US Intelligence officials show UFO footage in Congressional hearing

Footage shown to lawmakers illustrates both the explicable and inexplicable forms of aerial phenomena being investigated by a new Pentagon office.

Footage of a triangular UFO/UAP shown in a Congressional hearing Tuesday 17 May (US Department of Defense)

Flashing triangles in the night sky above a Navy ship and a sphere flashing past a jet in the blink of an eye were some of the footage shown to US lawmakers Tuesday as part of the first hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years.

The US House Intelligence Committee's subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation accepted testimony from US Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, and US Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie Tuesday morning. Moultrie oversees the Pentagon’s new Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), which is investigating the “frequent and continuous” sightings of what the Pentagon now calls Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAPs, since the early 200s.

Mr Bray and Mr Moultrie presented lawmakers with video from two different UFO/UAP sightings, one an example of a once mysterious sighting they believe has been explained, and another that remains inexplicable.

In one video, a sharply defined triangle flashes in the green-hued view of night vision goggles, part of a video taken from a US Navy ship a few years ago, according to Mr Bray. Unexplained at the time, a similar sighting more recently allowed the Navy to conclude the once unidentified object was probably a US military drone, or Unmanned Aerial System.

“We're now reasonably confident that these triangles correlate to Unmanned Aerial Systems in the area,” Mr Bray said. “The triangular appearance is a result of light passing through the night vision goggles, and then being recorded by an [single lens reflex] camera.”

That is not to say, he added, that all UFO sightings can be explained.

In another video taken from the cockpit of an aircraft operating in a military training zone, a white flash can be seen zooming past the aircraft.

“I do not have an explanation for what this this specific object is,” Mr Bray said.

The video clip itself provides little information, the flyby happening so rapidly that attempts to freeze the video for lawmakers to allow them to see the UFO itself were mostly unsuccessful. Such brief sightings are common, Mr Bray added, and the lack of high quality data has made investigating UFOs difficult.

Tuesday’s hearing follows the publications nearly a year ago of an Office of the Director of National Intelligence report on UFOs that found more than 140 sightings since 2004 remain unexplained. The report also concluded there was not sufficient evidence to claim the sightings were of foreign or extraterrestrial technology, but that in many cases were nevertheless solid objects — just not of US origin.

“We stand by those initial results,” Mr Bray said.