Congress holding UFO hearing Tuesday morning: Watch it live (and what to expect)

You can watch the proceedings of tomorrow's public hearing on unconfirmed aerial phenomena, which will be held by the U.S. Congress.

Last year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence submitted a report to Congress about the progress of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. In the past few years, the term UAP has replaced the more familiar "unidentified flying object".

Tomorrow's hearing on UAP will be held under the House Intelligence Committee's Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee. The hearing starts at 9 a.m. You can watch it live at Space.com or via the House intelligence committee.

The National Defense Authorization Act required the military to establish a permanent office to gather and look into the UAP issue. An annual report and semiannual briefings for Congress were included in the document.

It could be a turning point in the study of unexplained phenomena.

The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks.

The hearing will feature two top-tier witnesses: Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, and Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence.

There was a new office created within the office to look into UAP. Over the past two decades, Navy pilots, among others, have made high-profile UAP appearances.

The hearing will give the American people an opportunity to learn about the incidents.

The government looked for flying saucers 8 times.

Wait and see

Space.com reached out to several leading UAP/UFO investigators to get their thoughts on what may happen at the hearing.

I'm generally in a wait and see mode with respect to the hearings. Mark Rodeghier, the scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies, said that two hours will barely be enough to scratch the surface.

Rodeghier's main concern is whether the two officials testifying will be briefed on the ongoing work of the newly formed AOIMSG.

I don't expect any findings at this stage, but I would be happy to learn about the progress being made in setting up a robust, science-based effort to investigate unexplained phenomena.

Rodeghier said that the effort should focus on what aerial phenomena could be. Is it likely that they are zipping around Navy vessels? Maybe they're something more exotic, like vehicles that could be tracked by sensor systems that cover space.

Nothing new?

Robert Sheaffer is an investigator of unexplained phenomena. He pointed out that people forget that congressional hearings were held 54 years ago.

The experts paraded the same claims that they had already made elsewhere.

Mick West is a debunker, skeptic, writer, and administrator of Metabunk.org, as well as a former video game developer.

They will talk about setting up the AOIMSG group.

The witnesses will assure the committee that things are in progress, but staffing is an issue, so West thinks that during the hearing, those testifying will be asked what is taking so long.

Robert Powell is an executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.

Powell thinks that a former Space Command official will be announced to lead the AOIMSG.

If the rumor is true, it raises the question of why such an individual would be put in charge of an organization if their primary concern was Russian and Chinese drones.

Collect and analyze data

The head of Harvard's Galileo Project said that the hearing may push the frontiers of science with government data.

According to an opinion piece for The Hill, the observed phenomena are being viewed more as data, because UAP has replaced the term "unexplained phenomena" in the investigators' vocabulary.

At this upcoming hearing, my sincere hope is that the following question will be asked: Can we get the highest quality UAP data to scientists who will analyze it systematically and quantitatively?

The lack of extraordinary evidence is a result of ignorantness.

He hopes that the U.S. government will continue to advance the scientific frontiers of our knowledge. The spiritual light that illuminates our journey in search of knowledge on destinations far away from the familiar rock we call Earth is the unknown.

The book "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" was published by National Geographic in May 2019. David has been reporting on the space industry for more than 50 years. Follow us on social media.