The Mission, Activities, Oversight, and Budget of the All - Domain Anomaly Resolution Office

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We do not know where they are—they come from, who made
them, or how they operate. As former Deputy Secretary of Defense
David Norquist observed, had any of these objects had the label
‘‘made in China,’’ there would be an uproar in the Government and
media. There would be no stone unturned and no effort spared to
find out what we were dealing with.
We can look at the recent incursion of the unidentified PRC high-
altitude balloon as an example, and because of the UFO stigma,
the response has been irresponsibly anemic and slow.
Congress established AARO. We made it clear that we expect
vigorous action. We added very substantial initial funding for the
office. But despite our best efforts, the President’s budget for fiscal
years 2023 and 2024 requested only enough funding to defray the
operating expenses of AARO.
It included almost no funds to sustain the critical research and
development necessary to support a serious investigation. It took a
letter to Secretary Austin from Senator Rubio and me and 14 other
senators to get the office temporary relief for the current fiscal
year.
In this hearing, I intend to probe a series of specific issues. In
the recent incidents where multiple objects were shot down over
North America, it seemed that Pentagon leadership did not turn to
AARO office to play a leading role in advising the combatant com-
mander.
We need to know whether this will continue. We need to know
whether the leadership in DOD will bring AARO into the decision-
making process in a visible way and we need to know what role
AARO will play in interagency coordination after the NSC Working
Group disbands.
In the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense and Intelligence Au-
thorization Act Congress established a direct reporting chain from
the AARO director to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
The role of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intel-
ligence and Security is limited to providing administrative support.
We need to know how this direction is being implemented.
UAP are frequently observed flying in extremely high or very low
speeds and come in various sizes and shapes. During the recent
shoot downs over North America DOD disclosed that filters on
radar systems were adjusted to allow for detection and tracking of
diverse sets of objects for the first time. While opening the aperture
can overload the real-time analytic process, we cannot keep turning
a blind eye to surveillance data that is critical to detecting and
tracking UAP.
We need to know whether Dr. Kirkpatrick could achieve the nec-
essary control over sensor filters and the storage and access to raw
surveillance data to find UAP anomalies.
Finally, one of the tasks Congress set for AARO is serving as an
open door for witnesses of UAP events or participants in Govern-
ment activities related to UAPs to come forward securely and dis-
close what they know without fear of retribution for any possible
violations of previously signed nondisclosure agreements.
Congress mandated that AARO set up a publicly discoverable
and accessible process for safe disclosure. While we know that
AARO has already conducted a significant number of interviews,