Watch the skies.

The first public hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years was held today, discussing the possibility that we have encountered alien life. It comes after years of unexplained sightings, primarily by U.S. military, of unidentified flying objects. In recent years, frequent sightings and stronger evidence have been raising more questions than answers. A recent report says there were 144 encounters of mysterious craft that cannot be explained between 2004 and 2021. "There are a lot of unexplained aerial phenomena. We do not know what they are, and they can't be easily rationalised," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said. "So it's quite a mystery." Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official, and Scott Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence, testified before the panel. Both men agreed that many sightings remain unexplained, and even potentially hazardous - as there have been 11 near-collisions between UFOs and military assets. Bray presented the panel with two video clips, one showing flashing triangle-shaped objects in the night sky and another showing a shiny, spherical object zipping past the cockpit window of a military aircraft. "I do not have an explanation for what this specific object is," Bray said of the second clip. He also said the Pentagon is determined to get rid of the stigma associated with sightings of UFOs by encouraging pilots to come forward when they observe such things. Bray ended his testimony: "The message is now clear: if you see something, you need to report it." Meanwhile, Moultrie vowed "rigorous scientific analysis” to learn the origin of UFOs.

"We're open to any conclusions that we may encounter," he said. "We want to know what's out there as much as you want to know what's out there."

Once dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the issue of UFOs has taken on a bigger role in public discourse as of late, possibly because so many reports sightings are coming from members of the military.