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Kirsten Gillibrand 00:12
Hearing will come to order. I’d first like to thank our witness, Dr. Shawn Kirkpatrick for testifying here and in today’s earlier closed session, and for as long and distinguished career, both in the intelligence community and in the department defense, Dr. Kirkpatrick is the director of the all domain anomaly resolution office or arrow, Congress established this office in law to get to the bottom of the very serious problem of unidentified anomalous phenomenon or UAP. Dr. Kirkpatrick has a very difficult mission. While we have made progress, there remains a stigma attached to these phenomenon. There is a vast and complex citizen engagement. And there’s also very challenging scientific and technical hurdles. So we appreciate the willingness of Dr. Kirkpatrick to lean in on this issue and the work that he has accomplished thus far. And we look forward to both his opening statement and his presentation of examples of the work arrow has done. In late 2017, m edia reports surfaced about activity set in motion. By the late long serving Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid more than a decade ago, we learned that there was strong evidence of advanced technology reflected in the features and performance characteristics of many objects observed by our highly highly trained service members operating top of the line military equipment. We learned that for at least the past eight years, military pilots frequently encountered or unknown objects in controlled airspace off both the east and west coast across the continental United States. In test and training areas and ranges. We don’t 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 will be an uproar in the government and media, there would be no stone unturned and no efforts spare to find out what we were dealing with. We can look at the recent incursion of the unidentified PRC high altitude balloon for as an example, because EPA because of the UFO stigma, the response has been irresponsibly anemic and slow. Congress established arrow 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 was 23 and 24, requested only enough funding to defray the operating expenses of arrow. 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 tend to probe a series of specific issues. And the recent incidents where multiple objects were shot down over North America, it seems that Pentagon leadership did not turn to arrow office. To play a leading role in advising the combatant commander, we need to know whether this will continue. We need to know whether the leadership and DOD will bring arrow into the decision making process in a visible way. And we need to know what role arrow will play in inter agency coordination after the NSC Working Group disbands. In the fiscal year 2023. national defense and intelligence authorization acts Congress established a direct reporting chain from the arrow director to the Deputy Secretary of Defense the role of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence 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 shutdowns over North America. DOD disclosed 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 can achieve the necessary control over sensor filters and the storage and access to raw surveillance data to find UAP anomalies. Finally, one of the TAs congress set for Arrow is serving as an open door for witnesses of UAP events, or participants in government activities related to UAPs to come forward securely and disclose what THEY KNOW without fear of retribution. For any possible violations of previously signed non disclosure agreements. Congress mandated that arrow set up a publicly discoverable and accessible process for Safe Disclosure. Well, we know that arrow has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process that that and we need to know where that effort stands. With that I’d like to turn to Senator Ernst for her opening statement.
Joni Ernst 04:32
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you Dr. Kirkpatrick for your testimony today. I’ll keep these remarks very brief so that we have maximum time for your briefing. The recent downing of the Chinese surveillance surveillance balloon and three other objects underscores the need for Domain Awareness. Adversaries like China and Russia are working to hold us interests including our homeland at risk. That’s why your testimony is so important. So look forward to a progress update on the establishment of your office. As members know your office evolved from the Navy led unidentified aerial phenomena task force to the all domain anomalous resolution office known as arrow. Dr. Kirkpatrick, your extensive background in science and technology, research and development and space makes you well suited to discuss these emerging challenges. My priority is that we understand the full range of threats posed by our adversaries in all domains. That is what the joint force needs to be prepared to fight and win in defense of our nation. This committee needs to know about Chinese or Russian advanced technology programs to exploit our vulnerabilities and it needs to know whether your office along with the IC has detected potential Chinese or Russian capabilities to surveil or attack us. Finally, we need to ensure efficient interagency coordination. multiple elements of the DOD and I see own a piece of this mission to add value arrows efforts cannot be redundant with others. Thank you again, we look forward to your testimony.
Kirsten Gillibrand 06:16
Dr. Kirkpatrick, you can give your testimony.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 06:20
Thank you, Chairwoman geo brand, Ranking Member Ernst, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It’s a privilege to be here today to testify on the defense defenses efforts to address unidentified anomalous phenomena. First, I want to thank Congress for its extensive and continued partnership as the department works to better understand and respond to UAP. In an effort to minimize technical and intelligence surprise, unidentified objects in any domain pose potential risks to safety and security, particularly from military personnel and capabilities. Congress and DOD agree that UAP cannot remain unexamined or unaddressed. We are grateful for sustained congressional engagement on this issue, which paved the way for the DoD establishment of the old domain anomaly resolution office in July of last year. Though arrow is still young office, the spotlight on UAP in recent months underscores the importance of its work and the need for UAP to be taken seriously as a matter of national security. All leadership that I’ve had the pleasure of working with whether dod i see DOD, civil, scientific or industrial view Congress as a critical partner in this endeavor. Arrow has accomplished much in the last nine months since it was established. The Aero team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas operations, scientific research, integrated analysis and strategic communications. And the nine months since arrows establishment, we’ve taken important steps to involve and improve UAP data collection, standardize the department’s UAP internal reporting requirements, and implement a framework for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis, allowing us to resolve cases in a systematic and prioritized manner. Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction arrow is also carefully reviewing and researching the US government’s UAP related historical record. Arrow is leading a focused effort to better characterize, understand and attribute UAP with priority given the UAP reports by DOD and IC personnel in or near areas of national security importance. DOD fully appreciates the eagerness for many quarters, especially here in Congress and in the American public to quickly resolve every UAP encountered across the globe from the distant past through today. It’s important to note however, arrow is the culmination of decades of DOD intelligence community and congressionally directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered first and foremost by US military personnel, specifically navy and air force pilots. The law establishing aero is ambitious, and it will take time to realize the full mission. We cannot answer decades of questions about UAP all at once, but we must begin somewhere. While I assure you that arrow will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads. I ask for your patience as DoD first prioritizes safety and security of our military personnel and installations in all domains. After all, a UAP encountered first by highly capable DOD and IC platforms, featuring the nation’s most advanced sensors are those UAP most likely to be resolved by my office, assuming the data can be collected. If arrow succeeds in first improving the ability of military personnel to quickly and confidently resolve UAP they encounter. I believe that in time we will have greatly advanced the capability of the entire United States government including its civilian agencies to resolve UAP However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DOD and ice alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. Arrows ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency industry partners, academia and the scientific community as well as the public. AARO is partnering with the services intelligence community, DOD as well as civil partners and across the US government to tap into the resources of the interagency. The UAP challenge is more an operational and scientific issue than it is an intelligence issue. As such, we are working with industry, academia and the scientific community which bring their own resources, ideas and expertise to this challenging problem set. Robust collaboration and peer review across a broad range of partners will promote greater objectivity and transparency in the study of UAP. I want to underscore today that only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to arrow demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons unmanned aerial systems clutter natural phenomena or other readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases in our holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution, and I will not close the case that I cannot defend the conclusions of. I recognize that this answer is unsatisfying to those who in good faith assume that what they see with their eyes with their cameras and worth their radars is incontrovertible evidence of extraordinary characteristics and performance. Yet time and again with sufficient scientific quality data, it is fact that UAP often, but not always, resolve into readily explainable sources. Humans are subjected to deception and illusions sensors to unexpected responses and malfunctions, and in some cases, intentional interference. Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of Arrow. That is not to say that UAP once resolved are no longer of national security interest. However, on the contrary, learning that a UAP isn’t of exotic origin, but is instead just a quadcopter, or balloon leads to the question of who is operating that quadcopter and to what purpose? The answers to those questions will inform potential national security or law enforcement responses. Arrow is a member of the department’s support to the administration’s tiger team effort to deal with stratospheric objects such as the PRC high altitude balloon. While when previously unknown objects are successfully identified, it is Arrow’s role to quickly and efficiently hand off such readily explainable objects to the intelligence law enforcement or operational safety communities for further analysis and appropriate action. In other words, arrows mission is to turn UAP into SCP, somebody else’s problem.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 13:21
The US government the DOD and the IC in particular has tremendous capabilities to deal with those encountered objects. In the wake of the PRC hab event. The interagency is working to better integrate and share information to address identifiable stratospheric objects, but that is not all arrows lane. Meanwhile, for the few cases in all domains space, air and sea that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, Arrow exists to help the DoD IC and interagency resolve those anomalous cases. In doing so AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity, and analytic rigor. This includes physically testing and employing modeling and simulation validate our analyses and underlying theories, then peer reviewing those results within the US government, industry partners and appropriately cleared academic institutions before reaching any conclusions. I should also state clearly for the record that in our research arrow has found no credible evidence thus far of extra terrestrial activity offworld technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data wherever obtained, that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin. We are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA, to appropriately inform us government’s leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously and subsequently commented on by the US government. I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible peer reviewed scientific journal. US arrow is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media. We know that there is tremendous public interest in UAP and a desire for answers from Arrow. By its very nature, the UAP challenge has for decades lent itself to mystery, sensationalism, and even conspiracy. For that reason, Eero remains committed to transparency, accountability and to sharing as much with the American public as we can, consistent with our obligation to protect not only intelligence sources and methods, but US and allied capabilities. However, arrows work will take time if we are committed to do it, right. It means adhering to the scientific method, and the highest standards of Research Integrity. It means being methodical and scrupulous. It means withholding judgment in favor of evidence, it means following the data where it leads wherever it leads. It means establishing scientific peer reviewed theoretical underpinnings of observed data. An arrow is committed to all of those standards. I’m proud of arrows progress over the last nine months, months, much remains to be done, but the hard work is underway. Thank you for your continued support. And before we turn to questions, I’m going to walk you through some of our analytical trends in a couple of cases that we’ve prepared. So one of the things that arrow does is high integrity analysis. As I’ve said, This chart represents the trend analysis of all the cases in arrows holdings right to date. What you’ll see on the left is a histogram of all of our reported sightings as a function of altitude. So most of our sightings occur in the 15 to 25,000 foot range. And that is ultimately because that’s where a lot of our aircraft are. On the far right upper corner, you’ll see a breakout of the morphologies of all of the UAP that are reported. Over half about 52% of what’s been reported to us are round, or spheres. The rest of those breakout into all kinds of different other shapes. The gray box is essentially there is no data on what its shape is either it wasn’t reported or the sensor did not collect it. The bottom map is a heat map of all reporting areas across the globe that we have available to us. What you’ll notice is that there is a heavy what we call collection bias both in altitude and in geographic location. That’s where all of our sensors exist. That’s where our training ranges are. That’s where our operational ranges are. That’s where all of our platforms are. In the middle, what we have done is reduce the most typically reported UAV characteristics to these fields, mostly round mostly one to four meters, white silver, translucent metallic 10,000 30,000 feet. With apparent velocities from stationary to Mach two, no thermal exhausts usually detected, we get intermittent radar returns, we get intermittent radio returns, and we get intermittent thermal signatures. That’s what we’re looking for, and trying to understand what that is. Next slide. So I’m going to walk you through two cases that we’ve declassified recently. This first one is an MQ nine in the Middle East, observing that blow up which is an apparent spherical object vo EO centers those are not IR if you want to go ahead and click that and play it you’ll see it come through the top of the screen, there it goes and then the camera will slew to follow it. You’ll see it pop in and out of the screen field of view there. This is essentially all of the data we have associated with this event from some years ago. It is going to be virtually impossible to fully identify that just based off of that video. Now what we can do and what we are doing is keeping that as part of that group of 52% to see what are the similarities, what are the trends across all these do we see these in a particular distribution? Do they all behave the same or not? As we get more data, we will be able to go back and look at these in a fuller context. How are we going to get more data, we are working with the joint staff to issue guidance to all the services and commands that will then establish what are the reporting requirements, the timeliness, and all of the data that is required to be delivered to us and retained from all the associated sensors. That historically hasn’t been the case. And it’s been happenstance that data has been collected. Next slide. This particular event, South Asia MQ nine, looking at another MQ nine, and what’s highlighted there in that red circle is an object that flies through the screen. Unlike the previous one, this one actually shows some really interesting things that everyone thought was truly anomalous to start with. First of all, it’s a high speed object, it’s flying in the field of regard of two MQ nines, second appears to have this trail behind it. All right, which, at first blush, you would think that looks like a propulsion trail. In reality, if you want to play the first slide, we’ll show you what that looks like in real time, first video. So we’re looking at that, there it goes. Once you play it again, and then pause it halfway through, right there. Alright, you might be able to see that trail there behind it. That’s actually not a real trail that is a sensor artifact. Each one of those little blobs is actually a representation of the object as it’s moving through. And later in the video as the as the camera slews, that trail actually follows the direction of the camera, not the direction of the object. We pulled these apart frame by frame, we were able to demonstrate that that is essentially a readout overlap of the image it’s a it’s a shadow image, right? It’s not real. Further, if you later, follow this all the way to end, it starts to resolve itself into that blob that’s in that picture on the top of that, right. And if you squint, it looks like an aircraft, because it actually turns out to be an aircraft, go ahead and put that on. So you’ll see the tail sort of pop out there. And so what you’re looking at is this is in the infrared. This is the heat signature off of the engines have a commuter aircraft that happened to be flying in the vicinity of where those two MQ nines were at.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 22:50
Why am I showing you this? So the first one that I showed you, we don’t have resolved yet, right, that is an unresolved case, we are still studying this one we can resolve. But this is the kind of data that we have to work with, then the type of analysis that we have to do, which can be quite extensive when you have to pull these apart, frame by frame. Further, we’re now matching all of this with the models of all of those imaging sensors so that I can say, I can recreate this, I can actually show how the other sensors going to respond. All of these sensors don’t necessarily respond the way you think they do, especially out in the world and in the field. And I believe that’s all I have. And I will open it up for your questions. Thank you
Kirsten Gillibrand 23:42
so much. Dr. Kirkpatrick, can you just give us some raw numbers of how many UAPs you’ve analyzed? How many have been resolved and sort of in what buckets and then how many are still left to be resolved just an update from your January public report where it was 366 or something and about 150 were were balloons and about two dozen were drones. You know, just give us an update if you have one
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 24:08
or so as of this week, we are tracking over a total of 650 cases. Now, the report in January basically said about half of the ones at that time about 150 were balloon were likely balloon like or something like that. That doesn’t mean they’re resolved. Oh, I see. So what let me when we walk everyone through what our analytic process looks like. We have a essentially a five step process right? So we have we get our cases and with all the data we create a case for that event. Might team does a preliminary scrub of all of those cases as they come in just to sort out do we have any information that says this is in In one of those likely categories, it’s likely a balloon, it’s likely a balloon, bird, it’s likely some other object, or we don’t know. Then we prioritize those based off of where they are. Are they attached to a national security area? Does it show some anomalous phenomenology that is of interest, if it’s just if it’s just a spherical thing that’s floating around with the, with the wind and it has no payload on it, that’s going to be less important than something that has a payload on it, which will be less important than something that’s maneuvering. Right. So there’s, there’s sort of a hierarchy of just binning the priorities, because we can’t do all of them at once. Once we do that, and we prioritize them when we take that package of data in that case, and I have set up two teams, think of this as a Red Team Blue team or a competitive analysis. I have an intelligence community team made up of intelligence analysts. And I have an s&t team made up of scientists and engineers, and the people that actually build a lot of these sensors are physicists, because you know, if you’re a physicist, you can do anything, right. And, but they’re not associated with the intel community. They’re, they’re not Intel officers. So they they look at this through the lens of the sensor of that what the data says, we give that package to both teams, the intelligence community is going to look at it through the lens of the intelligence record, and what they assess, and their intel tradecraft, which they have very specific rules and regulations on how they do that scientific community technical community is going to look at it through the lens of what is the data telling me? What is the sensor doing? What would I expect a sensor response to be? And back that out? Those two groups give us their answers. We then adjudicate if they agree, then I am more likely to close that case, if they agree on what it is, if they disagree, we will have an adjudication. We’ll bring them together, we’ll take a look at the differences will adjudicate What Why do you say one thing and you say another, we will then come to a case recommendation that will get written up by my team. That then goes to a Senior Technical Advisory Group, which is outside of all of those people, made up of senior technical folks and Intel analysts and operators from retired out of the community. And they, they essentially peer review what that case recommendation is. They write their recommendations that comes back to me, I review it, we make a determination, and I’ll sign off one way or the other. And then that will go out as the case determination. Once we have an approved web portal to hang the unclassified stuff, we will do, you know, we would downgrade and declassified things and put it out there. In the meantime, we’re putting a lot of these on our classified web portal, where we can then collaborate with the rest of the community so they can see what’s going on. That’s in a nutshell, that is the process. Right? So because of that, that takes time. So of those over 650, you know, we’ve prioritized about half of them to be of of anomalous interesting value. And now we have to go through those and go, How much do I have actual data for? Because if I all I have is a is a operator report that says I saw XY or Z, my assessment is A, B, or C, that’s not really sufficient, that’s a good place to start. But I have to have data, I have to have radar data, I have to have EEO data, I have to have thermal data, I have to have overhead data. And we need to look at all that. Now, from a big picture perspective, I still have that’s all they’re still very valuable data. And we’re looking at applying a lot of things, new tools, analytic tools, like natural language processing. So I can go across all of those reports and look for commonalities how many of them are being described as round spherical objects that are maneuvering, how many of them are not maneuvering, how many of them seem to have plume to it or note that’s also going to be very valuable to give us more of a global picture and a trends analysis of what are we saying and help us get to the determination. So go back to your question, ma’am. We have Have this next quarterly report, we’ll be coming out here pretty soon. Our next annual report, you all have given us moved it up to two June, July, we’re going to be having that done about that timeframe. And we will have a, we’ll be combining a whole number of reports into that one. I think well, we’re currently sitting at around. If I remember correctly, we’re around 20 to 30 ish are about halfway through that analytic process. A handful of them have made it all the way out to the other side, gone through peer review, we’ve got case closure reports done and signed. We’re gonna get faster as we get more people on board. And we get more of the community tools to automate some of the analysis that has to be done.
Joni Ernst 31:00
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And Dr. Kirkpatrick, the ODNI annual Threat Assessment states that China’s space activities are designed to erode US influence across military, technological, economic and diplomatic spheres. Likewise, Russia will remain a key space competitor. In the course of your work, have you become aware of any Chinese or Russia technical advancements to surveil or attack us interests?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 31:32
So that’s a great question. Part of what we have to do as we go through these, especially the ones that show signatures of advanced technical capabilities, is determine if there’s a foreign Nexus that’s really hard if what we observe doesn’t have a Chinese or Russian flag on the side of it. Now, I think it is prudent to say, of the of the cases that are showing, you know, some sort of advanced technical signature of which we’re talking single percentages of the entire population of cases we have. I am concerned about what that nexus is, and I have indicators that some are related to foreign capabilities. We have to investigate that with our IC partners. And as we get evidence to support that, that gets then handed off to the appropriate ice agency to investigate. Again, it becomes an SVP at that point,
Joni Ernst 32:47
somebody else’s problem. Right. Good. Thank you. Yes. Is it? Is it? Is it possible that the Chinese or Russian advanced technologies could could be causing some of these anomalous behaviors? And and you said, there seems to be some indicators. So just for us today, could you describe a potential threat that might exist out there if they are foreign? Sure. Nexus
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 33:19
you know, order to do this research appropriately. We have to also be cognizant of what is the state of the art and development across the s&t community? What is What are the DARPA’s of the world doing? What are? What’s the horizon scanning of emerging technologies appropriate to this subcommittee? What is happening out there? And if somebody could accelerate that capability? How would that manifest itself? And what would it look like? And do those signatures match what we’re seeing? There are emerging capabilities out there that that, in many instances, Russia and China, well, China in particular, are on par or ahead of us in some areas? Right. So previously, I used to be the Defense Department’s intelligence officer for science and technical intelligence. That was our job was to look for what does all that look like? And then, you know, my last several years of course, in Space Command doing space. The, the adversary is not waiting. They are advancing and they’re advancing quickly. If I were to put on some of my old hats, I would tell you, they are less risk averse at technical advancement than we are. Right? They are just willing to try things and see if it works. Are there capabilities that could be employed against us? send both an ISR and a weapons fashion. Absolutely. Do I have evidence that they’re doing it in these cases? No, but I have concerning indicators.
Joni Ernst 35:14
Thank you. I appreciate that. And that’s, that is why it’s so important that you are working with the intelligence community as well. Because you you have the science, the data background, but you also need to know, from various sources, what adversaries may be working on. Correct, correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Jacky Rosen 35:39
Well, thank you, Chair jelibean. Ranking Member Ernst, this is a really important hearing. I’d like to thank you Dr. Kirkpatrick for your service to the country. And as a former systems analyst, myself, I really appreciate your flowchart the description of the process, and particularly the trends analysis going forward, how that’s going to help us and he’s talked about language, the large LLM is a large language models of artificial intelligence that’s really going to help us in the hunt forward, predictive analysis, I think, to some of your point, but we’ve been worried about but I want to focus on Nevada because I want to talk about the impact of UAPs on aviation safety. So when it comes to identify unidentified aerial phenomenal phenomenon, excuse me, one of my first concerns is really about the safety of Nevada’s military aviator. So we have airmen stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, naval aviators flying at Naval Air Station falen, and service members across from across the world training at the Nevada test and training range. I know you know all this and unfortunately, the existence of advanced UAPs in the US airspace, and over US military installations, not a new phenomenon. The Navy’s officially acknowledged that between 2004 and 2021 11, near misses occurred involving UAPs that required pilot action and follow up reports. As a result in 2019, the Navy establish a protocol for pilots to report on their dangerous encounters. So could you speak to any ongoing efforts within DOD to ensure the safety of our aviators with a potential UAP encounter? And what’s your relationship with NORTHCOM NORAD space comm when it comes to this immediate real time response? And how they’re there? They’re right there in the moment, right?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 37:30
That’s a great question. So let me start with my relationship with the commands are very good. I just came back from sitting down with with General van Herk. And all the all the J staff at at North COMM A couple of weeks ago, talking through exactly what we need to do to help them get their arms around this. We are also working very closely with joint staff and the Joint Staff has just been very outstanding in helping work through policy and guidance issues to the forces and to the services. And I would like to just make sure that we we message back to all of the operators the importance of their reporting, and the fact that you’re about to get, you know, a bunch of new requirements that we’re issuing through the joint staff, on all of the data that we’re going to need you to save and report back to us. It is invaluable. And we are working to try to take the most advantage of that to learn what it is that we’re trying to mitigate. To get directly to your question. First thing that we’re doing is we’re normalizing our reporting. Right, we’re standardizing our reporting and the requirements associated with that guidance from the joint staff I think goes out maybe this week. Maybe next week on that we’ve been working with them for some months, that does exactly what I just said. It’s it gives them timelines, it gives them requirements it gives them here’s all the data you have to have. And you got to retain it. The next thing that comes after that is a plan ord that will go out to the commands for mitigation and response. So there’s a couple of things that we have to do. One, I need to work with the commands and with the IC and with our outside of our DOD and IC partners to extend our collection posture targeted at some of these key areas that you saw on that heat map that have a lot of activity, so that we can turn on extra collection when an operator sees something. So part of this is generating it as a response function and what we call a tactic technique and procedure for an operator when he sees something calls back to the operations floor. They can turn on additional collection. What does that collection look like? How do I bring all that together so I can get more data on what is that thing?
Jacky Rosen 40:02
Can Can I ask really quickly Drew, have the authorities you need to extend your collection posture between agencies or branches of the military? Because that seems to me to maybe be a sticking point. I know my time is just about up. I’d love to follow up about your risk management methodologies for some of these, but do you have need any authorities that you don’t have to get
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 40:25
get the data or some authorities that we need? We currently are operating under Title 10 authorities, but we have good relationships across the other agencies but having additional authorities for collection tasking, counterintelligence, something, those are all things that would be helpful. Yes.
Jacky Rosen 40:42
Thank you to follow up. Dr.
Kirsten Gillibrand 40:43
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. Sean Kirkpatrick 40:50
We can do that.
Kirsten Gillibrand 40:51
Thank you. We’re gonna start second round. So if you want to stay you can ask another round. I have at least three more questions. So do you want to do you want to go right now? So you in case you have to leave? Yeah, go ahead. I’m gonna stay
Jacky Rosen 41:17
the Chinese spy balloon it did crosser the US airspace shut down by a sidewinder missile, fired from an F 22. Sidewinders costs us close to half a million dollars each. So given the cost of these missiles, the cost per flight, all of these other things, like I said, Follow up on the authorities, your methodologies, the data collection, they can help us in other ways. But how do you think we can develop a sustainable, affordable response to UAPs where we need to that may that will definitely violate our airspace, not may definitely violate our airspace every chance that they can get, because there are adversaries, they want this information. So 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 is appropriate, whatever the appropriate measure is? Let’s put it that
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 42:08
that is actually wrapped into the plan or that we’re working with joint staff to send out what are the commands need from both a capabilities perspective for kinetic and non kinetic engagements? What are the response functions of the of the particular wings or, or navy, what have you? And then what authorities do they need? So one of the one of the challenges that we’ve seen is, is you know, there’s an authorities issues with the with the owners, operators of those ranges that they need to work through. And we’re working that with joint staff and OSD. So big picture, we need to do all that. If you want to get down to the specifics for you know, there are non kinetic options to engage pretty much everything, right? Whether it’s electronic warfare, whether it’s laser technologies for this
Jacky Rosen 43:02
data. That’s right, good data collection, predictive analytics, you can, in simple form, make some assumptions on possibilities.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 43:11
That’s right. And we will inform recommendations back to the department on here’s what could work. Here’s what we’ve seen work. Here’s what doesn’t work.
Jacky Rosen 43:19
Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it.
Kirsten Gillibrand 43:22
Thank you very much. I just wanted to just talk a little bit about your logistics, who you report to how that’s going. Whether you need different reporting lines. By congressional legislation. Your office is administratively located with the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence security, but you’re not substantively subordinate to the undersecretary. Rather, you are a direct report to the deputy secretary, are you taking direction directly from the deputy secretary? Are you able to meet and brief the deputy secretary is the office of USD ins working with you to have the right framework?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 43:58
So USDA ins the I currently report to USDA ins until they come up with the plan for how they’re going to implement legislation. DOD and DNI are working through that now. I’d have to refer you back to Usdi ins on what their plan is.
Kirsten Gillibrand 44:27
Do I need to update your reporting structure in the next defense bill? Or is this something that you think will work its way out? Or does it need further clarity?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 44:35
I think they’re planning on coming back to you with an answer on what that plan is. And I think at that time that will inform what you want to do.
Kirsten Gillibrand 44:44
Okay, thank you. As you know, Dr. Kirkpatrick, Congress has mandated that your office establish a discoverable and accessible electronic method for potential witnesses of UAP incidents and potential participants in government UIP related activities to contact your office and tell their stories. Congress also set up a process whereby people are subject to non disclosure agreements preventing them from disclosing what they may have witnessed or participated in could tell you what they know that risk of retribution from the or violation of their NDAs. Have you submitted a public facing website product for approval to your superiors? And how long has it been under review?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 45:24
I have we submitted the first version of that before Christmas.
Kirsten Gillibrand 45:31
And do you have an estimate from them when they will respond? Or when you’ll have feedback on that?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 45:37
No, I don’t. Okay,
Kirsten Gillibrand 45:39
we will author a letter asking for that timely response to your superiors. When When do you expect that you will establish a public facing discoverable and access portal for people to use to contact your office as the law requires?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 45:57
So I would like to first say thank you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that we’ve brought in nearly two dozen. So far, it’s been it’s been very helpful. I’d ask that you continue to do that until we have an approved plan. We have a multi phased approach for doing that, that we’ve been socializing and have submitted for approval, some time. Once that happens, then we should be able to push all that out and get get this a little more automated. Great. What I would ask though, is as you all continue to refer to us and refer witnesses to us, I’d appreciate if you do that. Please try to prioritize the ones that you want to do, because we do have a small research staff dealing with that.
Kirsten Gillibrand 46:53
Thank you. And then do you have any plans for public engagement that you want to share now that you think it’s important that the public knows what the plan is?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 47:03
So we have a a number of public engagement recommendations, according to our strategic plan, all of those have been submitted for approval, they have to be approved by USDA and s. We are waiting for approval to go do that. Okay, I
Kirsten Gillibrand 47:22
will follow up on that. And then my last question is about the integration of departments UAP operations, research, analysis and strategic communications. During the recent UAP incidents over North America, it didn’t appear that you were allowed to play that role. Do you agree that the public perception is generally that you and your office did not appear to play a major role in the department’s response to the detection of objects over North America? What can you tell us that’s going on behind the scenes from your perspective? And in the after action assessment process? Is there awareness that there is a need to operate differently in the future and a commitment to doing so
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 48:03
when the when the objects were first detected, I got called by joint staff leadership to come in late one night to review events as they were unfolding unfolding, and to give them an assessment based on what we knew at that time. I did that worked with the director, Joint Staff, the j two and the J three. That night and over the couple of following days on? What are the types of things that we are tracking from a unidentified object perspective? What databases do we use those sorts of things for, for norm for known objects known tracking? Beyond that, the response I would have to, I would have to refer you back to the White House for the decision on how they did the response. We did not play a role and what you would respond other than that initial, you know, advice on what we are seeing and how we are seeing
Joni Ernst 49:10
came out. Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Kirkpatrick, I know that your office has gotten a lot of attention recently. And of course, any new agency there tends to be a push to increase size and funding. We want to make sure that you’re able to meet your goals. But what I also need to ensure is that we’re not duplicating or replicating existing functions, and creating redundancy within DOD and the interagency so What steps are you taking right now to make sure that your particular office and function is is unique to any of the other agencies that might be involved in these types of cases?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 50:00
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. So I would like to lay down, here’s, here’s what am I, you know, sort of my mission and my goal and my vision here. And so the vision is, at one point, at some point in the future, you should not need an arrow. If I’m successful in what I’m doing, we should be able to normalize everything that we’re doing into existing processes, functions, agencies and organizations, and make that part of their mission and their role. Right now that niche that we form is really going after the unknowns. If you I think you articulated it early on, this is a hunt mission for what might somebody be doing in our backyard that we don’t know about? All right, well, that that that is what we are doing, right. But at some point, we should be able to normalize that that’s why it’s so important. The work we’re doing with Joint Staff, normalize that into power, DOD policy and guidance. We are bringing in all of our interagency partners. So NASA is providing a liaison for us. I have FBI liaison, I have OSI liaison, I have service liaisons, the ice and a half of my staff come from the IC, half of my staff coming from other scientific and technical backgrounds, I have doe. And so what we’re trying to do is ensure, again, as I make UAP into Sep, they get handed off to the people that that is their mission to go do so that we aren’t duplicating that I’m not going to go chase the Chinese high altitude balloon, for example. That’s not my job. It’s not an unknown. And it’s not anomalous anymore. Now it goes over to them.
Joni Ernst 51:48
Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Kirsten Gillibrand 51:52
I want to just to follow up on the filters for surveillance. outside observers have speculated that DOD sets filters on certain sensors to eliminate objects that are moving really fast or slow, because what we are looking for militarily or conventional aircraft and missiles UAP doesn’t fit into these programs with thereby be weeded out and never noticed. The specialist speculation was proven to be true during the UAP incidents over North America, where DoD publicly acknowledged that we were able to start seeing these ups only when we opened up these filters. Obviously, our military operators cannot be overloaded with objects that are not conventional aircraft or missiles, can you nonetheless make sure that the raw data is being captured and subsequently processed? As your office knows what’s really out there? And is that going to cost money will you expect to pay for that money out of arrows budget?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 52:46
One of the key tenants that we’re trying to do in our science plan is understand what those signatures are. So we get all the raw, for example, radar data, prior to the scrubbing and filtering to allow it to enter into our weapons systems and our detection systems. We are now taking all that data and cross correlating it to what pilots are saying they’re seeing or other observations from other operators. What that allows us to do is then see if there are any, any signatures in that data that I can pull out, generate, what we’ll call automatic target recognition algorithms that allow us to then use that signature associated with a observed UAP. Whatever that UAP. May be. We will then make those recommendations of what those changes should be back to the department. So the Deputy Secretary asked me last October to make those recommendations. What changes do we need to make the radars to plat platforms to detection systems and algorithms to pull on those those algorithms make those changes? That’s going to take some time. That’s where the research and development comes in. Right? It’s not it’s not instantaneous right? Now, a lot of the I won’t say, you know, a lot of the the things that fall outside of the ranges of those filters have been identified by people in the loop. And you can’t have people in the loop all the time. You can it’s just not cost effective. So part of our budget is working through what is what does that look like? And then making those recommendations back to the big program offices for them to put into changes in acquisition.
Kirsten Gillibrand 54:43
My last question is about the academic community. Can you give us an update on sort of how you collaborate with the academic community? And whether how the independent study being done by NASA complements arrows work?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 54:56
Sure. Two questions, so I’m willing to try To make it quick the 1979 Carl Sagan said Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I would go one step further. And I would say it’s extraordinary claims require not only extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary science. And so how do you do that you do that with the scientific method. Right. And so as arrow is developing and implementing its science plan, it has to do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory across the entire range of hypotheses that had been presented for what UAP are. That range spans adversary breakthrough technology on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. All of that has physics based signatures associated with it, whether it’s theoretical from the academic community, known from things like hypersonic weapons, or adversary breakthrough technologies, as we’ve talked about before, or the known objects that we have to go measure. The idea is across that entire range, you have to come up with peer reviewed, scientific basis for all of it. The academic community plays a very big role on the one end of the spectrum, the intelligence community on the other end of the spectrum, and then measurement in the middle, once I have those signatures identified in in validated peer reviewed documents, then I have something 2.2 For all that data, because all that data is going to match one of those signatures, right? And then I can go well, it’s that and not that, or it’s that. And that helps us go through all that. Where NASA comes in and and the study that they’re doing, which I’m supporting, is really looking at the unclassified data sources that might be used to augment our classified data sources. To understand if there’s a signature there, we can pull on so very similar to the radars, but civil capability. So for example, we have a lot of climate science satellites, for example, that look at Earth, lots of them, how many of those is the data valuable in seeing these kinds of objects? The challenge in that is those those platforms don’t necessarily have the resolution you need. So if you remember the slide I put up there with the trends, the size of the objects we’re looking for, are typically reported to be one to four meters. Well, the resolution of many of the climate science, civil science, civil satellites, is much larger than that, which means you’d have a hard time picking out something that’s smaller than a pixel on the imagery on the data. That’s not to say all of it’s not useful. And there are ways of pulling through that data and go into that is what NASA is focused on right now. What is, what are some other data sources that could be used? In addition, things like open source and crowdsourcing of data, we’re exploring public private partnerships, ma’am, as you know, we’ve talked about in the past to look at, is there a way to smartly crowdsource additional data that might be useful to augment some of my classified sources? And what does that look like? And how would we do it so that we’re not overwhelmed by you know, everybody who wants to take a picture of everything?
Kirsten Gillibrand 59:11
Like to tell the committee before we close out, you have another round. Yes. Do you have anything else you’d like to tell the committee before we close?
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 59:17
Thank you very much for allowing us to come and share a little bit of insight into what arrows up to and what we’re doing. I hope to be able to share a whole lot more in the future. We have a lot of work to do. So if you don’t hear from me outside. It’s because we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Kirsten Gillibrand 59:35
Thank you so much. Dr. Kirkpatrick, thank you for the hearing. Thank you
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