Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida. speaks July 17, 2024 during the third day of the Republican National Convention. Luna is leading a task force that is hosting another round of testimony Sept. 9, 2025 into UFOs.
UFO testimony via military recounts 'nonhuman' pilots and 'superior tech'

Discussion of UFOs and assertions that the government knows more about them than it's letting on will once again fill the halls of Congress.

A House task force on government transparency is set to host a hearing Tuesday, Sept. 9 in which four witnesses will offer testimony under oath about their experiences with UFOs, as well as their perception that the military is being less than fully transparent about what exactly is behind the sightings.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, who chairs the task force, said in a statement that "American people deserve maximum transparency from the federal government on sightings, acquisitions, and examinations of UAPs and whether they pose a potential threat to Americans’ safety."

"Whistleblowers who provide details on spending information and policies and procedures regarding the classification and declassification of UAPs should be able to do so without retribution," Luna continued in the statement. "I look forward to hearing from witnesses on how the federal government can improve transparency and provide better answers on UAPs."

Luna's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets was established in February 2025 and is a separate House Oversight subcommittee from the one that last held a hearing on UFOs in November.

Here's what to know about the upcoming hearing, titled "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," and how to watch a livestream.

What does UFO mean?

UFOs are short for unidentified flying objects, which the government now refers to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. The new term is not only less stigmatized than UFOs, but is general enough to reflect that many of the objects in question are seen not just in the air, but the water.

What is the UFO hearing at Congress?

During the hearing, the witnesses will discuss their own first-hand experiences of seeing what they believed were UAP, as well as their knowledge of what the military and intelligence community may know about the phenomena.

The hearing will include discussion of what the Pentagon has – and may not have – disclosed about UAP and the Department of Defense's relativelt new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO,) tasked with investigating sightings.

When, how to watch the UAP hearing on Capitol Hill

The hearing begins at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, Sept. 9.

Watch it live here:

Who is testifying at Congressional UFO hearing?

Four people will testify at the hearing, including three military veterans and one journalist.

That includes:

  • Jeffrey Nuccetelli, U.S. Air Force Veteran
  • Chief Alexandro Wiggins, a Navy veteran and UAP Witness
  • George Knapp, a journalist who has gained widespread recognition for his coverage of UFOs. Knapp also is featured prominently in the Netflix documentary series "Investigation Alien."
  • Dylan Borland, a U.S. Air Force Veteran and UAP witness

What happened at the November congressional hearing on UFOs?

The hearing follows the latest round of testimony Nov. 14 in the halls of Congress about unexplained objects violating U.S. airspace and shadowy programs to recover and study downed craft.

During more than two hours of testimony, journalist Michael Shellenberger testified that sources had informed him that intelligence communities are in possession of numerous high-resolution photos and videos of the craft unlike any of the grainy imagery that has so far been declassified.

Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official, described a decades-long international arms race to obtain and reverse-engineer the strange vehicles so governments can bolster their own technology. In corroborating much of the testimony Pentagon intelligence official David Grusch offered in July 2023, Elizondo also accused the Department of Defense of hiding its UFO programs from Congress while misappropriating funds to operate them.

Elizondo lambasted the intelligence community for its decades of "excessive secrecy" around UAP reports – "all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos," he said.

Days after the hearing, the leader of the Pentagon's office to investigate UFOs provided testimony of his own. Jon T. Kosloski, the director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO,) reinforced the agency's stance that it has found no evidence that any of the craft reported were extraterrestrial in nature.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US Congress to host 3rd UFO hearing since 2023. Here's how to watch livestream

Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY

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