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Are UFOs real? What does the government know?

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Last July there was a congressional hearing that provided shocking news about the government, UFOs and decades of cover-ups.

Former Air Force intelligence officer, Retired Maj. David Grusch told the committee he had been asked in 2019 by the head of the government task force on UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force's mission.

Grusch testified under oath and under the threat of perjury that the U.S. government was in possession of alien spacecraft and alien remains.

However, no real evidence was provided.

The government has become increasingly open about its investigations into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), commonly known as UFOs. In recent years, there has been a growing number of reports of UAPs from military pilots and other personnel, and the government has taken steps to formalize the process of reporting and investigating these sightings.

In 2021, the Pentagon established the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) to investigate UAPs and assess their potential threat to national security. The UAPTF released a preliminary report in June 2021 that concluded that 144 of 143 UAP reports could not be explained by any known aircraft or natural phenomena.

In July 2022, the UAPTF was renamed the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The AOIMSG is tasked with continuing to investigate UAPs and developing protocols for reporting and analyzing these sightings.

The government has also taken steps to increase public transparency about its investigations into UAPs. In May 2022, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report on UAPs that concluded that these phenomena pose a potential safety of flight risk to aircraft. The ODNI report also noted that UAPs could potentially represent a foreign adversary's technological breakthrough.

The government's increasing openness about its investigations into UAPs is likely due to a number of factors, including the growing number of reports from military pilots and other personnel, the potential threat that UAPs could pose to national security, and the increasing public interest in these phenomena.

While the government has not yet ruled out the possibility that UAPs could be of extraterrestrial origin, it has emphasized that it is taking these reports seriously and is committed to investigating them thoroughly.

Guest:

Garrett M. Graff is the author of UFO– The inside story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here and Out There.

Graff is a journalist and historian who has spent nearly two decades covering politics, technology, and national security. The former editor of Politico and contributor to Wired and CNN, he’s written for publications from Esquire to Rolling Stone to The New York Times, and today serves as the director of the cyber initiative at the Aspen Institute. Graff is the author of multiple books, including the FBI history The Threat Matrix, Raven Rock, about the government’s Cold War Doomsday plans, and the New York Times bestsellers The Only Plane in the Sky and Watergate: A New History, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

"The Source" is a live call-in program airing Mondays through Thursdays from 12-1 p.m. Leave a message before the program at (210) 615-8982. During the live show, call 833-877-8255 or email thesource@tpr.org.

This interview will be recorded Monday, November 13, 2023.

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David Martin Davies can be reached at dmdavies@tpr.org and on Twitter at @DavidMartinDavi