on board.
The Intelligence Community has a serious duty to our taxpayers to prevent potential adversaries, such as China and Russia, from surprising us with unforeseen new technologies.
As overseers of the Intelligence Community, this committee has an obligation to understand what you are doing to determine whether any UAPs are new technologies are not, and if they are, where are they coming from? In general, the IC spends much of its time and resources trying to understand what we call known-unknowns. When it comes
to foreign nations' weapons systems and sensors, known-unknowns are these features we don't fully understand yet. The challenge associated with UAP is that they are completely unknown and require a more expansive collection analysis effort. The Intelligence Community must balance addressing known threats to our
national security with preventing technical surprise. We must continue to follow the facts where they lead us and ensure that there are no technical surprises.
The IC must take it seriously when there are credible observations of phenomena that seem to perform in ways that could pose a threat to safe flight operations or that could be signs of a foreign adversary's attempt to develop a strategic technological surprise against the United States.
It is also essential that our pilots and others feel they can report UAPs they observe without any stigma for doing so. This is the open, unclassified portion of our hearing. We will have a closed, classified part later. It is important for the public to know that the classification of information exists to protect national security, not to try to
hide the truth.
When we are trying to determine if any UAPs are new technologies being developed by foreign governments, we are inevitably going to run into classified information about what new systems and technologies we do know are in the works here or abroad. But more information does not risk national security. It should be shared
with our allies and the public when feasible. I hope that we can have your assurance to
this end today. It is my hope that the Intelligence Community will continue to try to determine the nature of UAPs we have observed and will keep Congress fully apprised of all developments. I look forward to this hearing and continued dialogue and oversight with the Intelligence Community on this topic.
And, with that, I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Crawford follows:]