Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. Last year, Herb Strentz marked the 75th anniversary of the “flying saucer” phenomenon with this essay about the military’s investigations of UFO sightings.

Silly me. I thought I had been paying attention to the issues about which Iowans feel strongly.

You know, things like inflation, taxes, government spending, the war in Ukraine, a new farm bill, water quality, immigration, the federal debt. Those sorts of issues.

But I have spaced off a vital issue in the minds of some in Congress—an issue that apparently has been flying under the radar of Iowans. That issue is aliens from another world.

While Joe and Jane Iowan were fretting last week about drought and the effect of oppressive heat on crops, livestock, and humans, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives gathered in a hearing room on Capitol Hill.

The House Oversight Committee came together to get to the bottom of what a group of lawmakers see as a massive cover-up by the federal government—that cover-up being physical evidence of what some call nonhuman space vehicles, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. You might know these as UFOs, unidentified flying objects.

Should we stand to applaud the committee members for not overlooking this issue as they decide what merits their oversight? 

Yes, they could spend their time digging into any number of pressing issues. But who among us has not had a recent conversation with our neighbors about unidentified aerial anomalies? Who among us has not been fretting that our government is keeping us in the dark about the scope of the malevolent activity space aliens have been involved in?

David Grusch, a retired Air Force major and career military intelligence officer, has been one of those worriers. He was a star witness before the oversight committee last week—and some committee members were eager to hear his out-of-this-world claims.

Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, asked with a straight face, “Do we have the bodies of the pilots?”

Grusch replied that yes, non-human “biologics” have been recovered.

“You’ve said that the U.S. has intact spacecraft,” said Representative Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican. “You’ve said that the government has alien bodies or alien species. Have you seen the spacecraft?”

Because the committee hearing was open to the public, Grusch said he could not disclose “what I’ve seen firsthand.”

Grusch’s testimony did not surprise the committee. He has made statements previously that the federal government has “quite a number” of non-human space vehicles, that one is as large as a football field, that Pope Pius XII tipped the U.S. in 1933 about one such vehicle in the possession of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, that space aliens have harmed or killed humans here on Earth, that the U.S. government has possession of dead alien pilots, and that the government has hidden the truth about these other-worldly visitors for nearly 100 years through disinformation and assaults.

Sean Kirkpatrick, a career intelligence official, now heads the Pentagon’s Anomaly Resolution Office, where Grusch once worked. Kirkpatrick and his staff are responsible for investigating reports of devices that fly at unusual speeds or trajectories. He told Congress last year that his office has found “no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics.” 

He said in a statement last week that Grusch’s claims were insulting to government employees who investigate reports submitted by airplane pilots who have had aerial encounters with what they believe are objects moving faster and with more maneuverability that any planes known to exist.

The House Oversight Committee did not call Kirkpatrick as a witness last week. That was not an oversight. Some on the committee have demonstrated that they are more interested in feeding conspiracy theories than debunking them. 

The hearing last week was portrayed by some as more evidence of the federal government lying to the American people and covering up what the government supposedly has found. Even members who do not buy into the conspiracy theories believe the Pentagon and intelligence agencies need to be aggressive in investigating these reports of unexplained aerial phenomena — to protect airplane pilots and guard against U.S. adversaries developing weapons with never-before-seen capabilities.

Witnesses in a House intelligence subcommittee hearing in 2022 tried to tamp down conspiracy theories and assured members of Congress there was no confirmed extraterrestrial evidence. But there was no tamping down last week by the oversight committee.

Representative Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, asked Grusch whether people have been harmed or murdered in the government’s attempts to conceal extraterrestrial evidence. Grusch said he knew people who were harmed but had to be careful answering about any murders. Grusch could not provide any corroboration, he said, because that is classified.

Burchett said he wants the oversight committee to visit the locations where he believes alien space vehicles are being stored. “As soon as we announce it, I’m sure the moving vans pull up,” Burchett said.

Even without moving vans loaded with evidence, the House Oversight Committee accomplished its goals with the hearing last week: The committee distracted ordinary Americans for a few days from the issues they really want their elected representatives to tackle, and some on the committee tried to stoke doubt about whether the government can be trusted.

One of those ordinary Americans, a farmer friend in northern Iowa, summed up his feelings of frustration with this Facebook post: “We need to quit looking for intelligent life on Mars and start looking for intelligent life in Washington, D.C.”

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Editor’s note from Laura Belin: Here is the official video from the House Oversight Committee’s July 26 hearing on “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.” The top photo of David Grusch is a screenshot from this video.