Source: Vanity Fair

In 2004, two Navy pilots near San Diego encountered what they said was a strange aircraft: “whitish” in color, oval in shape, and capable of accelerating “like nothing I’ve ever seen,” one of the pilots would later tell the New York Times.

“I have no idea what I saw,” the pilot said to a colleague afterward.

That alleged encounter was among the incidents examined by a secret Pentagon program investigating unidentified flying objects, which was established in 2007 at the behest of then-Senator Harry Reid and revealed in a bombshell Times report ten years later. The revelation of a $22 million intelligence program aimed at investigating UFOs was stunning enough. But interest among lawmakers has only seemed to grow since the now-shuttered Pentagon program was revealed, suggesting that the possibility of alien encounters is something the United States government is taking seriously.

According to Politico, an increasing number of legislators have been requesting Pentagon briefings on UFOs—a sign, officials told the publication, of “growing congressional interest” in the topic. “There are people coming out of the woodwork,” a government official told the outlet. Three senators, including Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence committee, were reportedly briefed on Wednesday about encounters members of the Navy have described with unidentified aircraft. “If naval pilots are running into unexplained interference in the air,” Warner’s spokesperson said, “that’s a safety concern Senator Warner believes we need to get to the bottom of.” Other lawmakers apparently agree: “More requests for briefings are coming in,” an intelligence official told Politico.

What exactly those briefings have consisted of is unclear, but the mounting interest lends those with a belief in, or a curiosity about, the possibility of extraterrestrial life more fuel for speculation. The notion that the government knows more than it’s telling us has often figured into theories about alien life and claims of UFO sightings. Government actions in the last two years, including the briefings and steps by the Navy to formalize UFO reporting processes, would seem to feed into that dynamic.

Of course, none of this necessarily means we’re not alone, and U.S. officials and agencies have avoided putting on the tin-foil hats, casting procedural changes as national security concerns. “For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report,” the Navy told Politico in a statement in April. “As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities.” Still, the interest suggests that the government views such reports as credible enough to warrant attention. Reid, the retired senator who secured the $22 million in funding for the Pentagon study program, called for congressional hearings into the government’s UFO knowledge as recently as this month. “They would be surprised how the American public would accept it,” Reid said in an interview with Nevada Public Radio. “People from their individual states would accept it.”

Of course, not everybody has been swept up in the growing intrigue. Speaking to George Stephanopoulos in an extended ABC News interview last week, Donald Trump acknowledged having been briefed on the subject, but said he didn’t buy into it. “I want them to think whatever they think,” Trump said of Navy pilots who have reported seeing strange aircraft recently. “I’ve seen and I’ve read and I’ve heard, and I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.” Still, in true Trumpian fashion, he didn’t shut the door on the possibility completely. “We’ll watch it,” he told Stephanopoulos. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Source: Vanity Fair