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House hearing transcript: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection
U.S. Government Publishing Office · 2025-09-09
House hearing transcript: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection · 54 pages · PDF 0.2 MB
US Congress hearing transcript (GPO, govinfo.gov). Public domain; hosted here so it can be read and searched. Original source ↗
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 61–718 PDF 2025 RESTORING PUBLIC TRUST THROUGH UAP TRANSPARENCY AND WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION HEARING BEFORE THE TASK FORCE ON THE DECLASSIFICATION OF FEDERAL SECRETS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 Serial No. 119–44 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ( Available on: govinfo.gov, oversight.house.gov or docs.house.gov
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(II) COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman JIM JORDAN, Ohio MIKE TURNER, Ohio PAUL GOSAR, Arizona VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas GARY PALMER, Alabama CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana PETE SESSIONS, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona NANCY MACE, South Carolina PAT FALLON, Texas BYRON DONALDS, Florida SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, Georgia LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado ANNA PAULINA LUNA, Florida NICK LANGWORTHY, New York ERIC BURLISON, Missouri ELI CRANE, Arizona BRIAN JACK, Georgia JOHN MCGUIRE, Virginia BRANDON GILL, Texas ROBERT GARCIA, California, Ranking Minority Member ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois RO KHANNA, California KWEISI MFUME, Maryland SHONTEL BROWN, Ohio MELANIE STANSBURY, New Mexico MAXWELL FROST, Florida SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania GREG CASAR, Texas JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas EMILY RANDALL, Washington SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia YASSAMIN ANSARI, Arizona WESLEY BELL, Missouri LATEEFAH SIMON, California DAVE MIN, California AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan Vacancy MARK MARIN, Staff Director JAMES RUST, Deputy Staff Director MITCH BENZINE, General Counsel RYAN GIACHETTI, Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian KAITY WOLFE, Deputy Director for Oversight GRAYSON WESTMORELAND, Senior Professional Staff Member MALLORY COGAR, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk CONTACT NUMBER: 202–225–5074 ROBERT EDMONSON, Minority Staff Director CONTACT NUMBER: 202–225–5051 TASK FORCE ON THE DECLASSIFICATION OF FEDERAL SECRETS ANNA PAULINA LUNA, Florida, Chairwoman NANCY MACE, South Carolina TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado ERIC BURLISON, Missouri ELI CRANE, Arizona BRANDON GILL, Texas JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas, Ranking Member RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania DAVE MIN, California Vacancy
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(III) C O N T E N T S OPENING STATEMENTS Page Hon. Anna Paulina Luna, U.S. Representative, Chairwoman ............................. 1 Hon. Jasmine Crockett, U.S. Representative, Ranking Member ......................... 4 WITNESSES Mr. Jeffrey Nuccetelli, U.S. Air Force Veteran Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 6 Chief Alexandro Wiggins, U.S. Navy Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 8 Mr. George Knapp, UAP Journalist Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 9 Mr. Dylan Borland, UAP Witness, U.S. Air Force Veteran Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 12 Mr. Joe Spielberger (Minority Witness), Senior Policy Counsel, Project on Government Oversight Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 14 Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository at: docs.house.gov. INDEX OF DOCUMENTS * Letter to SECDEF Regarding Major David Charles Grusch Reprisal; submitted by Rep. Crane. * Article, NYT, ‘‘DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle- Blower Says’’; submitted by Rep. Lee. The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
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(1) RESTORING PUBLIC TRUST THROUGH UAP TRANSPARENCY AND WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM TASK FORCE ON THE DECLASSIFICATION OF FEDERAL SECRETS Washington, D.C. The Task Force met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., Room HVC–210, U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Anna Luna, [Chair- woman of the Task Force] presiding. Present: Representatives Luna, Mace, Burchett, Boebert, Burlison, Crane, Gill, Crockett, and Lee. Also present: Representatives Biggs, Begich, Ogles, Perry, Grothman, Titus, and Moskowitz. Mrs. LUNA. This hearing of the Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets will come to order. Welcome, everyone. Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any time. Additionally, without any objection, the fol- lowing members are waived onto the Task Force for the purpose of questioning witnesses at today’s hearing: Representative Biggs of Arizona, Representative Begich of Alaska, Representative Ogles of Tennessee, Representative Titus of Nevada, and Representative Moskowitz of Florida. There are no objections. I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening state- ment. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN ANNA PAULINA LUNA REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA Mrs. LUNA. Good morning, and welcome to the hearing regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) disclosures. For too long, the issue of unidentified anomalous phenomena, commonly known as UAPs, has been shrouded in secrecy, stigma, and in some cases outright dismissal. Today, I want to state clearly that this is not science fiction or creating speculation. This is about national security, government accountability, and the American people’s right to the truth. I have spoken now to a number of whistleblowers from the mili- tary to include the infamous Eglin Air Force Base incident that oc- curred when myself and former Representative Matt Gates, as well as Representative Burchett, followed up on a lead from multiple ac- tive duty Air Force pilot whistleblowers that alleged that the
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2 United States Air Force was covering up UAP activity at Eglin Air Force Base. We have heard from a number of whistleblowers, specifically military pilots, that the reason for not coming forward publicly is out of fear that speaking out would cost them their flight status and potentially their careers. This is unacceptable. We cannot pro- tect our airspaces if our best trained observers are silenced. We cannot advance science if we refuse to ask questions. And we can- not maintain trust in government if we keep the American people in the dark. Now, Congress has tried to fix this problem. Congress tried to create formal channels through the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, also known as AARO, and the intelligence community in- spector general for servicemembers and officials to make disclo- sures. But the reality, the reports come in are too often brushed aside, slow-walked, or met with skepticism rather than serious in- vestigation. Recently, the former AARO director known as Sean Kirkpatrick attacked our witnesses and members on this Committee. It should be noted that he is a documented liar and brings into question what his purpose at AARO really was if it was not to followup on investigations and disclose his findings to Members of Congress. A former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Chris Mellon, described a report published by AARO that found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed any sighting of UAP rep- resented extraterrestrial technology as the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading after decades of government service. Mellon further noted that this was a first AARO report sub- mitted to Congress without the director of national intelligence’s sign-off and seemingly excluded input from any scholars or experts who have studied or written extensively about this topic, as would normally be in any other case in this field. Mellon determined that this report failed to fulfill the congres- sional mandate under which it was required, omitted entire agen- cies with known investigations or activities related to UAPs, and omitted any discussion of efforts to hide classified or unclassified information about UAPs. Such efforts were unaddressed by the re- port, despite the existence of agency records and investigations con- curring with them, including those at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. If we set up offices and oversight bodies only to let them become graveyards for testimony or, worse yet, ruses for pre- tending to investigate when in actuality there was no followup, then we are not doing our jobs. In recent months, Congress has also been presented with evi- dence that points to technologies that to our knowledge are beyond our current capabilities. It is our duty as elected representatives to follow the facts wherever they lead and to ensure that those facts are not buried under classification stamps or bureaucratic excuses. Let me be clear. Whether UAPs represent adversarial technology, natural phenomena, or something beyond current human under- standing, Congress has a responsibility to investigate. If these ob- jects are foreign in origin, then they pose a direct threat to our na-
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3 tional security. And if they represent something unknown, they de- mand rigorous scientific inquiry—not ridicule, not secrecy, and not silence. The stakes are very high. Adversarial nations are not waiting for us to catch up. They are studying these phenomena aggressively, as multiple nations have also announced their own parliamentary investigations into this very topic. If we are to continue to hide in- formation from ourselves, we risk strategic surprise. If we continue to ignore our pilots and servicemembers, as well as countless gov- ernment whistleblowers, we risk losing their trust. And if we con- tinue to shield the truth from the public, we risk eroding the very foundation of democratic accountability. This is why this hearing matters. This is not about fueling specu- lation. This is about demanding the basic transparency from the Department of Defense and the intelligence community and other military contractors. It is about asking the questions every Amer- ican has the right to ask. What do we know? What do we not know? And why in a free society are we being told so little? A major barrier to this Committee’s inquiry into UAPs has been the lack of cooperation and transparency from the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. In preparation for pre- vious UAP hearings, the Committee repeatedly asked the Depart- ment of Defense to allow members to view videos and files related to UAP incidences. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense notified the Com- mittee staff that, due to the Department’s special access program rules, only members of the House Armed Services Committee, as well as the Defense Subcommittee on House Appropriations, also known as HAC-D, were allowed to be read in onto such programs. For a non-committee member to be allowed to view these docu- ments and videos, individual members must be approved by the Chairman and Ranking Member of both HASC and HAC-D. Independent staff oversight has presented a consistent problem for Congress, as well as program budgets are classified. Addition- ally, oversight reporting to Congress is classified and only provided to the authorizing and Appropriations Committees of jurisdiction. The American people are not fragile. They do not need to be shielded like children from reality. What they cannot tolerate and what they will not forgive is a government that withholds the truth and punishes those who dare to speak up. I want to close with this. Future generations will look back at this moment and ask what we did when presented with the un- known. Did we look away, embarrassed or afraid, or did we pursue the truth with courage? I intend to be on the side of truth, trans- parency, and accountability, and I hope my colleagues on this Task Force will be able to do the same. To quote a few elected officials, Senator Schumer has stated mul- tiple credible sources allege a constitutional crisis over Unidentified flying objects (UFO)s. Senator Rounds has stated that these are brilliant individuals, and they are not making this stuff up. And our current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has stated very high clearances and high positions within our government in regards to these whistleblowers. Senator McConnell also described these whis- tleblowers as sane and credible.
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4 And the witnesses today are not alone. In fact, they are far from it. In fact, 34 senior military government and intelligent officials have broken their silence. This includes Senator, now Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senator Rounds, Senator Gillibrand, General Jim Clapper, the former director of the government’s UAP Task Force, the former head of aviation security for the White House National Security Council, the former Secretary of Defense, and many more. Again, to quote Secretary of State Rubio in an upcoming docu- mentary known as The Age of Disclosure, even Presidents have been operating on a need-to-know basis that begins to spin out of control. And to quote Senator Gillibrand, who also went public in this documentary, ‘‘It is not acceptable to have secret parts of this government that no one ever sees.’’ It is time for the fundamental truths of UAP to be revealed to our Nation’s leaders and the public. It is time for this government to exercise transparency. Mrs. LUNA. And with that, I yield to Ranking Member Crockett for the opening statement. OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER JASMINE CROCKETT, REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS Ms. CROCKETT. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. At a time of increasing distrust in government, it is important for Congress to take action to restore the government’s credibility. Bringing transparency to an issue of great public interest is a step toward doing just that, so I thank Chairwoman Luna for calling this bipartisan hearing to discuss unidentified anomalous phe- nomena, or UAP, which is today’s term for what was commonly known as UFOs, unidentified flying objects. And while some people think of flying saucers when they hear these terms, it is vital that we focus on the real-world impact of UAPs on critical infrastruc- ture, civilian safety, and national security. There is good reason to believe that most UAPs have origins far closer to home. Currently, NASA has not found any evidence that any UAPs have an extraterrestrial origin. Our adversaries are working to develop new capabilities to gain military advantages, and those efforts are a likely explanation for the mysteries that we have observed. Nevertheless, the Federal Government has a responsibility to the American people to investigate and provide transparent disclosures about every incident. The Federal Government is equally obligated to protect those who report what they have seen, especially to com- manding officers and supervisors. And Congress should do every- thing in its power to protect whistleblowers and conduct oversight of agencies that are failing to provide that protection. Democracy depends on transparency, and transparency often relies on the courage of individuals willing to risk their careers, reputations, and in some cases their personal safety to tell the truth. So, I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. We should welcome their accounts and acknowledge the bravery they have shown to come before us. We must ensure that all whistle- blowers feel that they can come to Congress to tell their stories without fear of retaliation or professional consequences.
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5 We need transparency not just to make better policy, but also to ensure that information flows between all those who need it. There are too many tragic examples in our history where information lapses and a lack of cross-agency coordination led to disaster. Just this year, failure to communicate between FAA and the Depart- ment of Defense led to tragedy over the Potomac. The Biden-Harris Administration sought to eliminate some of these lapses when it established the All-domain Anomaly Resolu- tion Office at the Department of Defense. AARO can convene sources from all branches of military, the FAA, and NASA to com- bine forces to create a comprehensive picture of what is happening in our skies. Some UAP reports have perfectly normal expla- nations—satellites, consumer drones, weather balloons, even pranks—but we need to track down each and every single UAP. The United States has millions of eyes in the sky, both electronic and human, but only the combination of civilian, commercial, and military sources can begin to create a complete picture. So, we need to ensure that people can come forward and report what they have seen to the relevant authorities, and they have to have the right to do so without fear of retaliation. This country has a history of dedicated public servants standing up for what is right, even in the face of potential consequences. From the Pentagon Papers to Watergate to torture programs, whis- tleblowers have not only informed the public but also empowered Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty of oversight. Past Con- gresses have written laws to grant legal protection for whistle- blowers, and it is up to us to work responsibly with all sources to hold the executive branch accountable. We are here today to listen to the stories of those who have wit- nessed events of interest to the American people and to support the policies that cultivate an environment that welcomes and protects whistleblowers. I hope this hearing will be an example of the re- spect and protection whistleblowers deserve and the importance of conducting oversight of the Federal Government. I yield back. Mrs. LUNA. I am pleased to welcome the panel of witnesses for today’s hearing. I would first like to welcome Mr. Jeffrey Nuccetelli. He is a United States Air Force veteran and a career Federal employee with more than 20 years of experience in na- tional security, law enforcement, and public administration. Next, we have Mr. Alexandro Wiggins. Mr. Wiggins is currently serving as a senior chief operations specialist in the United States Navy. Mr. Wiggins is testifying in his personal capacity today and not on behalf of the United States Navy. Next, I would like to recognize a gentlewoman from Nevada, Rep- resentative Titus. Ms. TITUS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, Ranking Member, for allowing me to sit with you on this panel today. I am honored to be able to introduce a witness here who is from my district, George Knapp, who has been the definitive expert and reporter on this topic that you are exploring today, UAPs or UFOs. George is a longtime friend, I would say that up front, but a very respected journalist and a recognized expert in this field nationally and internationally.
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6 Just a little something about George, he came to Las Vegas in 1979 and joined KLAS television station as a general assignment reporter in 1981. Since 1995, he has been the chief investigative re- porter for that channel. He also hosts a national radio show you can listen to on Coast to Coast AM, which covers many of the para- normal topics that you all are discussing. Over the years, George has been, as I said, recognized for his work. He has been honored with the Peabody Award, the DuPont Award, the Edward Murrow Award, and 27 different regional Emmys for his investigative reporting. Indeed, he has told Ne- vada’s story with clarity, with objectivity, and with integrity, so I know that his testimony today is going to be of great interest and value to this Committee. So, thank you very much. Mrs. LUNA. Next, we have Mr. Dylan Borland. Mr. Borland is a United States Air Force veteran and has a long career in Federal service. And finally, I would like to introduce Mr. Joe Spielberger, senior policy counsel at the Project On Government Oversight. Pursuant to committee rule IX(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand. [Witnesses sworn.] Mrs. LUNA. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may take your seat. We appreciate you being here today, and I look forward to hear- ing your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written statements, and it will appear in full in the hear- ing record. Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes, but I understand you have a lot to get through, so if it goes a little over, do not worry about it. As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and the Members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow, and when the red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we will ask you to please wrap it up. I now recognize Mr. Nuccetelli for his opening statement. STATEMENT OF JEFFREY NUCCETELLI U.S. AIR FORCE VETERAN Mr. NUCCETELLI. Good morning. Thank you, Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Crockett, and Members of the Task Force, for giving us the opportunity to testify today. My name is Jeffrey Nuccetelli. I am a former military police offi- cer with 16 years of active-duty service in the U.S. Air Force. I am here today because the American people have both the right and the responsibility to know the truth about unidentified aerial phe- nomenon. That truth remains hidden, classified and silenced by fear, retaliation, stigma, and confusion. Today, we are here to help break that silence. Between 2003 and 2005, five UAP incidents occurred at Vanden- berg Air Force Base, home to the National Missile Defense Project, a top national security priority. At the time, we were conducting launches deemed by the National Reconnaissance Office as the
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7 most important in 25 years. These were historic launches. These facilities were vital, and they were repeatedly visited by UAP. Each incident was witnessed by multiple personnel, documented, inves- tigated, and reported up the chain of command. We sent informa- tion up, but we got no guidance down on how to handle these events. I personally witnessed one of these events and investigated oth- ers as they occurred. Six other servicemembers have provided me with the information that I will share with you today. The incursions began on October 14, 2003, when Boeing contrac- tors reported a massive glowing red square silently hovering over two missile defense sites. After several minutes, it drifted further east onto the base and vanished over the hills. This event, now known as the Vandenberg red square, was referenced by Rep- resentative Luna at the first hearing on this topic. Official Air Force records of this event are in possession by AARO and the FBI. Later that night, while I was on duty, security guards at a crit- ical launch site reported a bright, fast-moving object over the ocean. I responded to the incident. Chaos ensued over the radio as the object approached rapidly. I heard my friends screaming, ‘‘It is coming right at us, it is coming right for us, and now it is right here.’’ Moments later, I heard them say that it had shot off and was gone. When I arrived on scene, I talked to five shaken wit- nesses who described a massive triangular craft larger than a foot- ball field that hovered silently for about 45 seconds over their entry control point before shooting away at impossible speed. About a week later, another patrol reported a light over the ocean behaving erratically. Believing it might be an unannounced aircraft, they declared an emergency, and an armed response force responded. Before the forces could arrive, the object descended and either landed or hovered on our flightline and then took off again at impossible speed. The witnesses to this event were threatened and intimidated afterward. They were told to keep quiet and think about what they were reporting. After that, things did get quiet until about 2005 when another patrol reported a massive triangular craft larger than a C–130 si- lently floating over the installation. He watched it for a few min- utes. It traveled west and disappeared into the night. And then I had my own encounter again in 2005. I was off duty sitting in my backyard with two other police officers when we no- ticed what first appeared to be a satellite in orbit, but it was not acting like a satellite. The light was strange, it was pulsing, and then it started to maneuver. It dropped in elevation, at times it would vanish from view and reappear in a different location in the sky, and eventually it reappeared 200 feet over my house. It was a 30-foot diameter sphere of light. My friends and I watched it for a moment, and then it gently accelerated and traveled up and dis- appeared into the stars. These events profoundly changed my life and the lives of my friends. We stand at a pivotal moment in history. The question is no longer whether these events are real, but whether we have the courage to face them. True leadership requires vision, a willingness to confront the unknown with transparency and resolve. So, I ask the Congress to help we, the people, enact this vision.
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8 There are three goals: Fund independent research and treat UAP study with the same seriousness as we would any other scientific field. Two, end secrecy and overclassification. Transparency is the foundation of truth. Without it, witnesses like us are dismissed. Three, protect the witnesses. Many stay silent out of fear for their careers, reputations, and the safety of their families. Protect them, and you will embolden others to join this cause. These phenomena challenge our deepest assumptions about re- ality, consciousness, and our place in the universe. Exploring them can unlock transformative breakthroughs in technology, biology, and human understanding. Let this be the moment when America chooses courage over fear, transparency over secrecy, and progress over stagnation. Let us show the world that our Nation leads not only through strength, but through fearless pursuit of the truth. Thank you. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, Mr. Nuccetelli. I now recognize Chief Wiggins for his opening statement. Please press your button. Thank you. STATEMENT OF ALEXANDRO WIGGINS, U.S. NAVY Chief WIGGINS. Good morning, Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Crockett, and Members of the Task Force and the Com- mittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Alexandro Wiggins. I am an active duty U.S. Navy operations specialist, senior chief petty officer, father of three, and dedicated American testifying today in my personal capacity. The views I share are my own, and I do not represent the official posi- tions of the Department of the Navy or any subordinate organiza- tion. On the evening of February 15, 2023, at approximately 19:15 PST, in the Whiskey 291 warning area off the coast of southern California, I was serving onboard USS Jackson. During that pe- riod, I moved between the Interior Communications Center, ICC– 1, and the bridge wing, correlating the sensor picture with visual observations, part of my routine responsibilities for surface and air picture management. What I observed and what our crew recorded was not consistent with conventional aircraft or drones as they ap- peared on our system. A self-luminous tic-tac-shaped object emerged from the ocean before linking up with three other similar objects. The four then disappeared simultaneously with a high-syn- chronized, near-instantaneous acceleration. I observed no sonic boom and no conventional propulsion signa- tures, no exhaust plume, no control surface articulation on the SAFIRE image system. Shortly after the synchronized departure, radar tracks dropped. These observations were multi-sensor and re- corded inside of ICC–1 with time location overlay visible in our source frames that have been made public by journalists. From my experience operating in this region over many years and consistent with our public characterized encounters, unidenti- fied objects reoccur in United States operation areas off southern California. That fact alone does not tell us what they are, but it does argue the systematic stigma-free reporting and for the preser-
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9 vation of sensor data so analysts can evaluate safe and intelligence implications with rigor. I want to underscore three points for the Task Force and the Committee. Aviation and maritime safety: When crews and watchstanders observe objects that maneuver or accelerate in ways that does not match known profiles and do not—and do so near our ships and aircraft, that is first and foremost a safety issue. Stand- ardized checklist and training should ensure we capture the best possible sensor data in real time, including infrared (IR) settings, slant range estimates, and bearing and range altitude snapshots and immediate change of—chain of custody for any recordings. Reporting without stigma, protection without retribution: Sailors need to know that reporting UAP encounters will not harm their careers. Congress can help by reinforcing witness protection and by directing the relevant office to maintain confidential destigmatized channels for servicemembers who step forward with data. Declassification and transparency where possible: The Task Force declassification mission is directly relevant here. Where oper- ational security permits releasing metadata-preserved sensor ex- cerpts or at least technical summaries would improve public trust and accelerate outside scientific scrutiny. That includes, when fea- sible, the time geo-reference IR frames and radar parameters need- ed for independent analysis. To be clear, I am not here to make claims beyond my lane. I am here to provide a first-hand account of what I saw, what our sys- tems recorded, and why I—why it matters for safety, for intel- ligence, and public confidence. My request to you is practical. Help us capture, protect, fairly evaluate the evidence, and provide a safe pathway for those in uniform to report it. In closing, I want to thank the Committee and the Task Force for holding this hearing and for the—and for placing this discus- sion in a forum where evidence can be examined carefully and openly. I appreciate your attention and stand ready to answer your questions. Thank you. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, Chief. I now recognize Mr. Knapp for his opening statement. STATEMENT OF GEORGE KNAPP, UAP JOURNALIST Mr. KNAPP. Good morning, Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Ms. Crockett, and Members of the Task Force. And Dina Titus, I just knew we were going to get you involved in this topic at one point. Great to see you here. I am George Knapp, chief investigative reporter at KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. I began my pursuit of this weird mystery way back in 1987, and for 38 years, I have always approached this as a news story. It is not a matter of faith or belief to me. It is a story, and it is an important one. I am proud to be here alongside these witnesses today, men who have seen strange things and stepped forward to tell the world about it. Whistleblowers and witnesses who step up are routinely insulted, belittled, or worse. They risk their reputations, their ca- reers, their clearances, their livelihoods, and sometimes much more than that, even their freedom.
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10 I know that one of the goals of the Task Force here is to figure out ways to protect whistleblowers and witnesses, and it is a tall order because so many of the things that happen to witnesses like these are extra-legal. They are carried out by persons unknown, as Mr. Dave Grusch, sitting up at the top of the room, knows all too well, including events in recent days to—that have happened to him. I want to share a couple of things that I have learned along the way on this long journey, and I submitted most of that in written form because I estimate that my statement here today would take about 4 1/2 hours, so I am going to try to jump over and touch on the more important salient points. I submitted the detailed written statement for the record and will not go into a lot of that here, but the—you know, public has been told over and over since the late 1940s there is nothing to worry about here. These mysterious craft seen by millions of people in the skies, in the oceans, over the land, are not real. They are not a threat, the witnesses are wrong, they are crackpots, do not believe it. That changed for me. What got me hooked is the paper trail, doc- uments that were squeezed out of the U.S. Government after the FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, became the law of the land. And those documents paint a much different picture than what the public, the press, and Congress have been told over many years. The documents from military and intelligence personnel behind closed doors admit that ‘‘These things are real.’’ They are not ficti- tious. They can fly in formation, they are evasive, and they out- perform any aircraft known to exist, including ours. The public, of course, as I said, has been told something much different. You know, back in 1989, I reported about a guy named Bob Lazar, who claimed that he worked at a facility dubbed S4 out in the Nevada desert, very near to Area 51. He said he was part of a reverse engineering program. He said there are alien craft that would be taken apart to figure out how they operated out there, and that was a tall order. I had clearly taken a dive into the deep end of the pool there. But in the years since then, I have inter- viewed dozens of other people, and I have detailed what their testi- mony has been in the written statement. They include Senator Harry Reid; Senator Howard Cannon, also of Nevada; a guy named Al O’Donnell, who was the first general manager of EG&G in Ne- vada, which managed the Nevada test site, which blew up hun- dreds of nuclear weapons. There is a guy named Dr. James Lacatski, who was a career sci- entist with the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was the guy who initiated a program called AAWSAP, Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program, which is, as far as we know, the largest acknowledged UFO program ever funded by the U.S. Gov- ernment, which put together an amazing pile of information that members of this Committee and the world, most of which have never seen. The DIA still has not released 95 percent of what was prepared by that program at a cost of millions and millions of dol- lars. The one name I do want to bring up in this section—session, though, is Robert Bigelow. So, looking into the idea of crash re- trievals and reverse engineering, while AAWSAP, that program,
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11 was active, the DIA’s contractor, Robert Bigelow of Las Vegas, made a bold attempt to acquire physical proof of UFO crashes. It has been widely reported and suspected that Lockheed Martin is one of the contractors—the defense contractors, that has held this stuff, stored it away in secrecy, and tried to figure out how it works. I have confirmed on the record that Robert Bigelow and a trusted colleague from AAWSAP met with and negotiated with senior ex- ecutives at Lockheed Martin and hammered out a deal wherein Bigelow’s company, BAASS, would receive a quantity of unusual material that had been stashed away and protected at a facility in California. That material was not made here. I want to move on now to the Russia files because that was going to be sort of the central impetus of what I was going to talk to you about today. Back in the early 1990s, I got into Russia, met with a number of their defense officials, ministry of defense and others, who confirmed for me that Russia had been doing the same thing that the United States had been doing, that is, secretly studying UFOs while publicly saying something completely different. The documents and interviews that I obtained and have now shared with this Task Force show that the USSR launched what is almost certainly the largest UFO/UAP investigation in the world. The first phase of that was an order was sent out to the entire USSR military empire that every unit, you see anything strange in the sky, a craft, an orb, something unusual, you had to gather all the evidence, collect testimony from the witnesses, look for physical evidence, and all of that information went into one program at the Ministry of Defense. Thousands and thousands of these reports came in. A lot of them were first routed to the KGB but then back to another program that came after this collection effort called Thread III, and Thread III was an analysis program. We provided to the Committee the documents of what they were trying to do, and essentially, they were trying to build their own UFOs. They were using the informa- tion from their observations and studies to try to figure out the technology. The guy who was in charge of that program, Colonel Boris Sokolov, told me that their goal was to basically develop tech- nology that would be superior to anything we had based on what they learned from UFOs. Mrs. LUNA. Mr. Knapp, just in the name of time—— Mr. KNAPP. Sure. Mrs. LUNA [continuing]. To my understanding, did you have any- thing you wanted to submit for Congress to see in this Committee? Mr. KNAPP. I have submitted those documents. There is—— Mrs. LUNA. Would you like to play any videos? Do you have a video that you would like to play? Mr. KNAPP. I do not think it is for me to play. Yes, Alexandro’s video. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. Mr. KNAPP. You could play it. He could narrate it. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. In the name of showing that video to everyone on the Task Force, we would like to play that video at this time. Mr. KNAPP. Sure. Mrs. LUNA. If we can get rid of the audio real quick.
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12 Mr. Wiggins and Mr. Knapp, we will get back to what that video was in a moment, but we just want to make sure that it was en- tered into the record, as well as all the documents. Those will be able to be publicly found for everyone in the country to view. If we could, Mr. Knapp, we will continue on the line of ques- tioning, but I am going to move on to Mr. Borland’s opening state- ment. STATEMENT OF DYLAN BORLAND, UAP WITNESS U.S. AIR FORCE VETERAN Mr. BORLAND. Good morning, Members of the Task Force and the Committee. I would like to express my gratitude for being invited to testify to the current Task Force created under the people’s chamber and the American public. As an American citizen, veteran, and intelligence community professional, it is an honor and a privi- lege to serve under oath before you on behalf of our country. I speak for myself and no former agency or company I have been pre- viously affiliated with. My name is Dylan Borland, a former 1N1 geospatial intelligence specialist for the United States Air Force in an active-duty enlisted capacity from 2010 to 2013. I have also been employed with BAE Systems and Intrepid Solutions as a senior analyst, expert in ana- lyzing video radar and advanced electro-optical imagery for official identification of aerial order of battle, as well as naval and ground order of battle. I am a Federal whistleblower, having testified to both the Inspec- tor General of the Intelligence Community (IC IG) and AARO with direct firsthand knowledge of and experience with craft and tech- nologies that are not ours and are reportedly operating without congressional oversight. Because of my direct knowledge of the re- ality of certain legacy UAP programs, my professional career was deliberately obstructed, and I have endured sustained reprisals from government agencies for over a decade. From 2011 to 2013, I was stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, conducting 24-hour operations via manned and unmanned aerial vehicles for special operations forces in the global war on ter- ror. During the summer of 2012, my team was on standby for weather, and I returned to my barracks on base, and at approxi- mately 0130, I saw an approximately 100-foot equilateral triangle take off from near the NASA hangar on the base. The craft inter- fered with my telephone, did not have any sound, and the material it was made of appeared fluid or dynamic. I was under this tri- angular craft for a few minutes, and then it rapidly ascended to commercial jet level in seconds, displaying zero kinetic disturbance, sound, or wind displacement. Some years after that experience, I was further exposed to classi- fied information from the UAP legacy crash retrieval program through a sensitive position I held within a special access program. During this time, intelligence officers approached me in fear for their own careers, citing misconduct within these programs and similar retaliation that I was already enduring at this time. These issues include medical malpractice committed by Veterans Affairs staff; denial of work I performed while enlisted in the United States Air Force; forging manipulated employment documents;
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13 workplace harassment, including colleagues being directed to not speak with me; manipulation of my security clearance by certain agencies blocking, delaying, and ultimately removing my ability to be employed within the IC. The retaliation I faced and the retaliation against individuals I know who worked in these programs is what convinced me in March 2023 to become a whistleblower. I came forward out of con- cern for people’s lives and to ensure I did everything I could to let our elected representatives know the truth about what is really happening in the executive branch. At the end of March 2023, I agreed to meet with AARO following the suggestion of other Federal officials, believing it was what our Nation required of me. I had reservations with AARO due to as- sessments they were reporting publicly at the time as a misrepre- sentation of the truth. Because of these concerns, I did not share sources and methods information in order to protect current and former Federal personnel who had firsthand exposure to tech- nologies of unknown origin. I did not want anyone to face further retaliation beyond what they had already endured, and unfortu- nately, a staff member ended up getting in some trouble because of that. After David Grusch testified under oath in the summer of 2023 and provided historic disclosure, I was then asked to go to the IC IG and did so in August 2023. It was very clear early on during my intake interview, which was video recorded under oath, that the objective was to solely assess how much I know and not move forward with an investigation with new information I provided them. The aftermath of that IG complaint still troubles me to this day. Since my IC IG complaint, I have been prevented from assuming prior employment and can confirm I am still blacklisted from cer- tain agencies within the intelligence community. In addition, mul- tiple agencies attempted phishing attacks to assess what I had di- vulged to the inspector general, including being asked to disclose details of my IC IG complaint during a Counterintelligence (CI) polygraph for a position unrelated to UFO/UAP matters as recently as November 2024. As I sit before you today, I and many other whistleblowers have no job prospects, no foreseeable professional future in a nation every single one of us came forward to defend. Numerous individ- uals have come forward in various ways to reveal the truth of the UAP reality as patriots and defenders of our Nation, yet many feel discarded, isolated, hopeless, separated from the country they serve. Efforts to rectify this situation for all whistleblowers have been difficult and troubling, and to my fellow whistleblowers and officials who know this information, I offer you my apology, some- thing that I have never gotten, and I am giving it to you. I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, an oath that demands truth and transparency for our democratic republic to function. Each day these truths remain hidden from our citizens as humanity drifts further from the principles our Nation was founded to uphold. Each day, victims of crimes committed by agen- cies and companies maintaining this secrecy are denied justice is another day our Constitution is shredded.
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14 In 2023, patriots provided this Committee and the executive branch with undeniable proof of the UAP reality, and I commend your continued commitment. The future of humanity is one which we either travel to the stars or regress to the stone age with this technology. My career has been to deliver critical information to de- cisionmakers. Your role as elected by your representatives is to act on it. The time to act is now. Thank you. Mrs. LUNA. Mr. Borland, thank you for your service to our coun- try, and we appreciate you. And we are sorry about how you have been treated, and we will make sure that we try to rectify that sit- uation. Mr. BORLAND. Thank you, ma’am. Mrs. LUNA. Mr. Spielberger, please, your opening remarks. STATEMENT OF JOE SPIELBERGER (MINORITY WITNESS) SENIOR POLICY COUNSEL PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT Mr. SPIELBERGER. Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Crockett, and Task Force members, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today about the importance of strengthening whistleblower protections, especially in the context of national security. I am a senior policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan independent watchdog organization that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the gov- ernment fails to serve the public or silences those who report wrongdoing. Whistleblowers are the first line of defense to root out waste, fraud, abuse of power, and corruption in our government. Congress relies on whistleblowers so that it can fully exercise its oversight and legislative authorities. It is understandable that former Presi- dents of both parties have often taken a hostile approach toward whistleblowers. Their disclosures can embarrass the President and their political party or even lead to a national scandal. But whistleblowers continue to play a vital role during both Democratic and Republican administrations. They help Congress and the public identify and understand what government corrup- tion looks like. Their disclosures fuel investigations and allow us to address wrongdoing and hold those responsible to account. That is why historically there has been a strong bipartisan consensus in Congress to support and protect whistleblowers. Doing so protects the country and ensures our government is more responsive and accountable to the people. National security whistleblowing in particular is a tradition going back to the founding of our country, and over time, national security whistleblowers and their disclosures have impacted some of the most fundamental issues and questions about how we wish to be governed and how our government can better serve its people, from the role the United States plays around the world to holding powerful actors accountable, government ethics and transparency, human rights and civil liberties, executive branch authority, First Amendment freedoms of speech and dissent, freedom of the press, and the public’s interest and right to know. Despite this invaluable public service, blowing the whistle comes at great personal risk. Whistleblowers risk losing their jobs, ca-
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15 reers, livelihoods, and reputations. They can face retaliatory inves- tigations, lawsuits, and even serious criminal charges. And they can endure deep mental, emotional, and psychological harm, all of that risk to speak the truth, to ensure that agencies fulfill their core missions and that they serve the best interests of the people. Those who retaliate against whistleblowers do not just violate their legal rights. They inflict real harm on our government and betray the public’s trust. Targeting whistleblowers instead of the corruption they expose wastes agency resources and further allows that corruption to continue unaddressed. It can instill a chilling ef- fect across an agency, fostering a climate of fear and distrust, quieting dissent and free speech, and deterring potential whistle- blowers from coming forward in the future. Whistleblowers are often some of the most dedicated and prin- cipled public servants we have because of their willingness to put themselves on the line to do what is right. And Congress has his- torically supported them, again, on a bipartisan basis. But unfortu- nately, whistleblowing has increasingly become more politicized with support for whistleblowers often hinging on which party is in power and which party is politically inconvenienced by the mis- conduct being exposed. But to be clear, targeting whistleblowers individually risks un- dermining whistleblowing, period. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) advises Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to focus on the evidence, not the individual. We will al- ways need whistleblowers to achieve the government that best serves its people because when people of conscience, integrity, and good character refuse to speak up out of fear, complacency, or self- preservation, and leave corruption to fester behind closed doors, that is probably the most dangerous risk of all. If we are serious about increasing government transparency and restoring the public’s trust, we need public servants committed to the truth. Whistleblowers need safe and effective channels to make lawful disclosures. They need stronger protections against retalia- tion. And when they do face retaliation, they need a fair shot to be made whole. Congress has made strides to pass whistleblower legislation, and these laws need to be updated and expanded so that whistleblowers truly receive the protections they need, retaliators are held ac- countable, and we can achieve the type of government the people deserve. We strongly urge Congress to continue its historic tradi- tion of championing the rights and protections of all whistle- blowers. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here this morning. POGO is committed to working with you and the Oversight Com- mittee to address these critical issues. I look forward to any ques- tions. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, sir, very much. Additionally, without objection, the following Members are waived onto the Task Force for the purpose of questioning wit- nesses at today’s hearing: Representative Perry of Pennsylvania and Representative Grothman of Wisconsin. Sorry, what is it? Oh, and Representative Biggs from Arizona. I already got you, but yes, we are good.
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16 Without objection, so ordered. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning. Also, as my friend Mr. Moskowitz might have to go, would you like to go now? Okay. All right. Mr. Borland, in your testimony, you described witnessing large triangular craft while stationed at Langley Air Force Base in 2012. Can you explain what you observed in terms of size, behavior, and why you are confident it was not conventional technology? Mr. BORLAND. Great question, ma’am. So, on barracks—on the base, I lived in the barracks. There was a little smoke pit outside. I was there on the telephone and looking across to the flightline, and I see a white light pop up and stop about 100 feet in the air. I thought it was a weather balloon. I have seen tests from there before, a weeknight, you know, normal thing, not surprising. I actually finished my cigarette, and I began walking up toward the flightline. There is a track, and because I was on three months of night work, I began—I would walk the track at night when we were weathered down. And as I began walking toward the light, to- ward the flightline and the track, the light then flies across the base, across the flightline, and as it flies to me, a triangle mani- fests around the light. I cannot tell you if it is active camouflage. I cannot tell you if it appeared around the light, but I can tell you that it was a white light, and then it was a triangle. It stopped about 100 feet in front of me and approximately 100 feet above me. My telephone got extremely hot, completely froze, dead. I remember how thick it was. It was between one to two sto- ries thick, equilateral triangle. I could never see the top of it, and the edges were 90 degree—90 degrees. There were four lights in total, one light on each corner, and a larger light in the center, two to three times the size of the corner lights. But what was really odd was the outside. The best way to de- scribe it is like looking at a James Webb telescope picture where you have the colors and then the black background. So, the craft itself was this black metallic flake paint, but on top of the craft was this gold, lava, plasma, some type of fluid going over and around the craft. I am under this for about 2 to 3 minutes, and then the center light flashes two to three times, no sound, immediately shoots up to commercial jet level minimum, in my opinion, and I immediately feel static electricity all over my body, and then I smell the smell of after a thunderstorm or lightning storm, that really strong sum- mer thunderstorm smell. It gets up to flight level. I am trying to get my phone reset, and I can only see the center light at this point. If I did not actually see it take off, I would have thought it was a star. And then it hov- ers up there, and it begins to slowly move due east out over the Atlantic Ocean. I finally got my phone reset. The entire thing was about—from the time I saw the light pop up near the hangar until it took off out over the ocean was about 15 minutes. Mrs. LUNA. And following up to that question, after you disclose this information to the intelligence community inspector general, you are subject to phishing attempts and job blacklisting. How widespread do you think this is across the intelligence community for those who raise concerns regarding UAP programs?
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17 Mr. BORLAND. It is a difficult question to answer. I think prior to David Grusch and people beginning this process of bringing peo- ple into awareness of the reality of these programs and certain things people have witnessed, probably extremely widespread. I think today there is still an issue, but because people are able to come before you and people are speaking out, I think it has been somewhat less. I would hope, though, that people would because if this goes back into closed doors, this is going to get really ugly. Mrs. LUNA. What type of behavior have you witnessed from former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick, as well as his staff, in re- lation to this information you provided to them? Did they ever try to classify this information as non-human technology? Mr. BORLAND. Good question. The problem with this is that I know what I experienced firsthand, and I know other things. I think the staff at AARO that I met with in March 2023, I think they were good people doing the job they were told to do. I did not meet with Kirkpatrick. He was either not present or did not want to meet me that day. However, they did classify informa- tion about the reality of this subject, and it was very concerning because in my AARO MFR, they had actually referenced a former staff member that was the one who told me to go there, and they probably should not have done that. Mrs. LUNA. And real quick before my time is up—and we might go to a second round of questioning just so you are all aware. How important, given everything that you have seen and experienced, is the UAP Disclosure Act of 2025 in restoring both public account- ability and trust? Mr. BORLAND. I think very important. I would hope, though, that the 7-year window could be shrunk, my opinion, but very impor- tant. The truth needs to be known. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you very much. I now recognize Jared Moskowitz of Florida. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for allowing me to waive on to the Committee. I remember, you know, the last Committee when we had a bunch of former military personnel folks that either served on bases, were pilots, or were in different programs experiencing knowledge. It made me recognize that the narrative has changed, right? It is po- litically convenient for the government if you all were not military folks in suits. It would be much better if you pulled up in Winne- bagos and were wearing hats. And so, the picture of this, because that is important for the American people on how you tell a story, what the message looks like, and who the messenger is. So, this is now the second or third Committee where we have former military folks with impeccable records with information and knowledge. And it is definitely clear on a bipartisan basis that we have to protect our whistleblowers—there is no doubt—and in a day in which it is really hard to tell what is true or not from a po- litical standpoint. And so, I don’t really know what is true. I don’t know on this subject. But I do know when we are being lied to, and we are definitely being lied to. There is just no doubt about that. Mr. Wiggins, I want to talk to you. I find your background testi- mony compelling. When you first saw what you were looking at, what were your first thoughts?
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18 Chief WIGGINS. My first thoughts were I think everything that I was told and taught as a kid and a growing adult no longer, you know, was applicable. If I am able to see something that I thought defies gravity in such a way, then what else could be possible? That was my first thought. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. So, did you think what you were looking at was a weapons program that you were unaware of? Or did you think what you were looking at was obviously some extraterrestrial piece of technology? Chief WIGGINS. I did not—I—neither one of those crossed my mind. It was just in the—— Mr. MOSKOWITZ. How about now? What do you think it is now? Chief WIGGINS. I am not the expert. I think it—I want to be as skeptical as everyone else and just hope to know the informa- tion—— Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Did anyone in the U.S. Government tell you what you were looking at to try to dissuade you from what you thought it was? Chief WIGGINS. No. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. So, no one was like, oh, you know, there was some anomaly with the technology? No one from the government did that? Chief WIGGINS. No one. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. How do you think you were treated when you reported this information or talked about—you know, the TikTok video is well out there. It is well reported. How were you treated? Chief WIGGINS. I have had no pushback at all. I have not had anyone reach out to me or try to, you know, dissuade me in either direction, militarily speaking. So, I was treated fair, and I appre- ciate the Navy itself with assisting me with coming here to being able to testify. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. That is good. So, what do you think the Amer- ican people should take away from watching your video, right? Be- cause when we watch it, obviously, right, we have never seen any- thing like that. It defies what we know to be technologically pos- sible. What are we supposed to think? Someone is lying about something. Someone is hiding something, right? That is not nor- mal, what you looked at. Chief WIGGINS. I think what the American people should think when seeing that video, along with others before me, is that there is something out there, and we should know as the people what it is. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Right. And so, let us eliminate possibilities. So, they did not come to you and say there was a technological error with what you were looking at, so we put that aside, right? They did not say it was broken. So, we look at that, and we see some- thing. So, it is either a weapons program being reverse-engineered by our governments or other governments, or it is nobody’s govern- ment, and it is not from here. Those are it. Do you agree with that assessment? Chief WIGGINS. I agree, one or the other. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Mr. Borland, when you first experienced what you were looking at, what did you do next? Like what was your next step after it had passed and you were done?
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19 Mr. BORLAND. I actually kind of laughed to myself and said, okay, so this exists as well. Worked in enough programs, been ex- posed to enough that I was like, okay, so this is a real thing. I went back, walked the track, talked with a couple of my friends about it. I did talk with some of my coworkers, one in particular, which I thought was a joke, and it definitely was not, was like, you prob- ably should never say this to anybody. And then what happened to me happened, so—— Mr. MOSKOWITZ. What about you, Mr.—how do you pronounce your last name? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Nuccetelli. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Nuccetelli. And sorry, I know I am running out of time, Madam Chairwoman. So obviously, your incident happened well before we could record things on cell phones and things of that nature, right? What did you do when you first experienced—be- cause what you saw, right, you saw it happen like right out of your base. Mr. NUCCETELLI. Correct. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. So, tell me what you did after you saw that. What was like your next move? And I want to hear what your ex- perience was. Mr. NUCCETELLI. My next move, I went into my house after it left. I made sure no one had been abducted. And I picked up the landline. I called the Security Forces Command Center. I reported it. I requested that they give me a call back and make notifications up the chain of command. I got a call back in about 15 minutes. They reported that the weather station reported no balloons or air- craft, nothing on radar, no aircraft inbound or outbound, so I got that notification. And then within the following day or two, me and the other witnesses wrote statements, we prepared a report, and then we filed all that information. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Madam Chairman, thank you for your indul- gence in my questioning, and thank you for continuing to lead on this subject. What do you and your friends think about it today? You all have talked about it. Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. I mean, so what do you think about your experi- ence as a collective group? That will be my last question, Madam Chairwoman. Mr. NUCCETELLI. I mean, we have been talking about this for 20 years. We do not know what we saw. What we saw changed our lives and the way we think about everything. It was incredibly pro- found. The object I saw, I do not even know if it was an object. It was a light. It was an orb. It did not look like a craft, but it did look solid. And that is what we talk about. We noticed the object. And this was a pattern across all the en- counters. Someone would see a light. They would pay attention to the light. And then the object responds. It performs for you. And then they come down and they investigate you. So, it is almost like they are curious. So that is the thing we primarily talk about. You know, why did it come after we noticed it? Maybe it noticed us after we noticed it. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Representative Mace for 5 minutes.
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20 Ms. MACE. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Borland, I would like to start with you and ask a few ques- tions. Were there any other witnesses—when you saw the equi- lateral triangle, were there other witnesses that saw the same thing? Mr. BORLAND. Not to my knowledge, ma’am. At that point, the only people that would be awake is those of us that were doing op- erations for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) and then secu- rity forces, so not to my knowledge. Ms. MACE. And do you think, in your opinion, that the equi- lateral triangle was the U.S. Government’s technology? Mr. BORLAND. I did once upon a time, but knowing what I know now, I will have to answer that question in a sensitive compart- mented information facility (SCIF) probably. Ms. MACE. Well, my next question is, you teased us, so knowing what you know now means what? Mr. BORLAND. I know enough to know that if you want an an- swer to that question, go to AARO. Ms. MACE. Okay. Mr. BORLAND. They have the answer. Ms. MACE. Do you think it was a foreign government? Mr. BORLAND. I do not, no. Ms. MACE. And AARO is supposed to be disclosing—the last time I was in a SCIF with AARO, they said they were going to be doing disclosures. Had they been doing much of that? Mr. BORLAND. I do not have an answer to you—— Ms. MACE. Yes. Mr. BORLAND [continuing]. For you. I do not know. I know what AARO reports publicly, and I know what I have been through. Ms. MACE. Yes. And some of this stuff can be, I think, debunked, right? Sometimes, there are weather balloons that look kind of a little funky or drones or whatever, depending on the angle, direc- tion, speed, et cetera. Are you scared for your safety? Mr. BORLAND. That is a complicated question. So, being here today, if I say the wrong word, technically, I can be charged with espionage. Espionage is a death penalty. Whistleblowers have faced it, John Kiriakou, for example. I am not scared for my physical safety in the sense of an agency or company coming to kill me, but I have no job. My career is—has been tarnished. You know, I am unemployed, living off of unemployment for the next three, four weeks until that is gone. So, it is a complicated question. Ms. MACE. Have there been stories leaked about your life to try to discredit you in the public eye? Mr. BORLAND. I—as of now, I do not know. Up until—— Ms. MACE. We know they did that to Mr. Grusch. Mr. BORLAND. I am aware, yes, ma’am. Ms. MACE. They leaked his private medical information, horrific things. Mr. BORLAND. It is. Ms. MACE. Okay. You said in your testimony earlier with the Chairwoman, you know other things. I guess that has to be men- tioned in a SCIF—— Mr. BORLAND. It would——
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21 Ms. MACE [continuing]. The other things. Mr. BORLAND. It would, pending if I am even legally allowed to speak on, and the people in the room are even legally allowed to hear it. Ms. MACE. And would we need to know like the compartmen- talized word, like what the code word is or the name of the pro- gram, the special access program, or even hear it? You have to know the word, right? Mr. BORLAND. I would—— Ms. MACE. The name of it, right? Mr. BORLAND. I would suggest that to the—as to Director of Na- tional Intelligence (DNI) Gabbard and work with her for that be- cause I cannot give you the answer on what is the requirement—— Ms. MACE. But this is what the U.S. Government does, right? They compartmentalize the information. Only certain people know the name of the program, and if you do not know it, you cannot get the information. If you do not have the name, you do not know what to ask for. Even when we are reviewing the budget, we go into a SCIF, we look at DOD budget and the budget of like black box programs, and we do not know what we are looking at because we do not know what these programs are. Is it a way for the gov- ernment to hide from Congress what is really going on and where the money is going? Mr. BORLAND. In my opinion, absolutely, yes. Ms. MACE. You mentioned too in your testimony earlier that you went to speak with the government and they said somebody’s name, a colleague’s name, and you said they should not have men- tioned that staff person’s name. What does that mean? Mr. BORLAND. A Senate staffer who was the one who helped me get to AARO recommended me I go there, gave me the email and the phone number because I could not find that information at all at the time. In fact, I believe you guys have talked about how AARO did not even have a website for quite a period of time. Ms. MACE. We were told they were going to do disclosures, both what they have debunked, because some of it can be debunked, and then what they have not been able to debunk. And to my knowl- edge, you know, it has not been a thing. I only have 1 minute left, so Mr. Knapp, we are definitely going to you, watch every documentary. You and Jeremy have done a ter- rific job. I usually have more questions than I have answers. I think we all do. And you guys are doing a terrific job to bring infor- mation to the public. Do you think that any of this is a psyop by the U.S. Government? Mr. KNAPP. Entirely possible. I mean, they have—our govern- ment and other governments have admitted that they have tried to use UFOs to cover secret projects. But I think they also do some reverse engineering of those claims. So, years after people start seeing UFOs over Area 51, for example, they come up with a story. Oh, yes, that was—we planted that story. So, I read in a major newspaper just a couple of weeks ago, they planted this story. An Air Force colonel went out into the desert, went to a bar at Rachel and gave them some fake UFO photos, and that is how the whole story about Area 51 started, which is preposterous.
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22 Ms. MACE. Yes, I did not even get to the crash retrieval program stuff yet, Ms. Chairwoman. There is just so much. Okay. Thank you so much for your time today. I wish we had more time. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Ms. Crockett for 5 minutes. Ms. CROCKETT. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And thank you so much to each of the witnesses that have come before us today. The Federal Government has had a longstanding overclassifica- tion issue in general. We all know that from the assassinations of MLK and Malcolm X, to the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and torture programs, to now UAPs. The Federal Government has kept the American public in the dark about issues of immense public interest. The Federal Government has routinely made excuses for failing to provide transparency to the public, the most common of which is national security concerns. Mr. Spielberger, can you provide an example of when national se- curity was inappropriately used as a pretext for classification? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Congresswoman, probably one of the most in- famous examples of that is the 9/11 Commission that found that overclassification was a key factor in the failure to adequately pre- vent the attacks of that day. Ms. CROCKETT. In addition to that, what lessons from these over- sight failures should guide Congress in approaching UAP over- sight? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Generally speaking, we would advise this Con- gress to ensure that agencies adopt general policy in favor of disclo- sure instead of a kneejerk needing to overclassify information and documents. We should ensure that when information is classified or deemed sensitive, it is only for legitimate national security and privacy concerns. And we would recommend adding additional fac- tors to the considerations of cost value and certainly to the extent that it is critical for the public interest and the public’s right to know, especially when we are talking about these very serious na- tional security concerns and implications. Ms. CROCKETT. Can you speak to how whistleblowers have his- torically helped Congress uncover the truth in other areas and how that might apply here? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Absolutely. So, again, Congress has always re- lied on whistleblowers coming forward and making disclosures in a number of different issues across different agencies, anything from national security to airline safety, railway safety, environ- mental concerns, workplace health and safety, a lot of issues com- ing out of the COVID pandemic, for example. Whistleblowers have come forward with important disclosures on just about any critical issue affecting our government and affecting the American people, all of which have grave implications for the rights and protections that we have and how we live our lives in communities across the country. Ms. CROCKETT. How important is it for whistleblowers to have strong protections when it comes to UAP-related disclosures or dis- closures of other topics of excessive government secrecy? Mr. SPIELBERGER. It is absolutely vital. This has been one of the disappointing failures of doing this work of advocating for stronger
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23 whistleblower protections. We recognize the invaluable public serv- ice that brave whistleblowers play in coming forward, again, taking all of these risks that we have heard about just to speak the truth, to get important information out in the public consciousness, but they can only do so when we have safe and secure channels for re- porting, when there is trust in the independence of agency watch- dogs like inspectors general, like the Office of Special Counsel, like the Merit Systems Protection Board, that play critical roles in in- vestigating whistleblower disclosures and enforcing the protections of whistleblowers. All of that is essential to allow whistleblowers to keep coming forward and playing these incredibly important public roles. Ms. CROCKETT. Thank you so much. Let me just say this. People look at Congress, especially now, and they see a lack of unity. They do not see the ability for us to come together, really, on much of anything. I will say that I do applaud the Chairwoman and the work of this Committee because, for once, I feel like we are focus- ing on governing, which should be about transparency. The reality is that we cause more harm than good when we allow a lack of transparency to fester. It allows for all types of conspiracy theories instead of us actually making the investments that we need to make to get the information and actually provide it to the American people. The reason that I wanted to focus on making sure that we an- swer some questions specifically around the protections of those that are willing to come forward is because the only way that we can make this government actually work for all of us is if, no mat- ter where you are in this Federal Government, you feel as if you are safe when you come forward with information of any issue. And so, I do want to thank you for all of your stories. The reality is that we only get 5 minutes, and the vast majority of everything that you have to say cannot be contextualized within 5 minutes. But I know that my colleagues are going to get to kind of pulling some more of that out. But again, I really just want to thank you for your courage in this moment, and thank you for your service to our country. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Mr. Burchett from Tennessee for 5 minutes. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Chairlady, and thank you, Ranking Member Crockett. I see a lot of friends out there, and I see a couple enemies, so I will remember that. It is a pleasure being here. I want to remind people too, this thing is an ongoing deal. We are not going to get this overnight. We have been fighting this battle, some of you all, for 30 years and maybe longer. I hope we just keep focused on what we are trying to get to as total disclosure. We get a little wrapped up in a lot of things, but the government has something, and they need to turn it over to us. We pay their dadgum salary, you pay our salary, and you ought to get more out of us than you do, and that is what disgusts me about this whole thing. I think they are just trying to run the clock out on us, really. They will poke us a little, and they will make jokes to us and try to pull us off the target, but I think we know where we are at, and that is why they are firing at us, because we are over the target.
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24 My first question is, Mr. Knapp, I recently introduced the UAP Whistleblower Protection Act to help provide whistleblower protec- tion to Federal personnel for disclosing the use of Federal taxpayer funds to investigate UFOs. I still do not want to say UAPs. How can Congress further increase whistleblower protections? Mr. KNAPP. I think you have got to unleash the dogs and go track down the money and where it goes because a lot of this stuff has been moved out of government—— Mr. BURCHETT. Sure. Mr. KNAPP [continuing]. As you know, Rep. Burchett. It has been given to private contractors who have stashed it away. They have had it for so long that there is nobody left inside government, or very few, who know where it is. Mr. BURCHETT. And they do that to keep us from FOIA, correct? Mr. KNAPP. Sure. Yes—— Mr. BURCHETT. Yes. Mr. KNAPP. [continuing]. It is to keep it from FOIA. And I think that the contractors who have had this stuff for a very long time set their own standards about who is allowed to know what, and it is a very small group that ever cracks that. I think Rep. Luna has been looking at the use of classifications to hide things. I am not sure that even this Committee getting se- curity clearances that should allow you to see this stuff would allow you to follow where it really goes. Mr. BURCHETT. I worry about the people that are looking at it do not even know what they are looking at. I mean, it has gone through so many—I mean, since Roswell, for instance. I mean, you think there is nobody even alive that was around any of that stuff so—— Mr. KNAPP. Yes, I do not think they have made much progress— from the people that I have talked to, I do not think they have made much progress in learning that technology. Might have made some, but you wonder, you know, the implication is tic-tac, oh, yes, that is ours. What flew over Washington, D.C. in 1952, is that ours too? When are you going to break that out? You guys authorized tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that cannot do half of what we have seen UFOs do. So, when do they break this out if it’s really a classified project could change the world? I do not think they have made much progress, and I think they have been lying to us and to you and the rest of the world, and they are still doing it. Mr. BURCHETT. Yes, sir, I agree with you. How did you manage to obtain the classified Russian UAP documents? And how did you get them back in the United States? Mr. KNAPP. Well, I met this Russian physicist who was in the United States—— Mr. BURCHETT. And I want to clarify that. I cannot even take a thing of honey home on my airplane—— Mr. KNAPP. Yes. Mr. BURCHETT [continuing]. When I fly back to Tennessee, so—— Mr. KNAPP. Yes, I did something pretty dumb—— Mr. BURCHETT. And I am bitter about it, but go ahead. Mr. KNAPP. Yes. I did something kind of dumb. I met with these officials who, you know, during that time period, Glasnost,
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25 Perestroika, the Russians were trying to open up to the world, and I saw it as a window of opportunity, and it was. And we were able to talk these folks into providing us information that otherwise we would never have seen. Some of that was classified. Mr. BURCHETT. Well—— Mr. KNAPP. I found out that they are—they only stamped the top pages of these documents that were classified, so I just removed them. I removed those pages, and I carried them out. And if they had caught me, I would be in a gulag still. Mr. BURCHETT. Yes. We would be saying, what happened to George Snapp? Oh, yes. What happened to the Russians that came forward to you in 1993, and were there any repercussions for them? Mr. KNAPP. Well, there were. The first thing that happened when I talked about this after getting back and going through the files and things and sifting through it, the Russian physicist who had helped us be—introduced all these people, wrote back and said there was a huge eruption, that there was—the real right—far autocratic forces that wanted a return of the USSR had—really go after these guys. They described them as traitors. Nikolai Kapranov, the physicist friend of mine, said, look, if this had happened five years earlier, we would be in prison. If it had happened ten years earlier, we would have been shot. Mr. BURCHETT. Right. Mr. KNAPP. Luckily, at that point, Putin was not in power, but none of those people that we talked to on that trip in 1993 would ever talk to me again. I went back in 1996, and it was like I had the plague. I spoke to different people, but they were scared. And eventually, the story was spun where the Ministry of Defense officials who gave us this information were described as ufologists who said there was noth- ing really significant to these files. They did not really find any- thing a big deal. And I can tell you, you will see those files that I shared with you, they did find stuff. There was an incident in October 1982 over an ICBM base where UFOs popped up, was observed over this base where the missiles are pointed at us, the United States. These UFOs perform incred- ible maneuvers. They split apart. They fuse back together. They would appear and disappear. And right at the end of this 4-hour period, the launch control codes for the ICBMs lit up. Something entered the correct codes. The missiles were fired up and ready to launch, and they could not shut it down. The Russian officers were panicking. The UFOs go—they disappeared. The launch control system goes back to normal. Colonel Sokolov and his team came in, took the thing apart, could not figure out what it was. It was not a power surge or electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or some of the balo- ney excuses that our country has given for similar events involving our nuclear missiles. They thought it was a message from wherever the UFOs were from. And that is a chilling thing. I mean, that was—we were a couple of seconds away from World War III start- ing, and the UFOs were responsible for it. Mr. BURCHETT. All right. I am out of time, but real quick, who are the contractors that have this material, the corporations?
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26 Mr. KNAPP. Well, one of them is Lockheed. And I will you, I mean, you know, I am not saying Lockheed’s the bad guys. They are doing what they were asked to do. Mr. BURCHETT. Sure. Mr. KNAPP. They have lied about this because that is what they are supposed to do. But Lockheed would be one. There is a list I can give you, Congressman. Some of the big ones, the usual sus- pects. Mr. BURCHETT. Okay. Thank you. Yield back, Chairlady. Sorry for going over. Mrs. LUNA. It is all good. Mr. BURCHETT. It is all George Knapp’s fault. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Ms. Boebert for 5 minutes. Ms. BOEBERT. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief Wiggins, based on your training and operational experi- ence, could the behavior that you witnessed, a transmedium object vanishing without a sound, be explained by any known technology that we possess or other governments possess? Chief WIGGINS. It cannot, no. Ms. BOEBERT. And has any government agency debriefed you or any of your shipmates regarding the Executive Office for Immigra- tion Review (EOIR) and radar-confirmed UAP encounter aboard USS Jackson? Chief WIGGINS. No one has, no, ma’am. Ms. BOEBERT. What was that encounter like when you brought that up, if you want to briefly summarize that? When you brought that to their attention and then you were not provided any fol- lowup, who was told, and how did you feel when there was no con- tact back to you? Chief WIGGINS. As far as the actual incident happening—— Ms. BOEBERT. Yes, sir. Mr. WIGGINS [continuing]. Or the reporting level? Ms. BOEBERT. Yes, Chief. Chief WIGGINS. It was—within the event happening, my duties are to report to the tactical action officer on watch while we are standing watch. So, a tactical action officer was there. I made my report. I have not had any discussion outside of that day. There has been no communication to me or requests from me to—you know, within the side of the military. But speaking of that actual incident itself, once the report was made to the tactical action officer, that is when I made the decision to ask the individual watchstander that was controlling SAFIRE to be able to slew into the location. And that is what you see in the video itself is when the watchstander is slewing in and kind of showing us what we are looking at. But outside of that, that is as far as the reporting went that I know of. Ms. BOEBERT. Thank you, Chief. Just for the sake of time, Mr. Nuccetelli, has AARO, the Air Force, or the FBI ever followed up with you personally about the red square event? Mr. NUCCETELLI. I did have followup by AARO, nothing with the Air Force. The AARO office updated me, I think, at least two times. They let me know that they were unable to locate any records, that the records had been destroyed by the Air Force. The Air Force is
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27 destroying all their police records every three years on a schedule so—— Ms. BOEBERT. You were informed that this—that these docu- ments were destroyed? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Well, I have a Freedom of Information Act from the Air Force that states clearly that they destroy all police records on a 3-year schedule. Ms. BOEBERT. Okay. So, they were sitting on documentation, de- stroyed it, refused to question any of the lead investigators, any- thing leading into this investigation? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes, basically, they destroyed all the police records, so you could not even, like, call the Air Force and ask them if there was a vehicle accident in that timeframe. So that is a big problem. We are losing data in real time, so we will never be able to go back and track—— Ms. BOEBERT. I think our Federal Government has a history of destroying records. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Nuccetelli. Dr. Borland, as a geospatial intelligence officer, have you seen classified data indicating UAPs operate in restricted U.S. airspace? And has that information been withheld from Congress? Mr. BORLAND. I have not in U.S. airspace. That is intelligence oversight, so I did not have domestic authorities. Ms. BOEBERT. After filing your inspector general complaint over retaliation inside the Pentagon’s UAP office, did you receive any kind of protection or just more retaliation? Mr. BORLAND. Within the IG or the—or AARO, ma’am? Ms. BOEBERT. Either. Mr. BORLAND. AARO, they went after the staff member and clas- sified everything, shut that down. The IG, to this day, I do not even know if my complaint’s active. I know my attorney that rep- resented me was very, very, very concerned. And the best of my un- derstanding, I was determined credible, not urgent. Ms. BOEBERT. And do you think that that experience would sug- gest that the internal UAP investigations may be compromised? Mr. BORLAND. Possibly. I mean, it is so hard because this goes back to people doing the job they are told to do. And very few peo- ple are going to want to give up their careers, 20-, 30-year pension, give up—get rid of their kids’ healthcare, get rid of their house. It is possible, yes. Ms. BOEBERT. Yes. Thank you very much, Dr. Borland. Mr. Spielberger, do national security whistleblowers currently have any external appeals processes to challenge retaliation, or are they just stuck relying on the same agencies that they are accus- ing? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Congresswoman, this is one of the biggest con- cerns that we at POGO have, basically, around the independence of investigations and accountability for retaliation. Basically, yes, national security whistleblowers have to rely on internal adminis- trative processes that go through agency inspector generals. There are some differentiations, but the bottom line is that they are forced to rely on protection from the same agencies and people who they are alleging retaliated against them.
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28 Ms. BOEBERT. Yes. Well, I thank you all for your bravery. We are out of time here. Thank you so much for coming forward, and we will do everything that we can to ensure that you are all protected. Thank you for trying to bring truth and transparency to the Amer- ican people. Madam Chair, I yield. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Mr. Burlison for about 5 minutes. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you, everyone. It takes such great courage to come forward, and we acknowledge that, and I hope that you see that we are taking that seriously, and so very thankful for what you are doing today. I am also very thankful for previous witnesses that have come forward. I see Matthew Brown in the audience. He courageously stepped forward as a witness. I encourage everybody to look and seek his testimony. I want to thank the people that came in our first hearing, Ryan Graves, David Grusch, David Fravor, and in our second hearing, Admiral Gallaudet, Lou Elizondo, and Mr. Gold, and the many oth- ers that have come forward. We hear you, and it is time that we— you know, enough is enough. It is time that we take action. Look, I have not jumped to the conclusion that I believe that there are, you know, aliens coming from another planet, but I am open to that. And I think that it is our responsibility, especially when we are seeing that we have a government that is actively blocking information from us. Just last night, I tried to get an amendment onto the National Defense Authorization Act that fit in the germaneness of that bill to have UAP disclosure. And conveniently, it was named non- germane, mostly deemed by staff, not even an elected official. This is the kind of stuff that we repeatedly see. Last year, we were blocked by someone in House administration from being able to receive a full briefing from AARO, so not an elected official, but someone in staff blocked us. And I have had it. Enough is enough. I want to queue up a video that I have been given. And before it starts, I am going to describe, this was taken October 30 of 2024. This video is of an MQ–9 drone tracking an orb, or this object, off the coast of Yemen. You will see that another MQ–9 launched a hellfire missile. You cannot see that drone. And I am not going to explain it to you. You will see exactly what it does. Mr. BURLISON. This is when it zoomed out. So, you can still see it traveling. So, Mr. Knapp, have you heard about, you know, events like this occurring? And what information might you have? Mr. KNAPP. I have heard about events like this. I have heard about this event. Jeremy Corbell and I talked about it in one of our episodes a while back. We did not have the video, though. There are servers where there is a whole bank of these kinds of videos that Congress has not been allowed to see, that the public has not been allowed to see. Occasionally, some of that stuff gets out in the wild, and it comes our way. It should be going to you. You know, the public should be seeing this stuff. And why you are not allowed to, I do not know. But that is a hellfire missile smacking into that UFO and just bounced right off, and it kept going.
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29 Mr. BURLISON. It kept going. And it looks like the debris was taken with it. Mr. KNAPP. Yes. What the hell is that? What—— Mr. BURLISON. So,—— Mr. KNAPP. What flies like that? Mr. BURLISON [continuing]. Again, I am not going to speculate what it is. But the question is, you know, why are we being blocked from this information consistently? I want to ask this question. How in the world—this is the docu- ment. I want to enter this in for the record if it has not already been entered, Madam Chair. The document that you—— Mrs. LUNA. So, ordered. Mr. BURLISON [continuing]. Provided on Thread III, this is a huge file. How in the world did you smuggle this out of Russia? Mr. KNAPP. Carefully. Mr. BURLISON. In your socks? Mr. KNAPP. I do not think I want to be really specific about it because I might have to go back there and get some more some- time, though. Mr. BURLISON. Okay. Mr. KNAPP. No, that would be crazy to do that. Well, I—again, I took the top pages off that were stamped with the security signa- ture, and I carried them out on my person. But the rest of them, I just threw in my suitcase and threw some caviar in there as a distraction as well and hoped for the best. Otherwise, I would be a citizen of Siberia right now. Mr. BURLISON. And you reported James Lacatski came to you with government possession of non-human intelligence (NHI) craft and how they ultimately gained entry. Can you testify to the verac- ity of that claim? Mr. KNAPP. Dr. Lacatski is an honorable man who served most of his career with the DIA, a very trusted, high-level rocket sci- entist and intelligence analyst who inspired the AAWSAP program, as I said earlier. And in—you know, in full disclosure, I have co- written two books with him. He dropped this on myself and our other co-author out of the blue. And it took 14 months for us to get Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) ap- proval for him to release two sentences on that. He said this craft, we had managed to get inside of it. It had no wings, no rotor, no tail. It had no fuel, no fuel tanks. They did not know how it flew or how it was operated. It clearly looked like it was aerodynamic, but he would not go further. He is a by-the-book guy, and until he gets clearance to say more about that, I do not think we are going to hear much more, but it is not ours. It was not ours. We did not make it. We did not know who made it and how it was built and how it operated. We have got at least one. And I do not know, I think that’s enough confirmation that we have—we do have—— Mr. BURLISON. And last—— Mr. KNAPP [continuing]. Recovered disks and materials. Mr. BURLISON. Lastly, Mr. Borland, in the classified realm, have you been exposed to undeniable confirmation of NHI technology? And then my second question is, is BAASS Systems involved in any
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30 way with reverse engineering exploitation of nonhuman intel- ligence craft? Mr. BORLAND. Yes, we are going to have to call—we are going to have to have a conversation in SCIF for that, whether I am legally even allowed to answer that and whether you are even allowed to hear it, sir. Mr. BURLISON. Okay. Again, you can sense our frustration. And so, I just want to thank you for coming forward. We will continue to fight because, look, this is about making sure that this govern- ment belongs to the people and restoring the republic the way it was intended to be. Madam Chair, I also have further witnesses of courageous indi- viduals. It was given to me by Dr. Steven Greer, including Michael Herrera and his testimony. We have Roderick Castle and his testi- mony; Randy Anderson, his testimony; Steven Digna, and others, three others, all saying similar things to what the witnesses today have said, and I would like to enter that into the record as well. Mrs. LUNA. No objection. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Representative Lee for 5 minutes. Ms. LEE. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we need to make sure that we do not get distracted by sensational stories, only of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and lose track of what the core of this hearing is about. This is all a perfect example of why whistleblowers are so important and why it is so important that we step up and protect them. With Trump, RFK Jr., Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, and others committed to dismantling government and firing professionals who do dare to speak out against the threats this administration’s disastrous policies create, we have to focus on protecting all whistleblowers, not only the ones who are reporting on UAP. I would like to thank the whistleblowers who have agreed to come before the Committee today and speak their truth. This ad- ministration claims to care about waste, fraud, and abuse, and so often, it is whistleblowers who care and who are the tip of the sword fighting against the real waste, fraud, and abuse. One study found that whistleblowers exposed fraud at more than twice the rate of third-party auditors. So, Mr. Spielberger, what are some of the best examples of whis- tleblowers exposing fraud and abuse in the Federal Government? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Thank you, Congresswoman. Again, whistle- blowers have played such a vital role across so many different issues. One prominent example goes back to the 2014 VA waitlist scandal. POGO actually played a very instrumental role coordi- nating with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. At that time, we received tips and whistleblower disclosures from over 800 different individuals talking about the VA subjecting veterans to extensive wait times in order to get the basic standard of care that they deserve. It certainly prolonged serious illnesses, even contrib- uting to hastened deaths. And we were able to help shed more light on that issue, which I think just emphasizes the importance even outside of the national security context. We are often still talking about serious issues and even life and death concerns.
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31 Ms. LEE. And unfortunately, whistleblowing can lead to serious repercussions and retaliation, especially in this vindictive and law- less administration. Mr. Spielberger, in the past, what kinds of re- taliation have they faced, and what are we seeing today under the Trump administration? Mr. SPIELBERGER. So, we have certainly heard about a number of different examples of retaliation. One that I would like to high- light that Mr. Borland referenced previously is retaliation through abuse of the security clearance process. That can have grave impli- cations not just for a whistleblower but also their ability to seek legal counsel and defend themselves against retaliation. And when we look at the past several months of this administra- tion, unfortunately, we have seen a really systematic approach to- ward dismantling the nonpartisan civil service. We have seen the mass firings. We have seen undermining of independent agency watchdogs, mass firings of inspectors general, undermining the Of- fice of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, again, these entities that are meant to be independent and play a critical role in investigating whistleblower disclosures and ensuring that their rights are protected. Ms. LEE. Yes. Thank you. In 1989, Congress passed the Whistle- blower Protection Act and then broadened it again in 2012 to en- sure that Federal workers could feel free to come forward to their elected officials. And it is a good thing we did because whistle- blowers have played a more important role than ever since Trump has taken office. It was thanks to a whistleblower that we learned that DOGE al- legedly put every single American’s personal security information at risk by bypassing safeguards and copying all this data to an un- secure server. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a New York Times article titled ‘‘DOGE put critical Social Security data at risk, whistleblower says.’’ Mrs. LUNA. Good to go. Ms. LEE. Thanks. We have had whistleblowers at the National Labor Relations Board reveal that DOGE minions may have shipped case files outside of the agency, possibly to help then co- president Elon Musk continue to exploit his workers. And last week, whistleblowers at the National Institute of Health came for- ward to say that RFK Jr.’s vaccine misinformation campaign had pervaded even the highest levels of the agency. Typically, whistle- blowers have an inspector general they can rely on to investigate their claims and register issues with agency leadership, but Presi- dent Trump has fired or demoted over 20 inspectors general. If I may ask one more question, Mr. Spielberger, can you explain how eroding the independence and capabilities of inspectors gen- eral further endanger these whistleblowers? Mr. SPIELBERGER. Absolutely. So, again, whistleblowers already face incredibly great challenges in coming forward under normal circumstances, and when we erode these entities that are expected and required to enforce whistleblower protections, fairly investigate their disclosures, it calls into question the integrity of their inves- tigations and findings, whether they will take whistleblowers seri- ously when they come forward, and whether we can trust that they will use their authority to enforce the protections of whistleblowers
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32 who do come forward, essentially whether they will continue in their role as an independent watchdog or basically become a lapdog for a current or future President. Ms. LEE. Thank you. And I will take no more liberties. I yield back. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Crane for 5 minutes. Mr. CRANE. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, for holding this hear- ing. Thank you to the witnesses for appearing. In the effort of transparency here, I got to admit to the witnesses that, you know, growing up, I really never believed in UFOs or any of this stuff. I always thought it was a little kooky and whatnot. But, you know, after hearing, you know, your testimony from hon- orable servicemembers, watching videos like my colleague, Mr. Burlison, just presented, you know, I got to admit, I have become a believer, not that I know where these things come from or, you know, what they really are up to. I would like to start with asking the witnesses, Mr. Nuccetelli, you were in the Air Force, right? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. Mr. CRANE. Did you believe in UFOs prior to your encounter? Mr. NUCCETELLI. I have always been interested. Mr. CRANE. Okay. Chief Wiggins, you are currently in the Navy. Is that correct? Chief WIGGINS. Correct. Mr. CRANE. Did you believe in UFOs before your encounter? Chief WIGGINS. I did. I am from Las Vegas, and I have watched George Knapp my whole life. Mr. CRANE. Okay. What about you, Mr. Borland? Mr. BORLAND. I have always been open to where facts go, so—— Mr. CRANE. Were you guys scared or hesitant to come forward and tell your story because of fear and believing that you might be reprimanded or ostracized from society because of your stories? Mr. Nuccetelli? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes, absolutely. I probably would not have come forward if I did not have documentation to prove some of my story. And I also would not have come forward without the people that paved the way for us in, you know, the first Congressional hearing. Mr. CRANE. Chief, what about you? Chief WIGGINS. Once I got the okay from the Navy from top down, that gave me a level of relief. Prior to that, I did not have any thought left or right of that. But I think the Navy to give me the go ahead and that gave me the relief that I would not have any level of reprisal or anything happen to me. Mr. BORLAND. Mr. Borland, how about you? Mr. BORLAND. Absolutely. I mean, after I went through every- thing, it was pretty clear that I caused a major issue in the execu- tive branch, so I did what I was supposed to do. And that is why I have not spoken publicly. That is why I am happy to be here be- cause this is how I wanted this to be done in regards to me. Mr. CRANE. Mr. Borland, why do you think that you faced rep- rimand and discipline for your effort to come forward and be trans- parent about what you saw?
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33 Mr. BORLAND. About what I saw is the reason why I got into what I know and has been disclosed to AARO and the IG. And I think that information, while it was—it was labeled an extremely sensitive national security issue. Mr. CRANE. Thank you. Mr. Knapp, I have watched many of your videos on Joe Rogan and other places. One of the big questions, I think, for many of us is why do you believe that the Federal Gov- ernment refuses to be transparent about this issue? Mr. KNAPP. I think there is probably multiple reasons. At the start, when these things first started invading our skies in large numbers, we were scared. It was right after World War II, and we did not know what they were, and they did not want to panic the public, and that was probably a good call. Over time, I think the lying sort of became institutionalized, you know? Flights over Washington, D.C. in 1952, they are seen, they are captured on radar, jets are chased after these objects, and then we get an expla- nation it was a temperature inversion. And those kind of lies have been told for a long time. What was told to me by an investigator from Congress, a guy named Richard D’Amato, who was sent after this story by Robert Byrd and Harry Reid, he came out to Nevada, tried to get into Area 51, did get in there, looked around, talked to people, trying to get to the bottom of it. He believed that this program, reverse engi- neering, et cetera, was inside—had been moved inside these cor- porations. And he said, when this comes out, people are going to go to prison. And he meant people who were basically misusing le- gitimate national security funds, tens of billions of dollars in order to keep this coverup going. I also believe there is a legitimate reason for the coverup in that there is undeniable connection of national security involved in this technology. If we are racing for it—to master that technology against the Russians and the Chinese, which is what I have been told by Senator Reid and many others, then it is a race that is crit- ical to our survival. There could be a form of disclosure, I think. Yes, it is real, it is from somewhere else, without revealing all the details that would allow someone else to have an advantage in the race for this tech- nology. Mr. CRANE. Thank you. Finally, I would like to enter into the testimony a letter I sent to the DOD regarding the case of Major David Charles Grusch, a UAP whistleblower who has been ex- tremely helpful to this Committee. Unfortunately, due to his par- ticipation in the disclosure of UAP, he suffered reprisal like the re- moval of his clearance, denial of promotion, and loss of medical re- tirement. I wrote the DOD on July 24, 2025, on behalf of Major Grusch, and I am still waiting for a reply. I appreciate any help the Committee can offer to get a response. Thank you. I yield back. Mrs. LUNA. Without objection. Mrs. LUNA. We will be following up with the DOD after this hearing. Thank you, Representative Crane. I would next like to recognize Representative Gill for 5 minutes. Mr. GILL. Thank you, Chairwoman Luna, for holding this hear- ing, and I would like to yield a minute of my time to you.
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34 Mrs. LUNA. Perfect. My first question is to Mr. Knapp. Mr. Knapp, how do we know that the files that you obtained from the former Soviet Government are not BS and just given to you as a disinformation campaign against U.S. Government? Mr. KNAPP. That is a good question. So, I shared some of them with the Senate Intelligence Committee when I first got back be- cause that was requested by the Russians who shared some of that information with me. Second, I gave all of that material to the DIA through BAASS, the AAWSAP program. Sorry for the acronyms. Mrs. LUNA. Can you name names real quick? Sorry. Mr. KNAPP. At BAASS or AAWSAP? Mrs. LUNA. Or who did you give them to directly? Mr. KNAPP. I gave them to Robert Bigelow and to Jim Lacatski, and they hired a whole team to go through them and retranslate them and analyze it, and they created a structure of how the UFO programs in the USSR and Russia were put together. They said they were real. The other person who said they were real is David Grusch. Mrs. LUNA. Noted. Thank you. Representative Gill? Mr. GILL. And thank you. I would like to yield the remainder of my time to Eric Burlison. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you, Representative Gill. Mr. Wiggins, Chief Wiggins, in your view, what mechanisms such as internal protocols, witness debriefings, or cross-agency doc- umentation should be better established in order to ensure that such a credible sighting like the one that you have given are pre- served and made available to oversight bodies like this? Chief WIGGINS. Thank you, sir. As an active-duty Navy member, we—our mission is to carry out the ship’s mission or the com- mand’s mission, and we, on a general basis, do not have knowledge of what to do when we see things like this. We just do not. We are there to do our mission and do what is told of us, right? So I think what would be important is giving active-duty members a clear way of being able to report things like this to where it gets to this point and ensuring that we have a standard level of understanding that there would not be any level of reprisal or anything happening because, you know, I have been in the Navy for almost 24 years, but what about the sailors that have been in for two years that ex- perience things like this? They are not going to have the knowl- edge, or they will probably be a little bit more fearful to speak up, being that their career is just starting. Mr. BURLISON. Yes, I want to commend you. You are the first witness to come forward that is currently serving, and it is recog- nized, and so I thank you. And your testimony is unbelievable. Let me ask this question. Are you familiar with the Witness Pro- tection Act that Representative Burchett has filed? Chief WIGGINS. I am not too familiar, sir. Mr. BURLISON. Anyone on the Committee familiar with it? It is fantastic. It is the language that we need. It is language that will protect, you know, whistleblowers from any kind of reprisal, and yet it is again and again blocked by, you know, this body in some way. Many times, it is being blocked not by elected officials but by staff behind the scenes.
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35 The other bill, the UAP Disclosure Act, which was filed last year, Senator Schumer, who I cannot believe that there is a topic that he and I agree on, but he and I agree on this topic. He has spon- sored it in the Senate. He put it on the National Defense Author- ization Act last year. Remarkably, I cannot get it on the—it was stripped out by the House last year, and I cannot get it onto the bill leaving the House this year. Mr. Knapp, how far would that bill go to actually getting the an- swers that we need? Mr. KNAPP. Pretty far. I think that you are still going to have roadblocks. You know, the keepers of secrets, the private compa- nies that have been doing this job for intelligence agencies for a long time are not going to cough it up. You would have to force it out of them. And whether you can get them to admit that they have it or not, I mean, they are supposed to lie about it. They have been lying about it. You know, I—more power to you. I hope it works. I hope it passes this time, but it is a daunting challenge to get them to open up after lying about it for more than 75 years. Mr. BURLISON. Yes. And then finally, Mr. Borland, when you en- gaged with AARO in 2023, you noted that their public statements did not match the reality that you and others had witnessed. In your assessment, what were the key limitations of AARO? Mr. BORLAND. You know, I would put it to you this way. The statement AARO has made is scientific evidence of extraterrestrials. Scientific evidence requires a scientific control. Extraterrestrial is an entity on another planet. The only way to sci- entifically prove extraterrestrial is we have to go to that planet, ac- quire technology, bring it back, and compare it to what we have here. Mr. BURLISON. So, you are saying they will not let anything out because—or they will not come forward unless they confirm that it—unless they go to the planet and confirm where its origin is? Mr. BORLAND. That would be scientific evidence, yes. And by that statement, AARO found no scientific evidence of extraterrestrials is basically—I do not want to call it a psyop, but a misrepresentation because we do have things. But making that statement is not tech- nically a lie. It is a misrepresentation of the full truth. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you. Ms. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, may I, just since we are on that topic real quick, how do we get to these other planets? How do we pass the Van Allen radiation belt safely? Mr. BORLAND. Good question for you. I cannot answer that for you. Ms. BOEBERT. Thank you. Mrs. LUNA. I would now like to recognize Mr. Perry for 5 min- utes. Mr. PERRY. Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I will start with maybe Mr. Borland. So, you have a clear- ance, right? You are in uniform. You have a clearance. When did you leave service? What year? Mr. BORLAND. I left in 2013, February 2013. Mr. PERRY. 2013. Who was the President, if you recall? Mr. BORLAND. 2013 would have been President Obama, sir.
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36 Mr. PERRY. It was not President Trump, right? Mr. BORLAND. No, sir. Mr. PERRY. Okay. So, you have a clearance, right? You are serv- ing in uniform. You have a clearance. Mr. BORLAND. Yes, sir. Mr. PERRY. Your story, you know, I think many of us are kind of picturing the scene. You walk out in the flightline, having a smoke, this event occurs. Do you have the perception, at least I do, based on your story that this involves the U.S. Government? What- ever you saw involves the U.S. Government? Mr. BORLAND. That is 100 percent my opinion then and now. Mr. PERRY. And was there an after action? Did you do a daily debrief of the activities of the day? Was any of that recorded? Was there a conversation with the command? Was there any docu- mentation that you know of at the time? Mr. BORLAND. Not to my knowledge. I mean, like I said, I talked about it—on the ops Floor, and a couple of people had pulled me aside, some older enlisted, and were like, you probably want to keep that to yourself. Mr. PERRY. So, did you get the impression that they knew what you were talking about, just did not want you to harm your career or seem crazy, or that they did not really witness—do you know anybody else that witnessed what you saw? Mr. BORLAND. Again, not that night. Like I said, the only people that would have been out there would have been security forces and then those of us that were doing—— Mr. PERRY. Security forces in uniform or contract? Mr. BORLAND. Probably both. Mr. PERRY. Did you talk to them? Did anybody talk to them in an after action? Mr. BORLAND. Not to my knowledge, sir. Mr. PERRY. Was there any interest in the command to determine and verify what you saw? Mr. BORLAND. Not to my knowledge, sir. Mr. PERRY. It is unfortunate. Chief Wiggins, thank you for your service. Gentlemen, thank all of you for your courage to be here. Your story is a little bit different. Sounds like it—well, for both of you guys, and also Mr. Nuccetelli, if this were sanctioned by the U.S. Government, even though you have a clearance but it is classi- fied above the clearance level, do you see any reason why they would allow you access, being present, viewing it, hearing it, you know, being around it? Is this an accident? Does the U.S. Govern- ment make these kind of accidents, mistakes like this? Like, oh, we are doing this test of this new system, and we forgot these guys were standing here. Does that sound like something that the U.S. Government would do? Mr. NUCCETELLI. No, sir. Some of the launches we were doing were like $5 billion projects that had taken like ten years to de- velop the technology, and these objects were coming right up to the launchpad. So, any kind of mistake, I mean, we could—it could cause a catastrophe. Mr. PERRY. Right.
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37 Mr. NUCCETELLI. So, it is very confusing why these objects would be operating in and around our bases or during training exercises. Mr. PERRY. It would lend you to believe that the U.S. Govern- ment had nothing to do with whatever it is you saw? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Correct. Mr. PERRY. They would not want it there because it would poten- tially interrupt the proceedings at the time. Was there an after ac- tion? Was there a discussion by your command? Was there an in- vestigation? Pretty significant activities that you were involved in. Was there an investigation that you know of? Mr. NUCCETELLI. We conducted investigations in real time—— Mr. PERRY. Right. Mr. NUCCETELLI [continuing]. And we document all the evidence, but as far as anything from higher up, I do not know if there was an investigation done. No information came down on what we should do. Mr. PERRY. Were you ever interviewed at someone else’s request? Mr. NUCCETELLI. About that incident? Mr. PERRY. Yes, about the incident. Mr. NUCCETELLI. I do not believe so. Mr. PERRY. Do you find that odd? If something happens, you are around multimillion, maybe billion-dollar operations and launches of national security interests, very sensitive. There is an anomaly in the operation—— Mr. NUCCETELLI. The only person witnessed it that saw a UAP at Vandenberg at that timeframe that was interviewed was the one that witnessed the thing land. They—— Mr. PERRY. Well, why would not—well, I do not know why I am asking you, but it seems to me that we would want to interview everybody associated, even not associated, to find out if they were associated. Chief Wiggins, how about you? Was there an investigation? Was there an after action? Was there documentation on the incident that you were privy to? Chief WIGGINS. No, sir, not that I know of. And in my previous experience as an operations specialist, all operations that I have been a part of have been deliberate, so—— Mr. PERRY. Yes. Chief WIGGINS. [continuing]. They are—— Mr. PERRY. And deliberate operations, after the operations, you conduct an after-action review—or that is what the Army calls it; I imagine the Navy has something similar—to determine your weaknesses, your successes. Did you do that in regard to this inci- dent? Chief WIGGINS. No, sir. The Navy calls it after-action reports, and not to my knowledge was there an after-action report of this incident, sir. Mr. PERRY. It is unfortunate. Thank you, Chair. I yield. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Mr. Biggs for 5 minutes. Mr. BIGGS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the wit- nesses for being here today. I will tell you that today’s testimony should alarm every Amer- ican, no matter their views on UAPs. This is not simply about
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38 UAPs, it is about government integrity, responsible use of taxpayer funds, and Congress’ constitutional duty to oversee the executive branch. I have heard evidence of critical information hidden in special ac- cess programs, off-limits to virtually every elected representative, and certainly to the public. Credible witnesses report retaliation for speaking out. These are clear attempts to silence those who are ex- posing the truth. We must protect the whistleblowers, and decades of government disinformation have eviscerated public trust. So, this is not a partisan matter. It is a constitutional matter. And when you talk about the VA, Mr. Spielberger, and all the problems that they had, the hub of that was Phoenix, and they went after the whistleblowers there, and that was under the Obama administration. So, it does not matter which administra- tion, which party. Both parties have got to come clean, particularly on this. So, the government thinks it can hide the truth and punish those who speak out. Congress has to keep pushing until the facts, whatever they are, wherever they lead, come to light. Let me go to you, Mr. Knapp, first. You have interviewed numer- ous UAP whistleblowers over the years. The question is, how do you verify their claims before deciding they are credible enough to report on? Mr. KNAPP. It is a combination of factors. First, you check their credentials. Did they really serve where they said they did, and did they work where they said they did? Are there any other wit- nesses? Is there visual proof, film footage, things of that sort? You ask the people around them that know them, that used to work with them if they are credible people. That is one way. You know, I think about AARO, the organization that this body created to deal with witnesses and whistleblowers. I hope I am not taking too much of your time here, but they invited people to come forward, servicemembers who knew—saw things and had experi- ences. And I can tell you that the people that I have talked to who went through that are deeply disappointed. There was a guy named Bob Jacobs who was a lieutenant at- tached to Vandenberg in 1964. His unit would record missile tests. They recorded all of them. On one of those particular tests, a UFO comes out of nowhere, zaps what looks like a laser beam at what would have been a nuclear dummy, a nuclear weapon, and disabled it. And he is called into the commander’s office. Two guys in suits clip that film footage out that shows the UFO, and he has ordered to never talk about it. He comes forward to AARO. He heeds the call, thinking he is doing his duty as an American to tell that story, and they completely dismissed him. They made up a story that they had tracked down the original footage, and there was nothing like that in it. Well, there was no original footage. It had been taken away the day the footage was recorded. He is deeply dis- appointed. People like Bob Salas, who had worked at a nuclear ICBM base, who saw UFOs flying over the base, and these missile silos were taken down. He went to AARO too and was completely disregarded. It almost looks like AARO operated as a counterintelligence oper- ation to get people to come in, tell their stories, and then discredit all of them.
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39 I cannot imagine that any whistleblower or witness will ever go to AARO again because of what happened under the first director, who is now long gone but still seems to act as the spokesperson for that organization. Mr. BIGGS. And I would say, Madam Chair, maybe at some point we need to really dig deep into AARO, and I would encourage us—— Mrs. LUNA. Oh, I would be happy to send maybe a subpoena to Mr. Kirkpatrick. Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Nuccetelli, you have testified that official Air Force records of the red square incident are now held by AARO and the FBI. Has Congress or you been denied access to those records? And on what grounds would we be denied access, you or us? Mr. NUCCETELLI. No, the records are unclassified, so—— Mr. BIGGS. Okay. Mr. NUCCETELLI [continuing]. They can provide them to you. Mr. BIGGS. In the 2003 to 2005 incidents you described, were any physical effects, electromagnetic interference, radio anomalies, or security system disruptions documented in base logs or any re- ports, official reports? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Not to my knowledge, no. Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Wiggins, has the full resolution unedited footage of your incident been provided to Congress? Chief WIGGINS. Yes. Mr. BIGGS. Okay. Were you or your crew ever instructed formally or informally not to document or discuss the event ever? Chief WIGGINS. No. Mr. BIGGS. Good. Mr. Borland, you have talked about manipula- tion of your security clearance records. Can you identify which agencies or offices were responsible and whether they provided any written justification? Mr. BORLAND. I can do that in a SCIF, sir, 100 percent. Because of being a part of a multi-agency special access program, I cannot give those publicly. Mr. BIGGS. So, I would encourage us, Madam Chair, to have that SCIF meeting if we can. And then, Mr. Borland, again for you, you testified that you withheld certain sources and methods from AARO due to mistrust. Can you give us some specifics that led you to believe they were misrepresenting the truth? Mr. BORLAND. Well, as I said already, what I said about scientific methods, scientific control, extraterrestrials, I mean, I know what I have seen, I know what I know, and I know it is true, so any agency that is going to go public and try and manipulate the public perception of this subject in such a way that is negative when I know the truth about it is why I had extreme reservations with it. And also what I have been through and other whistleblowers and people in the know about this subject have been through. Mr. BIGGS. So, Madam Chair, thank you for letting me waive on. I think the key thing there you talked about was manipulation of message, manipulation of narrative. That is really the problem with this entire system that we have seen since you have started these wonderful hearings, Madam Chair, and I thank you so much. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, Representative Biggs.
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40 The Chair would now like to recognize Mr. Begich for 5 minutes. Mr. BEGICH. Thank you, Madam Chair. First question, Mr. Borland, earlier today, you mentioned that in a SCIF you would be able to discuss whether a Member of Con- gress is actually legally able to access certain information. Under what authority would a Member of Congress be restricted from ac- cessing information on this topic even within a SCIF? Mr. BORLAND. I would suggest reaching out to Director Gabbard and speaking with her about that. I am hopeful that this goes back to the executive branch and who even has authority. Unfortu- nately, I cannot give you a 100 percent solid answer because I do not even have that knowledge. Mr. BEGICH. Next question to George Knapp. What is the esti- mated annual budget, your view, for the program for investigating or reverse engineering UAP-related technology, including official, misappropriated, or black budget funds? Mr. KNAPP. I would not have a clue. I do not know of any person that has ever seen it. Mr. BEGICH. Does anyone on this panel wish to address that question? Okay. Moving on. Are any of you willing to name specific gatekeepers within the root cell of the UAP SAP federation? Mr. KNAPP. You mean specific people and contractors that have dealt with this and kept the secret? Mr. BEGICH. Specific individuals. Mr. KNAPP. Well, one of them was named Dr. James Ryder at Lockheed. But, you know, again, to emphasize, I do not fault these contractors for doing what they were asked to do by our govern- ment. They are supposed to lie if people ask about it. And the intel- ligence agencies who gave this stuff to them, CIA I think primarily, told them to keep it quiet, and they have done that. And I suspect that they would like an offramp, that they would like some help with figuring out this technology at some point. Mr. BEGICH. And this is, again, available to anyone. Is there a security classification guide for UAP or NHI? Mr. NUCCETELLI. I was—I remember in the 2003 or 2023 hear- ing, it was stated that all UAP-related material is classified secret or above. Mr. KNAPP. I have a name for you. Mr. BEGICH. Go ahead. Mr. KNAPP. Glenn Gaffney, CIA. Mr. BEGICH. Glenn Gaffney, CIA. Another question for you, Mr. Knapp. In your view, having investigated this issue for so many years, what is the long game with respect to disclosure of this in- formation to the public? Because with the advent of essentially a video camera and a high megapixel phone in everybody’s pocket, at some point, this information is going to be impossible to withhold from the public. What do you think is the long game here? Mr. KNAPP. Well, the secret’s out. I mean, how many videos have there been already? You know, videos that are leaked from within the military and intelligence agencies and contractors and censor platforms, it is out there. But they have the high ground. The peo- ple that do not want us to take it seriously dismiss it, discredit the witnesses, come up with a cover story. I mean, it has been out
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41 there a long time. The public senses that it is real, and the people in authority dismiss them. It is a game that’s been going on a long time, and I do not think they are ever going to release it. I think that there is an attitude among the people that have been involved in this for a long time that the public does not deserve to know and that the public probably cannot handle it, but they can. Mr. BEGICH. Final question. Again, this one is open to anyone who would like to answer it. Describe your understanding of the org chart or lines of control within the executive branch with re- spect to these topics. And if you would like to address that in a SCIF, feel free to say so. Mr. BORLAND. That could work as long as I am legally allowed to, and you are legally allowed to receive it. Mr. KNAPP. I think these programs are in the executive branch, the National Security Council, and over on that side. That seems to be what some of our witnesses have told us over the years. So, you can—you know, Congress can file all kinds of requests. The FOIAs can be filed with the Department of Defense, Department of War now, and they can honestly say, well, we do not have it be- cause they do not have it. Mr. BEGICH. Thank you. Is there anything in my remaining 30 seconds that you would like to share on any of these questions that I have asked you today? Mr. KNAPP. I applaud the Committee for trying to tackle this monster of an issue. I really appreciate that it is actually—it might be the only bipartisan issue in Washington where everybody can agree. We have watched multiple hearings now. Everyone is asking the same kind of questions, whether right or left, and honestly want the answers. And, you know, Chairman Luna—Chairwoman Luna, your—I appreciate your dedication to this, Tim Burchett and the other Members, for sticking with it because, you know, it has come up in Congress before, and they had hearings, and then they dropped it for 50 years. So, it is going to take a time—a lot of time to get to the bottom of this, and I applaud your commitment to get- ting to the truth. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, Mr. Knapp. Pursuant to Committee rule IX(c)—— Mr. BURLISON. Madam Chair, can I ask a parliamentary question of you? Mrs. LUNA. Yes, sure. Mr. BURLISON. Does this Subcommittee have the authority to do subpoenas? Mrs. LUNA. Task Force. So, the Task Force, to answer that ques- tion, has to do it through full Committee. Mr. BURLISON. Okay. Mrs. LUNA. And also in regards to immunity, which to Mr. Borland’s point, we are going to be doing a motion to ask for immu- nity for you and a few other people to come into a SCIF and tell us what you know without being subject to the Espionage Act, et cetera. Mr. BORLAND. Thank you, ma’am. Mrs. LUNA. So, that is just kind of an update. But as a Task Force, because we are not a full Subcommittee and there are cer- tain authorities that have not been granted to us probably because
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42 they do not want us to have it, but there are ways to work around it, so we are kind of figuring that out. Pursuant to Committee rule IX(c), the majority and minority will have an additional 30 minutes each to ask questions of the wit- nesses. Without objection, so ordered. With that being said, if you guys want to jump in the queue, I know Representative Crane, Burlison, and likely Burchett have a few more questions. I will just start out with two, and then I will pass the buck to Burlison. Burchett, do you have anything? Mr. BURCHETT. Yes, I—— Mrs. LUNA. Burchett and then Crane. Just real quick, Mr. Knapp—and short answers, please, because of time—how much of these alleged Russian crash retrieval docu- ments have already been physically out there? So, I mean, percentagewise of the documents that you submitted to Congress, what was public already and what was not newly released? Mr. KNAPP. Maybe one percent. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. So, the rest of it should be predominantly new information? Mr. KNAPP. Yes. Mrs. LUNA. Also, can you just elaborate real quick? I know you had, I think, mentioned a Thread III program, but also alleged in those documents, I got through maybe half of them last night. There is a lot, and I do not speak Russian, contrary to what people might allege. What does the Thread III—was there any specific programs that existed within the Soviet Government or groups to specifically investigate this by name real quick? Mr. KNAPP. It is a number. There is a number in those docu- ments I gave you. There was a larger program that actually had three subprograms that was—Thread III was the name I got, and then the DIA guys who looked at it figured out there was a much larger organization. It is—— Mrs. LUNA. And it is listed in those documents? Mr. KNAPP. Yes. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. Thank you. Real quick, I would like to ask the Committee to replay that video that Burlison had played earlier. I want to ask every witness here, specifically ones that have sensor training or have been able to recognize some of this movement real quick. So, if you guys can please roll that real quick. Okay. While this is still rolling, Mr. Nuccetelli, real quick, yes or no answers, are you aware of anything in the U.S. Government ar- senal that can split a Hellfire missile like this? Ms. LEE. No. Mrs. LUNA. And do whatever blob thing it did and then keep going? Nothing? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Nothing. Mrs. LUNA. All right. How about you, Chief Wiggins? Chief WIGGINS. Nothing to my knowledge, ma’am. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. And how about you, Mr. Borland? Mr. BORLAND. I prefer to answer that in SCIF. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. Does this video scare you guys? Yes or no? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. Mrs. LUNA. Wiggins?
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43 Chief WIGGINS. Yes. Mrs. LUNA. Knapp? Mr. KNAPP. I had a different reaction. I was really happy that it got out. Thanks for providing that—— Mrs. LUNA. Curiosity kills the cat. Mr. KNAPP [continuing]. Congressman. Mrs. LUNA. All right. Mr. Borland? Mr. BORLAND. Yes, for—— Mrs. LUNA. Okay. All right. That is the end of my questioning. I would like to now recognize Mr. Crane. Mr. CRANE. Thank you. Chief, I was on a ship for a little bit. I was a gunner’s mate on the USS Gettysburg for a couple years. My question to you is when you had your encounter and you saw it on the screen, you were in the Combat Information Center (CIC). Is that correct? Chief WIGGINS. That is correct, on a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the CIC is on the bridge, so it is called ICC–1, but yes, same—— Mr. CRANE. Did a bunch of the other folks in the CIC come and check out what you were looking at? Chief WIGGINS. Yes, we all did. The tactical action officer, myself, the RCO, and two others that was—that were on watch, we were all in the same space, so we were all looking at the SAFIRE screen all at the same time. Mr. CRANE. Because in the other couple instances with the wit- nesses, you guys just saw it by yourself, is that correct? Mr. Borland, you saw it by yourself? Mr. BORLAND. For me, yes, sir. Mr. CRANE. Mr. Nuccetelli, you saw this by yourself? Mr. NUCCETELLI. No, there were multiple witnesses in every case at Vandenberg. Mr. CRANE. Okay. So, Chief, did that spread like wildfire throughout the ship in the next day or two, what you guys had seen? Chief WIGGINS. No, sir. It did not spread throughout the ship, but it spread throughout ICC–1 conversation. As you do your turn- over, we talk about it, but it did not go further than just the watchstanders that stood watch on the bridge and in ICC–1, so it did move around there throughout a few days. Mr. CRANE. I am kind of surprised. Stuff usually spreads around the ship pretty fast. Why do you think the rest of your fellow sail- ors on the boat did not hear about it? Chief WIGGINS. Potentially uninterest, possibly, you know, with engineers or combat systems like yourself do not make their way up to the bridge enough to get within sight of the circle of talk about the incident. Mr. CRANE. Was it hard for you to get permission from the Navy to bring that video? Chief WIGGINS. I myself did not bring the video. I just saw the video. When I saw the video, I got in touch with Admiral Gal- laudet. That is how I wind up knowing about the video itself when I first talked to the admiral. And you can hear my voice at the back end of the video, and that is—I was like, hey, that is my voice, and I wanted to talk about it. Mr. CRANE. How long did that encounter take place, Chief?
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44 Chief WIGGINS. So, the encounter itself from the time I recog- nized on my radar to the time after the video ends was probably about 5 to 7 minutes. Mr. CRANE. What speed was the object moving at? Chief WIGGINS. When I first witnessed off the port bridge wing the object moving out of the water, what I thought was originally just a light on the water or something on the horizon and surfacing and going into the air, I then knew it was an air contact. But as an air controller myself, I started thinking and going through kind of like my checklist in my mind. Could it be a helo, but it is not blinking lights. So, I then realized this is something I have never seen before. So, the speed itself just going from the horizon to about maybe 3–4,000 feet in the air was very slow, slowly rising, and then it sped up. I am not an expert at, you know, knowing specific speeds of aircraft just by visual eye, but I would say probably 1, 2 Mach instantly into the rest of the formation. I did not notice visually with my own eyes the other three objects until I went back to my radar and also utilized SAFIRE to see that, in fact, there were four total. And then again, when they all left after a certain amount of time, it was nearly instantaneous. Mr. CRANE. So, you spotted it visually first, Chief, and then went back to your radar? Did you guys spot it on radar first? Chief WIGGINS. Radar first because that was my watch station was—— Mr. CRANE. And then you went out to the port bridge wing, is that correct? Chief WIGGINS. Correct, to verify what I saw on my radar. Mr. CRANE. What range was it at, Chief, when you were not able to see it visibly? Chief WIGGINS. I would say about seven nautical miles, seven to eight nautical miles of a light from the ship. Mr. CRANE. Wow. Thank you. I yield back. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Mr. Burlison. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief Wiggins, you said that it emerged from the ocean. Is that right? Chief WIGGINS. Yes, sir. Mr. BURLISON. And before it did, it was a glowing object under the water? Chief WIGGINS. That part I could not tell because it was night- time, at 1915 approximately, and it was also at a distance. So, it is very hard to tell the difference between something on the horizon and something surfacing from the water. My personal thoughts after seeing what I saw is that it did, in fact, come from the water, but I do not have visual evidence showing exactly, you know, that it did, in fact, come from the water. But I had—again, I had to go through my process of elimination and try to figure out was this a ship on the horizon just showing its lights at night, but to see its surface, then it made me question, okay, where did this come from? If it is flying and it is not a drone or anything like that, where was its origin? Where did it start? Mr. BURLISON. Mr. Knapp, in your testimony and in this docu- ment, you detail an event that happened in Russia where their nu-
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45 clear missiles were activated, and we were close to a World War III at that time, which is startling to hear. It is also good to know that, as we have investigated the JFK files as well, that we are learning that there was a document that was sent between Rus- sia—there was an agreement between Russia and the United States that if they were to see some unidentified objects over sen- sitive sites, that they would report it to each other. Are you famil- iar with that document? Mr. KNAPP. Yes. I am also familiar with the rhetoric—public rhetoric, between President Reagan and Gorbachev at the time too, that they traded statements about would it not be something if we were threatened by something from way outside how we might work together. I know for sure that they had conversations about it, and I know we did reach an agreement to try to lessen the possi- bility that us detecting a UFO or group of UFOs would not be mis- taken for a bunch of Russian missiles. There were exchanges of that sort that went back and forth. Mr. BURLISON. Yes, and I can imagine this is—to me, the validity of this document is underscored by the fact that Russia would not want this to be known. They absolutely would not want the public to know or the United States to know that there was a vulner- ability in their missile systems. Would you agree? Mr. KNAPP. Absolutely. And, you know—and we had many simi- lar incidents at our nuclear weapons facilities here that have all been sort of swept under the rug, but it is pretty scary when you take down ten missile silos during tense times and you do not have a better explanation for it than it was a special test of security mechanisms or using EMPs, which is a preposterous explanation. Mrs. LUNA. Real quick, we are going to cut to Mr. Ogles. He just got back. We are in a special kind of lightning round, so 5 minutes, and then we will go back to our line of questioning. Mr. OGLES. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, at this point, I think it is clear from the hearing that there is advanced technologies that are taking place in our air- space. You know, the question is—and I posed it in one of the pre- vious hearings—is it ours, is it theirs, or is it otherworldly? There may not be a silver bullet at the moment, but when you look back through the hearing and the evidence that has been presented, if you are going to point the American people to one piece of evidence to start their journey on this topic, what would you suggest, sir? Mr. NUCCETELLI. One piece of evidence, I would start with this hearing, in the first hearing. There is no evidence—— Mr. OGLES. But is there a specific—exactly, but is there specific evidence or footage or document that you think lends extreme credibility to what we are discussing today? Mr. NUCCETELLI. I would say this new video we are seeing today is exceptional evidence that we are dealing with something—— Mr. OGLES. With the kinetic? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes, sir. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Wiggins? Chief WIGGINS. Sir, I would have to say that if just the average person here in America looked at absolutely everything that has come across television, the internet, et cetera, you cannot tell your- self that 100 percent of what is being recorded is fake or false. You
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46 have to, at some point, understand that there is something else out there. Mr. OGLES. Well, I mean, and you bring an interesting point. You know, in the law enforcement community, any time you are con- ducting an investigation, you are always looking at the totality of the circumstances. You are looking at all the evidence and how they piece together. And so that would be my, you know, advice to the American people, that this is a journey that is just beginning from a Congressional perspective, but you have decades of data, some of it not real, much of it is, but thanks to Chairwoman Luna, we are now presenting this to the American people. And I think this latest video from Mr. Burlison is something that should give everyone pause when you see the three orbs that drop. Was that in a defensive posture, or was that in an offensive pos- ture? And what capabilities did those orbs have that we, quite frankly, may not have? Mr. Knapp? Mr. KNAPP. As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, what hooked me on the story was the paper trail, these documents that should not exist. We have been told for decades, over and over, there is nothing to it. It is not a threat. You can go about your business. And then when FOIA becomes the law of the land, thou- sands of pages to the contrary leak out. There is a memo by Gen- eral Nathan Twining in 1947 when the country was being overflown by dozens of UFOs, hundreds of UFOs, in which he said, look, this is not visionary or fictitious, it is real. These things are craft. They are not ours. They outperform anything we have got. I mean, if you follow the paper trail of documents that they wrote before the military got wise and realized that FOIA really ex- ists and changed their tune and not put things in writing, it spells it out pretty clearly. I will go—refer back to Russia. One incident I did not mention, Representative Burlison, is there—Colonel Sokolov in that Ministry of Defense program said there were 40 incidents where Russian warplanes were sent to intercept UFOs, and they were ordered to fire on them. And for the most part, the UFOs would zip away. Three of the pilots, though, did fire at these things. Those three planes stalled out, crashed. Two of those pilots died. And after that, the Russians changed the standing order. If you see a UFO, leave them alone. No country in the world wants to say and admit that these ob- jects are flying around in our airspace, and there is nothing we can do about it. I mean, who wants to say that? The United States cer- tainly does not, and the Russians did not either. Mr. OGLES. And I have got to be almost out of time. But Mr. Borland, you, sir, real quickly. Mr. BORLAND. Yes, to be honest with you, I think Bob Lazar, and not for the reasons that most would talk about, mainly because Bob Lazar was immediately discredited. They said he never worked where he worked. They said he never did what he did. But yet Bob Lazar showed up with a bunch of friends in a video camera and was filming these test flights in the middle of the desert, so clearly, he knew something. Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, if I am out of time, I yield back. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you very much, Representative Ogles.
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47 I would like to go back now on our lightning round of questioning to Representative Burchett and then Burlison. Burchett, always number one. Mr. BURCHETT. As well I should be. Number one in your heart, number 435 on the chart, that is me. Dylan, knowing you testified to AARO, are they obfuscating when they claim to have discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology? And are they lying to the American public? Mr. BORLAND. As I said before, it is a manipulation of the public perception. The statement ‘‘scientific evidence of extraterrestrials’’ is a true statement. It is not the truth about what is happening and what we have. Mr. BURCHETT. Would any of you all like to comment on that fur- ther? Mr. Knapp, you are getting edgy. Mr. KNAPP. Well, it is splitting hairs. No proof that there are extraterrestrials, what would that proof look like, a piece of kryptonite? What would it be? I mean, we could be talking about different forms of nonhuman intelligence. I think the dominant paradigm is that they come from outer space, somewhere else, and they have some way that they can cross those vast distances that we cannot even imagine doing but not necessarily—that is not nec- essarily the answer. So, asking for proof of extraterrestrials might not be the answer at all. It is splitting hairs. You know, we do not know where they are from. I do not know anyone who knows the answer for sure. They call them aliens just as a place-keeper kind of a word. But no one in all these programs who have studied this stuff for years, people with much bigger brains than mine, knows the answer for sure. Mr. BURCHETT. I mean, I have talked to Navy folks that some of the deep sea areas, they think there might be something there that they are here, and I do not know when they got here. Another point that needs to be made is every time—you know, we say we are going to back engineer or whatever you want to call it these craft. I always say it would be like if you took a—I ride motorcycles, but if you took like an Indian or a Harley to the peo- ple that came over here on the Mayflower, you know, they would see a bright, shiny object. They might polish it. You know, they might get it started. I doubt they could. They could not work on it. They could not put fuel—they would not have the capability of putting fuel in it. I just think that, you know, we are scratching at something that we do not have any knowledge of, and that is why it has just taken so dadgum long. But they do know the first one that cracks that code, it is over. I mean, it is energy, it is power, it is everything. And I worry, too, that in the wrong hands that they do that, they keep it from the rest of us because they are so invested in whatever energy sources we have here that their billionaire buddies are going to profit, and they cannot retool because they know once it is out on the internet, it is over. And so, I think there are a lot of things going after, and I think that is why the move to discredit folks is so rapid too. I think, you
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48 know, they point to them and they put the dogs on them, and it disgusts me. Mr. KNAPP. There is a price to be paid for that too. The Russians and Chinese are trying to figure this out as well, but they are— they do not have the same kind of stigma. They tell their best sci- entists and engineers, get in there and work on it. And they have been doing it for a very long time, might have a head start on us. Here, we do not have our best scientists and engineers working on it because they’ve been told it is nonsense. The stigma is very real for people like that. Mr. BURCHETT. I agree. Yield back, Chairlady. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you. I would now like to recognize Represent- ative Burlison. Mr. BURLISON. Mr. Nuccetelli, when you heard the testimony of Mr. Knapp talking about that these missiles were shut down or turned on in Russia, does that remind you—when you hear these stories, it has got to remind you of the event that happened on your base? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Absolutely. There are many, many accounts of incursions of this type taking place. I believe in the 1960s we had a similar incursion in New England, and same thing happened. There were these objects coming over the base at low altitude, 200 feet over the base security police, and they were scrambling fight- ers, and then the objects would just fly off. And that went on for weeks. So, the historical record has laid out that there’s a pattern, that our installations are visited by these craft. You know, they come in and do whatever they are doing, and then they leave. And we do not know how to respond. We do not know how to protect the installation. So that is why we are here. Mr. BURLISON. When you first heard and were having to report on these incidents that were being witnessed by other individuals, did you believe them? Did you yourself believe it would be true until you saw it? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes, these are people I have worked with for years, deployed with. You know, I was in some of their weddings. These are people that I have worked with every day of my life. Usually, when the events were occurring, we were all together. You know, there would be 40, 60, 100 people on duty during these en- counters. Mr. BURLISON. Really? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. Mr. BURLISON. All seeing it at the same time? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. These were—these encounters were play- ing out while we were on duty, and we were responding and inves- tigating in real time as they occurred. Mr. BURLISON. And as you said, the importance of your operation was highly important because they said it is the most important in 25 years, the research that you were conducting. Mr. NUCCETELLI. For that particular launch, we had 500 Air Force police officers guarding the launch, 500 people. It was that critical. Mr. BURLISON. Wow.
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49 Mr. NUCCETELLI. But had this thing showed up, we would not have been able to do anything to prevent it showing up. Mrs. LUNA. Real quickly, can you just redescribe size and wheth- er or not you heard anything? It was how big? Mr. NUCCETELLI. The two square objects were at least as large as a football field. The second encounter, they think it was much larger than a football field. We are talking like flying buildings. The object I saw was about 30 feet in diameter, which is—— Mrs. LUNA. And to confirm, you were not the only person that saw this? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Correct. Mrs. LUNA. I think I was also told that there was also reports of this in a police blotter in the area. Can you confirm that? Mr. NUCCETELLI. Yes. That is the documentation that I main- tained from the original event and turned into AARO and the FBI. Mrs. LUNA. Okay. Do you have any more, Burlison? Mr. BURLISON. No. Madam Chair, I just want to reiterate to the American people that if you are frustrated, so are we. We are ex- tremely frustrated. We have been—you know, the two, three years, I can only imagine how frustrated Mr. Knapp is or Danny Sheehan is and the amount of time that you guys have poured into this to try to get answers. I mean, Maussan is back there. He has been pouring to try to get answers into this. I hope that you all see that we are committed to this, and we are going to be scrappy about it. We may not have the direct au- thority, but I can assure you, Representative Luna is about as scrappy as it gets. I would not want to scrap with her. But that being said, I think that if the American people want to see answers, we need action. We have had the hearings. It is time to take action. It is time that we pass Tim Burchett’s Whistle- blower Act. It is time that we pass the UAP Disclosure Act. And I think that we have had a lot of talk about this. It is time for ac- tion. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you, Burlison. I would now like to yield 30 seconds to Representative Crockett. Ms. CROCKETT. I will reserve. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you. In closing, I want to thank our witnesses once again for their tes- timony today. I now yield to Ranking Member Crockett for closing remarks. Ms. CROCKETT. I will pass. No, I just want to say thank you so much to each and every one of you for being here today, for staying committed to this, and for your courage. I truly believe that cour- age is contagious. And right now, we need more courage than ever, whether it is UAPs or whether we are dealing with any other form of government where people are afraid to come out and speak their truth. The American people are relying on amazing public servants like you to speak up on their behalf, to be the watchdog, and to make sure that we are as safe as possible. And so, thank you so much again for conducting a bipartisan hearing on such an impor- tant matter. Mrs. LUNA. Thank you. I would now like to recognize myself for some closing remarks.
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50 This is obviously something that does not just affect everyone in this room. I can tell you that specifically for where I represent in Pinellas County, Tampa Bay, and Florida as a whole, there is many sightings, many questions, people reporting this. But I am not the only one. I was also told by Representative Biggs, as well as, you know, our great Representative from Alaska, that these are not isolated instances. And so, it does give us reasoning to provide investigative inquiry into these topics. But also, too, I would also like, Mr. Spielberger, if you could ac- tually review and see if your organization would endorse the Whis- tleblower Protection Act that Representative Burchett has. I can tell you that I will be signing on to a letter, as well as I am sure many other members of this Task Force. And we hope that the Ranking Chairwoman or my colleague here, Representative Crock- ett, as well as our Democrats that were here today, consider also signing on to that as we do feel that it is time to ensure that our whistleblowers are given adequate protections and that people like Mr. Borland are not facing retribution in the way that they have been. With that being said, with all that and without objection, all Members have five legislative days within to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be also forwarded to those witnesses. If there is no further business, without objection—— Mr. BURCHETT. Chairlady, can I say one thing? Mrs. LUNA. I would like to now recognize Representative Burchett for closing remarks. Mr. BURCHETT. I would just like to thank the Ranking Member and the Chairlady for their courage. This is a tough issue. We all catch hell for it. But it is gratifying that we are here in a bipar- tisan nature and the way this meeting was conducted. And I want to thank you all for your courage. Thank you all. Mrs. LUNA. Without objection, the Task Force stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the Task Force was adjourned.] Æ