Transcript: Briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities - Open Hearing: April 19, 2023

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1 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, U.S.
2 SENATOR FROM NEW YORK
3 Senator Gillibrand: The hearing will come to order.
4 I would first like to thank our witness, Dr. Sean
5 Kirkpatrick, for testifying here and in today's earlier
6 closed session, and for his long and distinguished career
7 both in the intelligence community and in the Department of
8 Defense.
9 Dr. Kirkpatrick is the director of the All-Domain
10 Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO. Congress established
11 this office in law to get to the bottom of the very serious
12 problem of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.
13 Dr. Kirkpatrick has a very difficult mission. While we
14 have made progress there remains a stigma attached to these
15 phenomenon. There is a vast and complex citizen engagement
16 and there is also very challenging scientific and technical
17 hurdles.
18 So we appreciate the willingness of Dr. Kirkpatrick to
19 lean in on this issue and the work that he has accomplished
20 thus far and we look forward to both his opening statement
21 and his presentation of examples of the work AARO has done.
22 In late 2017 media reports surfaced about activities
23 set in motion by the late long-serving Majority Leader
24 Senator Harry Reid more than a decade ago. We learned that
25 there was strong evidence of advanced technology reflected