Public Congressional Record

On the Record

Witnesses, under oath.

Every witness who has spoken on the public documentary record about unidentified anomalous phenomena before the United States Congress or in equivalent official-record settings, collected in their own words. From the 1958 CBS broadcast that was cut mid-disclosure, through the 1966 House Armed Services hearing and the 1968 scientific symposium, across the decades of congressional silence carried by civilian press and astronauts, into the modern hearings of 2023 to 2025. Twenty-two voices. The full sworn statements live on the individual hearing pages.

1958 to 1968

The Twentieth Century Record

Three congressional and televised engagements in the middle of the Cold War. The first a CBS live broadcast in which the director of NICAP was silenced mid-disclosure. The second the House Armed Services Committee in the wake of the Michigan sightings. The third a full scientific symposium convened by the Committee on Science and Astronautics. The opposing positions, official denial against civilian and scientific challenge, were established here and have shaped every engagement since.

Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe (Ret.)

Director, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP); former US Marine Corps officer

Armstrong Circle Theatre, CBS live broadcast, "U.F.O. The Enigma of the Skies" 22 January 1958

For the last six months, we have been working with a Congressional committee investigating official secrecy about UFOs. If all the evidence we have given this committee is made public in open hearings, it will absolutely prove that the UFOs are real machines under intelligent control.

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Hon. Harold Brown

Secretary of the Air Force, 1965 to 1969

House Armed Services Committee 5 April 1966

The past 18 years of investigating unidentified flying objects have not identified any threat to our national security, or evidence that the unidentified objects represent developments or principles beyond present-day scientific knowledge, or any evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.

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Dr. J. Allen Hynek

Air Force scientific consultant, Northwestern Department of Astronomy

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science and Astronautics 29 July 1968

There appears to be a scientific taboo on even the passive tabulation of UFO reports. Clearly no serious work can be undertaken until such taboos are removed.

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Dr. James E. McDonald

Senior physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science and Astronautics 29 July 1968

UFOs are entirely real and we do not know what they are, because we have laughed them out of court. The possibility that these are extraterrestrial devices, that we are dealing with surveillance from some advanced technology, is a possibility I take very seriously.

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Dr. Carl Sagan

Cornell University, Department of Astronomy

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science and Astronautics 29 July 1968

The question is very much an open one, and it is certainly too soon to harden attitudes and make any permanent contentions on the subject.

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Dr. Stanton T. Friedman

Nuclear physicist, Westinghouse Astronuclear Laboratory

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science and Astronautics (prepared statement) 29 July 1968

After considerable study, first-hand investigation, and review of a great variety of data, I have concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that the earth is being visited by intelligently controlled vehicles whose origin is extraterrestrial.

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Dr. Donald H. Menzel

Harvard College Observatory, director emeritus

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science and Astronautics (prepared statement) 29 July 1968

Natural explanations exist for the unexplained sightings. The Air Force has given me full access to their files. There is no vast conspiracy of either the Air Force or CIA to conceal the facts from the public.

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1978 to 2014

The Years Between

Congress did not hold another open public hearing on UFOs for fifty-four years after the 1968 Symposium. During those decades the documentary record was carried by civilian press, by astronauts speaking from retirement, and by foreign cabinet-level officials. None of what follows happened on the floor of a US congressional hearing. All of it sits on the public record nonetheless, in letters to the United Nations, in addresses delivered at universities, and in long-form broadcast interviews captured on tape.

Col. Gordon Cooper

Mercury 9 and Gemini 5 astronaut, USAF

Letter to UN Mission of Grenada, supporting UN address by Sir Eric Gairy 9 November 1978

I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on earth.

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Hon. Paul Hellyer

Canadian Minister of National Defence, 1963 to 1967; first Western cabinet-level minister to publicly affirm UAP reality

University of Toronto Symposium, Exopolitics Toronto 25 September 2005

UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.

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Dr. Edgar Mitchell

Apollo 14 lunar module pilot; sixth human to walk on the Moon

Kerrang Radio interview, UK national broadcast 23 July 2008

Make no mistake, Roswell happened. I've seen secret files which show the government knew about it, but decided not to tell the public.

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2023 to 2025

The Modern Record

After fifty-four years of congressional silence, public hearings resumed. Three sessions of the House Oversight Committee, in two years, brought to the sworn record the most substantial body of first-hand military, intelligence, and whistleblower testimony in the documentary history of the subject.

David Grusch

Former NGA officer, UAP Task Force representative

House Oversight Subcommittee 26 July 2023

I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access.

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Ryan Graves

Former F/A-18F pilot, founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace

House Oversight Subcommittee 26 July 2023

If UAP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, it is a concern for safety of flight.

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Cmdr. David Fravor (Ret.)

Former CO, Strike Fighter Squadron 41, USS Nimitz

House Oversight Subcommittee 26 July 2023

The Tic Tac Object that we engaged in November 2004 was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next ten years.

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Luis Elizondo

Former director, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)

House Oversight Joint Subcommittee 13 November 2024

Let me be clear: UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our Government, or any other government, are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.

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Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet (Ret.)

Former Acting Administrator, NOAA

House Oversight Joint Subcommittee 13 November 2024

Unelected officials in the U.S. government do not have an exclusive right to this knowledge about the nature of reality. The American people have a right to that knowledge.

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Michael Shellenberger

Investigative journalist, Public

House Oversight Joint Subcommittee 13 November 2024

There is a growing body of evidence that the government is not being transparent about what it knows about unidentified anomalous phenomena, and that elements within the military and IC are in violation of their Constitutional duty to notify Congress of their operations.

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Mike Gold

Former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships

House Oversight Joint Subcommittee 13 November 2024

Anomalies are the foundation upon which scientific breakthroughs are built. The Theory of General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, virtually all of our scientific progress has been based on discovering and studying anomalies.

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