What happened on the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza in Dallas?
Does a mysterious, serpentine beast glide through the icy waters of Loch Ness?
Is there life on other planets?
Perhaps it’s only natural Congress is now probing whether the government is covering up possible evidence of UFOs.
The timing for this type of congressional inquest into this mystery is only right. Suspicions abound about the origins of the pandemic and conspiracies about the safety of vaccines. Couple that with skepticism about "the media," the veracity of election returns and the government in general.
It’s not a stretch for people — and now lawmakers — to seek more answers about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), or UFOs.
Are we alone in the universe?
If not, some in Congress believe they’ve been left in the dark.
A cohort of lawmakers suspects there is mounting information government agencies and the military aren’t playing straight with Capitol Hill. And if the truth is out there, they’re not getting it. That’s why there’s been an uptick of bipartisan hearings, briefings and legislation on UAPs over the past few years.
Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tried to wedge more transparency about UFO files into the annual defense policy bill late last year. But Schumer’s effort fell short.
Whatever people are seeing could be something from the great beyond. But there appears to be discomfort with federal officials divulging to lawmakers what they know. Hence, the disappointment from Schumer. And, frankly, there may be evidence that different "silos" of the federal government might not know exactly what other feds have.
Granted, some things spotted in the skies might be special proprietary advanced technology different agencies or the intelligence community guard with the utmost confidentiality. And some of the stuff out there might just be unexplained.
No wonder this fuels conspiracy theories.
Such was the case when intelligence community Inspector General Thomas Monheim appeared for a closed-door, classified briefing for members of the House Oversight Committee late last week.
Some responses were predictable.
"Stonewalled once again," complained Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.
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"I just wasted time," said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. "I'm more concerned than I was going in."
"There's a concerted effort to conceal as much information as possible," alleged Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn.
Lawmakers contend they aren’t hearing from people who really know what’s out there.
"They send us bureaucrats who don’t know on purpose," said Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis.
But it might not be as sinister as some suspect.
"This meeting, unlike the one we had previously … actually moved the needle," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla. "This is the first time we kind of got a ruling on what the IG (inspector general) thinks of those claims."
The "claims" Moskowitz speaks of stem from allegations former military intelligence officer and UAP whistleblower David Grusch made at an open House hearing last summer. Grusch contends the military has possession of a spacecraft from someplace else.
As well as something else.
"Do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?" Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., asked at that hearing last July.
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"That’s something I can't discuss in a public setting," Grusch replied.
However, Grusch implied the U.S. may have some sort of life form that isn’t understood.
He termed them "biologics" at the summer hearing.
"Human or non-human biologics?" Mace asked.
"Non-human," Grusch answered without hesitation.
Lawmakers demand transparency. But due to the sensitivity of the material, even they aren’t quite ready yet to publicly share what they’re learning.
"This is the first real briefing that we’ve had that we’ve now made — I would say — progress on some of the claims Mr. Grusch has made," said Moskowitz.
As upset as he was in the briefing, Burchett signaled the same.
"We got some pretty definitive stuff," said Burchett. "It just verified what I thought."
But it’s unclear what "definitive stuff" lawmakers heard about, let alone what was verified.
And we don’t know what Burchett "thought."
Lawmakers are trying to dissect Grusch’s allegations.
Let’s step back for just a moment.
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As a longtime congressional observer, I have learned to pay attention to precisely what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says. Decades of reporting on McConnell taught me that you’ll know exactly what McConnell is planning to do or pondering if you filet his words with the perfection of a Ginsu knife.
Language and framing is paramount in politics.
The same is true in intelligence circles.
And, apparently, it's true when it comes to explaining the unexplained. Like UFOs.
So let’s focus on the language.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., questioned Grusch about why he referred to potential "beings" as "non-human intelligence" and not "extraterrestrials."
At the 2023 hearing, Grusch suggested that what the government purportedly has is "very complex."
After the House briefing last week, Luna noted that Grusch previously referred to such entities as "interdimensional."
Yours truly asked Luna what "interdimensional" means when it comes to UAPs.
"Is this something that bends time and space," this reporter asked Luna.
The Florida Republican didn’t respond directly.
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"He said interdimensional. He refused to use certain terms," said Luna.
But back to our political message box analysis.
"I think it’s incredibly important to listen to the specific words that Grusch uses," said Luna. "He never said extraterrestrial or alien."
Could it be that "extraterrestrial" or "alien" mean specific things in the intelligence or military communities when trying to atomize what the government knows about UAPs?
The term "interdimensional" pertains to the theory there are multiple dimensions of space and time, coexisting at once. One longstanding theory about UFOs is that what we may see on Earth isn’t even something from another planet or from far across the galaxy. Could it be something which broke across the plane of the dimension where we reside from its location in another dimension?
And you thought covering appropriations bills and the debt ceiling was mind bending.
These aren’t the things that are discussed regularly in Congress.
After the briefing, another reporter asked Raja Krishnamoorthi about Grusch’s claims of biologics.
"I can’t get into the specifics," the Illinois Democrat replied. "I didn’t get the answers that I was hoping for."
Fox asked Luna if maybe what they’re dealing with is so thorny and beyond the norm that conventional science and physics could struggle to grasp this.
"I think we can understand it," Luna said, without hinting at what lawmakers are trying to understand.
We’ve used this quotation before when writing about UFOs. But it bears repeating. In Shakespeare, Hamlet tells Horatio that "there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
In other words, there’s a panoply of possibilities people haven’t even fathomed yet.
The truth may be out there. But could it be impregnable for mere mortals?
