How the Congressional UFO Hearings inspired bipartisanship
In late July, David Grush, former US military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower, appeared before the National Security Subcommittee of the House of Representatives. He testified that not only were UFOs real, but also their existence has been actively concealed by the United States government.
The allegations were shocking, but they were made more credible by Grush’s sterling credentials. Grush spent 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and was a member of Pentagon task forces investigating UFOs until early 2023.
Grush told the committee there was a “multi-decade” program to retrieve and reverse-engineer the technology of UFOs–known in the intelligence community as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
The depth of this program was certainly a cause for surprise. The Pentagon has investigated roughly 800 reports of UAPs as of May 2023. According to Grush, most of the program was funded through the “misappropriation of funds” designated elsewhere in the budget. He further characterized the entire project as being “above Congressional oversight.”
The discoveries Grush and other witnesses claimed the program had made were shocking. Former Navy commander David Fravor said that he and three other pilots saw a UFO in 2004. According to their description, the object was Tic-Tac shaped and possessed no visible rotors, wings or fuel exhaust. He claimed that the UFO then vanished, only to be spotted 60 miles away.
Grush spent four years interviewing 40 witnesses of UAPs and claimed that some of those people had found “nonhuman biologics” from crashed vehicles. Though Grush said that he could not elaborate due to the sensitive nature of the information, the Pentagon declared that no biologics were found.
The the existence of extraterrestrial life could upend what the human race knows about science and civilization, so it was only natural for the discoveries of the National Security Subcommittee to be at the forefront of the news cycle. Moreover, it seems the hearings have managed to do something nearly equally implausible: bringing Republicans and Democrats together.
During the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans managed to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, making it far more complicated for Democratic President Joe Biden to pass meaningful legislation. Even though President Biden previously pledged that he would be able to work with Republicans, bipartisanship has proved more difficult than anticipated.
From conflict-ridden discussions on the federal debt ceilings to regulating abortion in the wake of overturning Roe v. Wade, it seemed like Republicans and Democrats could not agree on anything at all.
There is factual evidence to support this perception. According to the Pew Research Centre, the two parties are, on average, further apart ideologically as of 2022 than any other time in the past 50 years. This is partially due to both parties growing more ideologically cohesive: Republicans have become much more conservative on average, as Democrats have become moderately more liberal.
Congress and the American political system at large seem incapable of reaching any form of consensus—except about aliens. After the UFO hearings, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, led by Republican Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, introduced an amendment to America’s defense spending bill.
Based on the legislation introduced to reveal government records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this bill would introduce more transparency to the current UAP documentation system. It requires agencies investigating these phenomena to hand over their records to a review board and justify any requests to keep things classified.
Around the same time, the House passed a highly contentious defense bill. It included amendments overturning policies covering abortion for members of the military, healthcare costs for transgender individuals, and diversity initiatives within the military. It was opposed, as is increasingly typical, on a mostly party-line vote, with only four Democrats in favour and four Republicans against it.
Politicians in America can agree about very little. But at least they have aliens.
