The U.S. "is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries," he said during a recent Congressional hearing.
Over the last two years, Congressional hearings on UFOs have introduced new terms to the popular vernacular. From hearings on Navy pilots who spotted a "Tic-Tac" UFO in 2004, we got the term "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAP). Then reports of strange objects hovering above the ocean gave us "Unidentified Submerged Objects" (USOs).
Now, believers and skeptics alike can add another new bit of vocabulary to the debate around these bizarre happenings, which may tie them all together: "Immaculate Constellation."
During last week's UAP hearings on Capitol Hill, multiple witnesses described the elaborately named program as an alleged information-gathering and evidence-retrieval program conducted by the Pentagon without Congressional oversight. The Immaculate Constellation program, they say, has been withholding a treasure trove of high-resolution images and other data about UAP sightings from the public for decades.
The November 13 hearings followed up on the June 2023 Congressional event in which retired Navy Comm. David Fravor and fellow pilot Lt. Comm. Alex Dietrich described how their F/A-18 Hornets spotted and chased a white "Tic-Tac"-shaped UAP for several minutes. According to analysis of radar tracks and grainy infrared video shot by the F/A-18s, the object displayed speeds of more than 45,000 miles per hour and pulled more than 2,000 Gs.
Jump ahead to 2024, and a new crop of believers have come forward about the function of Immaculate Constellation -- gathering reports of major UAP sightings and possible encounters; investigating possible crash or landing sites; and gathering physical UAP evidence, biological material, or technology.
"The U.S. military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information -- still photos, video photos, other sensor information -- and they have for a very long time," said journalist Michael Shellenberger, one of the witnesses at the November 13 hearing. Meanwhile, the public has only ever seen fuzzy photos of some of those incidents.
Shellenberger delivered an 11-page report to Congress during the hearing, detailing claims about Immaculate Constellation; he says a current or former official and UAP whistleblower authored the report.
The November testimony lineup also included one-time Air Force Intelligence officer David Grusch -- who claimed during a prior hearing last summer that crashed UAPs had not only been recovered and studied for reverse-engineering, but that "non-human biologics" had also been discovered inside -- and Lue Elizondo, who formerly headed the Pentagon's secretive UFO unit.
"Let me be clear: UAP are real," Elizondo said in his opening testimony. "Advanced technologies not made by our government -- or any other government -- are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries." Elizondo says it all adds up to a "multidecade, secretive arms race."
However, skeptics point to the fact that none of the assembled witnesses presented anything by way of physical evidence or direct testimony from the witnesses or whistleblowers referenced. Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough stated the Pentagon denies the existence of such a program, while representatives of the U.S. Government agency AARO (All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office) continue to claim there is no evidence that UAPs are alien in nature.
Avi Loeb, Ph.D. -- a physicist and professor at Harvard University who heads the Galileo Project, which seeks out alien intelligence or artifacts -- acknowledges the possibility of Immaculate Constellation, but highlighted the lack of any real proof. "All we have seen is written text," Loeb says. "No credible scientific evidence was made public."
Loeb says his firm belief is that all major nations have programs to "image or retrieve relics from crash sites." However, he insists the purpose of such programs is to learn about technologies developed by adversarial nations and manage reverse-engineering efforts to reproduce such technologies.
"There might also be biologics in such crash sites if the equipment carried pilots," he added. "The fundamental question is whether some of the data collected by these programs indicates an extraterrestrial technological origin. If such data exists, I would love to see it and help the Department of Defense or the Intelligence agencies figure out what it means."
Loeb generally questions the usefulness of the ongoing series of congressional hearings, stressing that it is unlikely any meaningful admissions will come from the U.S. government.
"The Galileo Project Observatory at Harvard University released its first commissioning data on half a million objects that it monitored in the sky over five months," Loeb says. "We also retrieved materials from the crash site of the first interstellar meteor in the Pacific Ocean."
Loeb promises his team will openly share with the public any data they collect and any discoveries they make.
"This standard scientific practice is far more informative than political maneuvers aimed to disclose classified information from stubborn government agencies," he says. "A robust answer to Enrico Fermi's old question of 'where is everybody?' will originate from scientists -- not from politicians or journalists."