The claim: The US government announced there are aliens
A July 27 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims there was a major announcement about the existence of extraterrestrial life.
“The U.S. announced that there are aliens and nobody gave af,” reads the post.
The post was shared more than 400 times in four days.
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Our rating: False
While three former military members testified at a House subcommittee hearing about so-called “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” the U.S. government has not announced or confirmed the existence of aliens. The Pentagon has denied hiding a program that collects and reverse engineers extraterrestrial material.
Witnesses testified at congressional hearing, but government hasn’t confirmed aliens exist
The post is alluding to a July 26 hearing of a House Oversight subcommittee, during which three former military members testified about their knowledge of UAPs, or “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” a term used by the U.S. government to refer to UFOs, or “unidentified flying objects,” as USA TODAY previously reported.
The hearing’s stated purpose was to discuss the potential national security threats posed by such phenomena, but during more than two hours of testimony, the witnesses also described the government’s supposed efforts to suppress reports of strange encounters.
David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, repeated claims he made in an earlier interview with NewsNation, saying he was aware of a government program that retrieves and reverse engineers UAPs. He also claimed the U.S. has been aware of “nonhuman” activity since the 1930s, referring to the otherworldly pilots as nonhuman “biologics.”
But witnesses testifying about UAPs at a congressional hearing isn’t the same as the government announcing the existence of extraterrestrial beings, as the post claims. There is no evidence the government has made such a historic announcement. In fact, the Pentagon has already denied Grusch’s claims.
Fact check: Videos from town halls altered to show Biden describing alien encounter
In a statement to the Associated Press, Defense Department spokesperson Sue Gough said investigators have not discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”
Sean Kirkpatrick, who leads the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, called the claims “insulting” to government employees investigating sightings, ABC News reported.
The topic was thrust into the mainstream in 2017 when The New York Times published details of a program to track and study reports of UAPs. In 2020, the Pentagon released three grainy videos of UAPs described in that report.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
- Committee on Oversight and Accountability, July 26, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency
- CBS News, July 27. What are UAPs, and why do UFOs have a new name?
- USA TODAY, July 26, Witnesses call for increased military transparency on UFOs during hearing: ‘Long overdue’
- USA TODAY, Dec. 17, 2022, Pentagon has received ‘several hundreds’ of new UFO reports, no evidence of alien life yet
- USA TODAY, April 27, 2020, ‘Unidentified aerial phenomena’: Pentagon declassifies 3 leaked US Navy UFO videos
- NewsNation, June 11, We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaks
- Associated Press, July 26, Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing ‘multi-decade’ program that captures UFOs
- Defense Department, July 20, 2022, DoD Announces the Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
- ABC News, July 28, The UFO congressional hearing was ‘insulting’ to US employees, a top Pentagon official says
- The New York Times, Dec. 16, 2017, Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program
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