Vinay Menon: A UFO hearing in Congress? Welcome to America’s ‘X-Files’ era

Put an asterisk in your terrestrial calendars on July 26.

Or skip the asterisk and doodle a UFO. After decades of silence and denial, some in the U.S. government are finally taking the skies seriously. As Congressman Tim Burchett from Tennessee tweeted this week: “The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on UAPs [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] on Wednesday, 7/26. We’re done with the cover-ups.”

Whether the cover-ups are willing to be uncovered remains to be seen.

But this does feel like a golden age for UFO transparency and disclosure. In recent years, the Pentagon has released videos of unknown craft witnessed by naval aviators. These craft did not have any visible means of propulsion. They exhibited flight characteristics that violate the laws of physics. They rotate and fly belly-up. They stop and hover midflight. They can shatter the sound barrier in spooky silence. They can ascend or descend 50,000+ feet in a blink of an eye.

Any human aboard one of these mystery orbs would turn into Jell-O.

Then there was last month’s truly startling news.

David Grusch, a former intelligence official turned whistleblower, went public with allegations the U.S. government possesses “non-human” vehicles and “dead pilots,” who presumably were also of non-human origin. He claims top secret black programs, including with private aerospace firms, are reverse engineering recovered crafts.

Not that long ago, Mr. Grusch would have been ridiculed as a crackpot trapped in an extraterrestrial fever dream. But in 2023, his whistleblower complaint was deemed “credible,” “urgent” and worthy of further investigation.

Somewhere, Bob Lazar is tinkering with a hydrogen engine and muttering, “I tried to tell you in 1989. Now you’re on your own. Good luck with the anti-gravity.”

Another intriguing development before next week’s hearing: a bipartisan group in the Senate led by Democrat majority leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Mike Rounds has just put forth an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would “mandate government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) carry the presumption of disclosure.”

In other words, enough with the decades of secrecy. It’s time to come clean.

Or as Schumer explained: “The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public.”

It’s kind of astonishing.

America’s official posture on UFOs has gone full “X-Files.”

This is the backdrop heading into next week’s hearing.

Will it feature a parade of insiders familiar with shadowy programs or first-hand knowledge of recovered crafts? Will there be more photo and video evidence? Will Joe Biden rip off his face to reveal a shape-shifter from Zeta Reticuli: “Earthlings, the malarkey ends now!”

And most crucially, can this hearing break the stalemate between those who want to believe and those who never will?

Skepticism is vital to all scientific inquiry. But with every new documented UFO sighting, with every new whistleblower, it can’t be much fun to have a closed mind these days. Some of the hardcore UFO debunkers are hilariously predictable. It’s a weather balloon! It’s an optical illusion! It’s a bird! It’s a drone! These incurious and patronizing know-it-alls could get abducted, anally probed by grey aliens aboard a Mothership and they’d instinctively attack their own credibility: It was swamp gas!

On the flip side, news of the hearing has also animated the imagination of hardcore believers or trollers. One fellow — I won’t name him since there is every reason to believe this is a hoax — claims next week’s event will feature a private contractor who has video evidence of a U.S. fighter jet getting vapourized by a UFO laser beam during a hostile encounter. In another video, Biden meets with three aliens in Alaska.

So, yeah, caveat emptor. Ufology attracts more kooks than Burning Man.

But that is why this hearing is so important. Maybe, just maybe, it can help bridge the divide between skeptics and believers so we can find some common ground on terra firma. Forget the Little Green Men. As a matter of national, international and species security, what are these mysterious objects buzzing around our skies? How can they manoeuvre in ways that make our most advanced jets look like kites?

Since the 1947 incident in Roswell, why are there blips of sightings every decade over military bases and nuclear silos? What does the Canadian government know?

It definitely knows more than it is letting on.

I try to sneak a UFO column past my editors every now and again because the possibility we are not alone seems like a big deal. Beyond Tiger Woods and John Travolta in a helicopter near Maui, I have never seen anything inexplicable in the skies. But if the U.S. government has gone from hardcore skeptic to open minded, we should all pay attention. I haven’t been this excited since the 1992 World Series.

If nothing else, it’s heartening to see politicians unite over an issue. The Senate group calling to declassify government data related to UFOs is modelled on the JFK Assassination Records Act. It includes Marco Rubio and Kristen Gillibrand. This is a glowing example of bipartisan cooperation. It’s as if The Rock and Vin Diesel buried the hatchet and agreed to co-star in a new “Fast and Furious.”

The truth is out there. Now it’s headed for the U.S. Congress.

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