The U.S. government is not being fully transparent about what it knows about UFOs, according to a journalist who just wrote a book on the topic.
Garrett Graff, author of “UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government’s Search for Alien Life Here — and Out There,” shared insights into his work as during an interview on NBC News Now with host Chuck Todd.
“There is something real here,” Graff said. “There are things out there in our airspace that we do not understand what they are and that those could represent exquisite new adversary technology, but they could also represent science that we don’t understand” in areas such as meteorology or astronomy.
WATCH: @vermontgmg says he's convinced the government is "covering up some level" of its knowledge of UFOs — but not "meaningful knowledge of alien spacecraft; alien visitors."
"I just don't see the extraordinary evidence or the fingers of a cover-up if that was the case." pic.twitter.com/Ms6HNIywJX
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023
“I believe that … the government is covering up some level of its knowledge and understanding about what some of those things are both in in terms of what chunk of that is our government’s own secret development programs — you know planes, drones, new technologies that we’re working on — as well as what we’re sensing and detecting of advanced adversary technology being tested against U.S. forces or around U.S. airspace,” he continued.
“What I’m unconvinced of,” Graff added, “is that the government is covering up meaningful knowledge of alien spacecraft, alien visitors, extraterrestrial contact — I just don’t see the extraordinary evidence or the fingers of the cover up that one would expect if that was in fact the case.”
Todd pressed Graff to comment on the recent strides by the U.S. government to publicly address unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) as reports of mysterious sightings grow and to engage with the scientific community.
Graff described there being a “shift” since 2017 — when The New York Times made waves with a report on the Pentagon’s secretive efforts to study UFOs — in which “serious people are talking seriously about this in the national security circles in Washington and on Capitol Hill.”
In recent months, there has been a push on Capitol Hill, led by a bipartisan group of House and Senate members to enact legislation to force more disclosures as part of a broader defense bill for the coming year. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), was also a guest on the program with Graff. “Our public wants to know what’s going on,” the congressman said.
But part of the “challenge” of identifying UAPs, Graff explained, is establishing a “baseline” with the help of sensors and other instruments for what may be zipping around the Earth on a typical basis. He did not completely rule out the prospect of extraterrestrial crafts, positing that they may be “passing all around us all of the time and we don’t have the technology adequate to notice” — considering factors such as size and movement speeds across a vast expanse.