“I’ve seen some compelling testimonies.”

Squad Up

In a new interview, retired NASA astronaut and current Arizona senator Mark Kelly insisted that the US government could be doing much more to investigate credible claims about unidentified flying objects. Speaking to GZero founder Ian Bremmer, the former twin astronaut didn’t scoff at the idea that the truth may be out there.

“I’ve seen some compelling testimony from navy fighter pilots who… in a position of leadership in a squadron, have seen something very compelling,” Kelly said.

As video from the GZero interview suggests, the senator and prior commander of the Space Shuttle was likely referencing ex-Naval pilot Ryan Graves’ Congressional testimony last summer in which he described seeing a craft so strange while flying off the coast of Virginia a decade ago that his flight commander “immediately” called the mission off.

As Bremmer noted, that pilot was convinced that the unexplained object he saw flying over the water near Virginia Beach was “technologically not possible” by any known American or adversarial craft.

“In one case,” Kelly said, “that is true.”

Call to Arms

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Arizona senator said that he feels Congress has an “obligation” to study what the government now refers to as “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAPs — though as Kelly noted, there’s virtually no distinction between UAPs and UFOs.

He will soon meet that obligation given that his committee just confirmed to The Hill that it will be holding its first UFO hearing since the headline-grabbing testimonies it heard last summer that involved, among other things, an ex-Pentagon whistleblower who claimed to have knowledge of the government reverse-engineering alien tech.

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, who chairs the subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities and who helped establish the Pentagon’s UFO-hunting office, told the website that the hearing would likely be held in November.

When it comes to his own beliefs about or experiences with extraterrestrials, the one-time contender for Kamala Harris’ running mate fell short of answering definitively.

“I get these questions all the time,” Kelly said. “People think as I’ve been to space, maybe I have this special insight, or maybe I’ve seen something.”

“While I’ve spent time orbiting the Earth,” he continued, “I haven’t.”

It’s far from a smoking gun, but a senator and former astronaut saying the US should be paying closer attention to UFOs almost certainly carries more credibility than an ex-military official who claims the Department of Defense is hoarding alien tech.

More on UFOs: Government Whistleblower Says There Was a Secret Pentagon Program to “Trap” UFOs