The oversight hearing included a video of a Hellfire missile bouncing off a UFO and military whistleblowers' fears of ending their careers for speaking out.

Sept. 10 (UPI) -- A congressional oversight panel signaled it is taking UFOs seriously during a Tuesday hearing that included a group of whistleblowers, a video showing a missile bounce off a flying orb and demands for transparency.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee, began the nearly three-hour hearing on "unidentified anomalous phenomena," another name for UFOs, by saying it was past time to acknowledge their seriousness.

"This is not science fiction or creating speculation," the Florida Republican said. "This is about national security, government accountability and the American people's right to the truth."

More than 700 reports of UAPs were made to the Pentagon in 2023, the same year Congress held a hearing where members alleged a government cover up. But despite more reports of UAPs and more official acknowledgment of strange events in the sky, committee members expressed concern that federal authorities are suppressing information and that military whistleblowers are remaining silent over fears of ending their careers.

Air Force veteran Dylan Borland described to the panel how he saw a massive, triangle-shaped object hovering above the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in the summer of 2021. He said some fluid, like lava or plasma, was moving around the aircraft. After watching it for several minutes, its center shot two or three times before shooting up to a commercial jet level, he said, leaving him with the feeling of static electricity and a smell similar to that after a thunderstorm.

Borland said he described the 15-minute encounter to some colleagues, but was told to keep quiet.

"A couple people had pulled me aside, some older enlisted, and were like, 'You probably want to keep that to yourself,'" he said.

Jeffrey Nuccetelli, another Air Force veteran, said five AUP events occurred at Vandenberg Air Force Base where he was stationed and which were witnessed by multiple personnel. He described one chaotic incident where "a bright, fast-moving object" appeared to be headed toward the base. However, he said superiors told service members to "keep quiet and think about what they were reporting."

"The question is no longer whether these events are real, but whether we have the courage to face them," he said.

The hearing's more dramatic moments included Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Miss., playing a video that he said had "been given" to him that he claimed was taken by an MQ-9 Reaper drone.

The video purportedly shows an object flying over the waters off the coast of Yemen in October 2024, an active combat zone, when it was struck by a Hellfire missile fired by another drone. The object appeared to stay on its trajectory despite being struck by the missile.

"The public should be seeing this stuff, and why you're not allowed to, I don't know," journalist George Knapp remarked to the committee. "But that's a Hellfire missile smacking into that UFO and just [bounced] right off and it kept going."

He added there are servers containing a "whole bank" of similar videos that the public has not been allowed to see.

Members of the committee called for more whistleblower protections and for the government to be more forthcoming about UAPs.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said the federal government has long had a problem with over-classification that has been used to cover up the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as illegal efforts by the FBI to disrupt political movements deemed subversive.

"The federal government has kept the American public in the dark," she said.