Congress Eats UFOs For Breakfast: The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee Hearing On Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
It's the morning of Wednesday, April 19, 2023 and I'm having a breakfast of champions - popcorn and Mountain Dew. What the hell, I'm getting ready for the big show. A conspiracy theoretician's dream come true. No, no I'm not talking about R.F.K. Jr. announcing his 2024 Presidential bid, which coincidently is also scheduled for the same exact time - 11:30 a.m. I'm talking about the Senate Hearings on UFOs. This will be only the second time in over 50 years that such a phenomenon has taken place. Well I guess between the two topics - UFOs and Kennedy's, you could fill 10 volumes of conspiracy books, just as introduction.
Nonetheless, I had a tab opened on my computer for both events. As it turned out, the feed on the Kennedy speech kept breaking up. This allowed me at least to focus my full attention on the hearing at the Senate.
Here's what's on tap, an OPEN/CLOSED Senate subcommittee hearing on emerging threats and capabilities, the purpose of which is to receive testimony on the mission, activities and budget of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). On the hot seat will be Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director of AARO. Chairing the event will be U.S. Senator (D-NY) Kirsten Gillibrand.
When something like this happens, which as stated rarely does, it is like a Super Bowl event for #ufotwitter and the Disclosure community. A lot of excitement and anticipation is in the air. Maybe they'll come right out with the Truth after all. Fling open all the vaults. Show us the evidence.
How to watch? I decided to go with the livestream on YouTube channel "Witness Citizen," with hosts Sean Raasch and Jay Christopher King. Just the previous week I had attended "An Inquiry Into Anomalous Experiences & The Phenomenon 2023," also hosted by Jay Christopher King. Also in attendance for the livestream was Stephen Bassett. Bassett's bio reads, in part: Executive director of Paradigm Research Group (PRG) founded in 1996 to end a government imposed embargo on the truth behind extraterrestrial related phenomena.
I figured with this crew I was in good hands. You know, like watching Joe Buck and Al Michaels cover the Super Bowl, if I were to carry on my sports analogy.
Right out of the gate Stephen Bassett was on fire. He was a man giddy, as many of us are, with the expectation that disclosure was coming soon. Will it come with the next president? No, no it has to come out within the next 6 months, before the election cycle begins. That was his prediction.
A lot of what Bassett was saying makes a lot of descent sense. Those who originally signed up for the “Truth Embargo” are now dead. It is now in the hands of a new generation and though they are not committed to this secrecy they nonetheless have to dole the truth out in easily digestible chunks so that the average Joe won’t blow chunks when he finds out his iPhone was pirated/back engineered tech from downed alien crafts (ha ha just kidding Steve Jobs R.I.P).
What if the government just came out and spilled the beans on every damn thing, like how President Eisenhower signed a treaty in 1954 with extraterrestrial entities in an exchange of alien tech for human DNA? Sure, the Ancient Aliens crowd would throw a big “I told you so” party. But what about everyone else? People might be so dazed by the revelation that they won't even bother to show up to their minimum wage jobs or deliver your Amazon packages. After all, well, aliens, right?
Listening to Dr. Kirkpatrick’s briefing, one might think the Truth Embargo is back on. The guy comes off as dry as dead leaves and as tight as a UAP making a right turn from a fighter jet. There’s no doubt he is acting in the role of gate keeper.
The comment that got #ufotwitter in an uproar and effectively sent a Sidewinder Missile into their Disclosure Balloon was Dr. Kirkpatrick claiming, "I should also state clearly for the record that in our research AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics."
To add insult on to injury, Dr. Kirkpatrick stated, "For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously and subsequently commented on by the U.S. government I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible peer-reviewed scientific journals. AARO is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media."
Ouch. Of course, the majority of the research on UFOs do appear on blogs and social media. Your's truly included. It appeared, at first glance, that the good Doctor was serving up a big Nothing Burger. Not so fast. Maybe he slipped some meat into that Whopper after all, the sly dog.
It's like that Rolling Stones song, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need." If you sift through Kirkpatrick's testimony, some interesting nuggets show up, dare I say pearls?
The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services website have been kind enough to host, on their website, the hearing in total as well as a few downloadable film files of UAPs which are intriguing, not just in content but also on a sheer high weirdness aesthetic. They didn't have to do that of course but I appreciate that our tax dollars are providing such a perk.
The first footage is described as an MQ-9 in the Middle East. It is from mission report: 7750816 (12 July 2022 2156Z).
Kirkpatrick describes the UAP as "an apparent spherical object, via EO sensors" then adds, "This is, essentially, all of the data we have associated with this event from some years ago. It is going to be virtually impossible to fully identify that just based off of that video."
What shall we make of all this? According to Kirkpatrick, "What we can do and what we are doing is keeping that as part of that group of 52 percent to see what are the similarities, what are the trends across all these, do we see these in a particular distribution, do they all behave the same or not . . . As we get more data we will be able to go back and look at these in a fuller context."
52 percent? That seems like a lot of UAPs which no one knows anything about. Looks like AARO has their work cut out for them. Meanwhile, I'll look over some of this new evidence. That silver sphere in the first image looks suspiciously like the 'Mosul Orb.' Could it be?
Andrew Kim Arnett is a writer and producer. His work covers the paranormal, crime and unexplained mysteries. He has been published in Paranoia Magazine, New Dawn, Nexus, Konbini and Alien Buddha Press. Andrew Kim Arnett appears on Travel Channel’s World's Most Unexplained (currently streaming on Discovery +) discussing the Cecil Hotel, alien abduction and much more. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and hunts ghosts with the Brooklyn Paranormal Society. Twitter: @AndrewArnett ; Website: https://andrewkimarnett.wixsite.com/andrewkarnett