As has been alluded to here previously, the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022 is making its way through both chambers of Congress at the moment. This must-pass bill funds all manner of defense intelligence operations and resources. Last year’s version included one highly unusual section dealing with the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAP Task Force) and required a report to be given to Congress and to the public, which happened in June of this year. The new version contains an even bolder section, calling for the creation of a full-time office to investigate UFOs, collect data and seek to draw conclusions. This effort has an active champion in the House of Representatives now. He’s Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona. He chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, so he’s been in on all of the classified briefings concerning the UAP Task Force and their findings. And he simply isn’t satisfied with the level of seriousness his colleagues have been bringing to the subject, accusing many members of having a “total lack of focus” on this matter. (Politico)

Those who want to know if the truth is out there have a new champion in Congress. And he has an urgent message for the Pentagon: it’s time to take UFOs seriously.

Arizona Democrat and Iraq War veteran Rep. Ruben Gallego this week pushed through legislation in the House requiring a permanent office under the secretary of Defense to oversee “the timely and consistent reporting” of what the military calls “unidentified aerial phenomena.” And it must share what it learns with Congress at least once a year.

“There’s been a total lack of focus across the national security apparatus to actually get at what’s happening here,” Gallego, who chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, said in his first extensive interview on the bill.

Having a full-time, operational office with its own funding to oversee the efforts of our defense and intelligence communities in the investigation of these UAP would likely move the ball down the field. Thus far it has been a barely-funded effort that has produced scant results (that we know of), as we saw with the June report that was barely a dozen pages in length, most of which were boilerplate.

Gallego seems to feel that the potential for possible threats to national security from UAP justifies far more attention and action than it’s receiving at present. He believes there has been “a partial pastime of curiosity seekers” in the Defense Department who have failed to address the issue with the seriousness it deserves. That’s clearly true of at least some senior people in our military. In August, the Secretary of the Air Force was asked about the subject and they appeared to blow it off as a rather trivial matter.

Last month Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said he is not convinced UAPs are a serious enough issue to demand his attention.

“I don’t consider it an imminent threat to the United States or the human race, these phenomena occurring,” he said in response to a question from POLITICO. “I would have to see evidence that it was something worthy of the attention of the United States Air Force as a threat.”

Kendall told reporters that there are already a number of very real and serious threats the Air Force needs to defend against and he would prefer to focus on those. But like a good soldier, he went on to add, “However, if we’re asked to take that on, we will.”

Clearly Congressman Gallego has a hill ahead of him to climb if he wants this new office to live up to its full potential. Let’s hope that it’s not too steep of a hill. If our own government truly doesn’t know what these things are and they keep showing up in our restricted airspace, there are obvious concerns that need to be addressed. And the public deserves to know what is going on as well.