Witnesses to testify about UFOs today. What's happened since last UAP hearing in Congress?

• During more testimony Nov. 14, four witnesses described to Congress reports of strange craft out-maneuvering U.S. military aircraft and flying in ways beyond the capabilities of known human tech.
• Days after the hearing, the leader of the Pentagon's office to investigate UFOs provided testimony of his own refuting some of the claims.
• The topic of UFOs most recently reached Capitol Hill on May 1 during an informal daylong roundtable-style event.

Not even a year has gone by since Congress delved into the topic of UFOs, and now elected leaders are preparing to once again hear more testimony about mysterious airborne vehicles and claims of government cover-ups.

The upcoming hearing, which will include public testimony under oath from four new witnesses, is the third in as many years since a fiery hearing in July 2023 reignited public fascination in mysterious airborne craft. If that obsession had died down as the months went by, it was rekindled in November when House leaders explored the topic of UFOs once more.

The government has rebranded UFOs with its preferred acronym of UAP – short for unidentified anomalous phenomena. But the notion of mysterious objects hurtling through the air in a way that appears intelligently controlled is hard to seperate from the stigma of little green men and flying saucers.

And hours of compelling testimony about not just strange craft whizzing unchecked through U.S. air space, but about a concerted effort of our government to capture and study those craft does little to dispel those "X-Files"-esque associations. Especially in a nation where nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. government is concealing information about UFOs.

So, what can we expect from a third hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 9?

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, who chairs the task force holding the hearing, said in a statement that it's all about government transparency. 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.

Ahead of the next congressional hearing, set for 10 a.m. ET, here's what happened during and since Congress' last foray into UFOs.

UFO congressional hearing: 'We are not alone in the cosmos'

During more than two hours of testimony Nov. 14, four witnesses described to Congress reports of strange craft out-maneuvering U.S. military aircraft and flying in ways beyond the capabilities of known human technology.

In his opening remarks, Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official, 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. Elizondo resigned and went public in October 2017 after 10 years of running a Pentagon program to investigate UFO sightings.

Elizondo 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.

Timothy Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy; and Michael Shellenberger, a journalist who publishes the “Public” newsletter on Substack, also alluded in their testimony to images of UAP in the government's possession that have yet to be made public. Specifically, 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.

Michael Gold, a former NASA associate administrator, was the fourth witness to testify.

"I believe we as Americans can handle the truth," Elizondo said in November, "and I also believe the world deserves the truth."

Leader of Pentagon's UAP office testifies

Days after the hearing, the leader of the Pentagon's office to investigate UFOs provided testimony of his own.

That agency, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO,) came under heavy fire at the hearing when the witnesses blasted it for what they claimed were secrecy and spreading misinformation.

Many sightings AARO has historically investigated are reported by military fighter pilots, some of whom have captured footage on jets' cockpit gun cameras of UAP. But so far, the agency has repeatedly denied finding any evidence that the craft were extraterrestrial in nature.

Jon T. Kosloski, the newly-appointed director of AARO, reinforced those findings when he testified Nov. 19 in a Senate hearing, saying the office "has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology."

National Archives releases some UFO records

The impending briefing also comes after the National Archives released in late April some records related to reports of UFOs.

The National Archives was required to release the trove under a provision included in an annual defense policy bill directing the executive branch to declassify certain records.

UFO briefing takes place in Congress

The topic of UFOs most recently reached Capitol Hill on May 1 during an informal daylong roundtable-style event.

The gathering, billed as a briefing rather than a fullblown hearing, included a slate of experts in science, defense and technology who discussed with members of Congress how understanding the unexplained phenomena could lead to scientific breakthroughs and enhance national security.

The event was hosted by the UAP Disclosure Fund and was even moderated by Elizondo, who is on the nonprofit organizaition's board of directors. Also appearing at the briefing were Gold and Gallaudet, who joined the organization's advisory board in February 2025.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]m