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Next week, a House subcommittee will hold the first public hearing on UFOs since 1970. The House Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation will meet on Tuesday, May 17, at 10:00 a.m. ET to discuss reports of 144 "unidentified aerial phenomena."
Ronald S. Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, and Scott W. Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence, are scheduled to testify.
Moultrie oversees the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, which was recently created to "detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in Special Use Airspace and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security."
The meeting was spurred by a "Preliminary Assessment" conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that could explain one just of those incidents, which date back to 2004.
Indiana Rep. André Carson, the subcommittee chairman, said it was important to make the hearing public.
"Congress hasn't held a public hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena (UFO's) in over 50 years. That will change next week when I lead a hearing in @HouseIntel on this topic & the national security risk it poses. Americans need to know more about these unexplained occurrences," Carson tweeted.
"The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks -- especially those we do not fully understand," he added in a statement.
After the public hearing, the committee will convene for a classified briefing on the subject.