Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the transcript of an April 19, 2023 hearing of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, chaired by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. AARO Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick testified on the office's mission, budget, data collection and review of the historical record. He said AARO had found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity or off-world technology. He also presented trend data and two declassified MQ-9 videos, and one of them was resolved as a commuter aircraft.
15 I would love to followup about your risk management methodolo- gies for some of these. But do you need any authorities that you do not have to get the data you need? Dr. KIRKPATRICK. There are some authorities that we need. We currently are operating under title 10 authorities, but we have good relationships across the other agencies. Having additional authori- ties for collection tasking, counter-intelligence—— Senator ROSEN. That is something—— Mr. KIRKPATRICK.—those are all things that would be helpful, yes. Senator ROSEN. Thank you. Senator GILLIBRAND. To followup, Dr. Kirkpatrick, will you help us write that language so we can put it in the defense bill this year so that we know what authorities you need? Dr. KIRKPATRICK. We can do that. Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. We are going to start a second round. If you want to stay you can ask another round. I have at least three more questions. Senator ROSEN. I have about a million more questions. Senator GILLIBRAND. Do you want to go right now, in case you have to leave? Senator ROSEN. I feel like I do. Senator GILLIBRAND. Yes, go ahead. Senator ROSEN. If you could do that, that would be great. I am going to stay on the drones issue because, obviously, of the Air Force Base. We talked about those in—the last category is the Chi- nese spy balloon. It did cross through the United States airspace, shot down by a Sidewinder missile fired from an F–22. Sidewinders costs us close to half a million dollars each. Given the cost of these missiles, the cost per flight, all of these other things, like I said, a followup from the authorities or methodologies to data collection. They can help us in other ways. How do you think we can develop a sustainable, affordable re- sponse to UAPs where we need to that definitely violate our air- space every chance that they can get because they are adversaries. They want this information. What do you think some cost effective measures might be that we can get what we need out of that or take them down, whatever the appropriate measure is? Let us put it that way. Dr. KIRKPATRICK. That is actually wrapped into the plan ord that we are working with Joint Staff to send out. What do the com- mands need from both a capabilities perspective for kinetic and nonkinetic engagements, what are the response functions of the particular wings or Navy, what have you, and then what authori- ties do they need? One of the challenges that we have seen is there is an authorities issues with the owners, operators of those ranges that they need to work through and we are working that with the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Big picture, we need to do all that. If you want to get down to the specifics for—there are nonkinetic options to engage pretty much everything whether it is electronic warfare, whether it is laser technologies—— Senator ROSEN. That is where this data——
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