The 2025 House Oversight UAP Hearing
On September 9, 2025, the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets held its first UAP-focused hearing, titled "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," in Washington, D.C. USAF veterans Jeffrey Nuccetelli and Dylan Borland, active-duty Navy Senior Chief Alexandro Wiggins, journalist George Knapp, and policy counsel Joe Spielberger testified under oath about military UAP encounters, alleged retaliation against whistleblowers, and gaps in AARO's reporting system. During the hearing, Rep. Eric Burlison unveiled previously unseen footage, said to be from October 30, 2024, showing a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone firing an AGM-114 Hellfire missile at a fast-moving object off the coast of Yemen; the missile appears to strike the object without destroying it, and the object continues moving until the clip ends. Astrophysicist Avi Loeb subsequently published a technical analysis arguing the object's estimated size and speed were more consistent with a Houthi Samad-series drone, launched amid an active regional conflict, than with an unconventional craft.
Pictured: the dome of the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., where the House Oversight Committee held its September 9, 2025 UAP hearing. This is not a photograph from the hearing itself. Public domain, U.S. federal government work.
Theoretical Alignment
This file substitutes "Institutional / Testimonial" for the Psycho-Social/Mundane category because the hearing itself is a confirmed, well-documented institutional event with multiple independent witnesses testifying under oath, several of whom (Nuccetelli, Wiggins) described corroborated multi-person sensor and radar detections rather than lone perceptual accounts. It assigns meaningful weight to Extraterrestrial because the testimony includes specific, detailed claims of unconventional performance (no propulsion signature, silent emergence from the ocean) from a currently serving military witness. It withholds a higher ETH weighting because the hearing's single strongest piece of physical evidence — the Yemen missile-strike video — has a specific, technically argued rival explanation (a Houthi drone) that has not been rebutted or resolved.
Background
The hearing was the first UAP-focused session convened by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. It followed the Committee's earlier 2023 UAP hearing featuring David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and David Fravor, and was framed explicitly around whistleblower protection: examining whether military personnel who report UAP encounters face retaliation, and whether AARO's reporting channels adequately capture and act on those reports.
Complete Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2003–2005 | Jeffrey Nuccetelli, then an Air Force Security Forces officer, reports multiple incidents at Vandenberg AFB during National Reconnaissance Office launches, including a red glowing disc that allegedly disabled electronics. |
| 2012 | Dylan Borland reports a silent, 100-foot equilateral triangular object at Langley Air Force Base — the subject of this site's Langley AFB UAP Incursions file. |
| 2023 | Alexandro Wiggins reports a self-luminous, Tic Tac-shaped object emerging from the ocean near the USS Jackson before linking up with three similar objects. |
| Oct. 30, 2024 | An MQ-9 Reaper drone reportedly fires an AGM-114 Hellfire missile at a fast-moving object off the coast of Yemen; the missile appears to strike without destroying the object. |
| Sept. 9, 2025 | The House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets holds "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection"; all five witnesses testify under oath, and Rep. Burlison plays the Yemen video publicly for the first time. |
| Sept. 10, 2025 | Multiple national outlets (ABC News, CBS News, NBC News) report on the hearing and the missile-strike video. |
| Late 2025 | Astrophysicist Avi Loeb publishes a technical analysis of the Yemen video arguing the object's size and speed profile is consistent with a Houthi Samad-series drone. |
The Testimony
Jeffrey Nuccetelli described multiple incidents between 2003 and 2005 near Vandenberg Space Force Base during National Reconnaissance Office satellite launches, including what he called "flying buildings" that moved erratically and were witnessed by multiple personnel. He testified that each incident was "witnessed by multiple personnel, documented, investigated and reported," but that he received no institutional guidance on how to handle the encounters, and he called for independent UAP research funding and reduced government over-classification.
Dylan Borland testified publicly for the first time about alleged professional retaliation spanning more than a decade after he reported his 2012 Langley AFB sighting, stating his "professional career was deliberately obstructed" through workplace harassment and efforts to undermine his security clearance eligibility.
Alexandro Wiggins, a Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, made history as the first active-duty Navy official to testify publicly about UAP. Describing a 2023 incident near the USS Jackson, he stated a "self-luminous Tic Tac-shaped [object] emerged from the ocean before linking up with three other similar objects," reporting no sonic booms or conventional propulsion signatures despite detection across multiple radar and sensor systems. He called for standardized sensor protocols and confidential reporting channels for service members.
George Knapp argued for continued congressional investigation, stating plainly: "The secret is out. I mean, how many videos [of UAP] have there been?" Joe Spielberger, testifying as the minority witness from the Project On Government Oversight, focused on strengthening national security whistleblower protections broadly rather than UAP-specific claims.
The Yemen Missile-Strike Video
The hearing's most widely covered moment came when Rep. Eric Burlison played previously unreleased footage he said came from a whistleblower and was recorded by an MQ-9 Reaper drone on October 30, 2024, off the coast of Yemen. The video shows a bright, fast-moving object traveling steadily above open water; an AGM-114 Hellfire missile, fired from a second Reaper using "buddy lasing" designation, appears to strike the object, which sheds small pieces of debris but continues on its trajectory rather than being destroyed. If authentic and correctly described, this represents what The War Zone identified as possibly the first known instance of an MQ-9 Reaper engaging an aerial target in an operational combat setting, a milestone that would itself be independently significant to military aviation history apart from the object's identity.
Key Figures
Jeffrey Nuccetelli
Testified about multiple 2003–2005 encounters at Vandenberg AFB during NRO launches, including a red glowing disc allegedly disabling electronics, witnessed by multiple security personnel.
Dylan Borland
Testified publicly for the first time about alleged decade-long professional retaliation following his 2012 Langley AFB triangular UAP report.
Alexandro Wiggins
The first active-duty Navy official to testify publicly about UAP, describing a 2023 multi-sensor detection of a Tic Tac-shaped object near the USS Jackson.
George Knapp
Testified in support of continued congressional investigation and government transparency on UAP.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna
Chaired the hearing and emphasized the need for stronger whistleblower protections specifically tailored to UAP-related disclosures.
Rep. Eric Burlison
Publicly unveiled the previously unseen Yemen coast missile-strike video during the hearing, stating it came from a whistleblower and that an independent review was ongoing.
The Five Observables Assessment
Applying the Five Observables framework to the testimony and video evidence:
Assessment: This case's observables come from two distinct sources with different evidentiary weight: sworn but unverified testimonial claims (Wiggins' trans-medium emergence and multi-sensor detection), and one piece of actual video evidence (the Yemen strike) whose most notable feature — surviving a direct missile hit — is also the element with the most credible mundane counter-explanation.
Evidence Assessment
Supporting Genuine Anomalous Activity
- Five witnesses, including a currently serving Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, testified under oath before Congress, carrying legal and professional consequences for false statements.
- Multiple witnesses described multi-person, multi-sensor corroborated encounters rather than lone perceptual accounts.
- The Yemen video, if authentic, documents an object that survived a direct or near-direct Hellfire missile engagement without being destroyed — a genuinely unusual outcome regardless of the object's ultimate identity.
Supporting a Conventional Explanation
- Astrophysicist Avi Loeb's published technical analysis argues the Yemen object's estimated size (a few meters) and speed (roughly one-sixth that of the Hellfire missile) are consistent with a Houthi Samad-series drone, and notes the incident's date coincides with an active period of Houthi drone attacks in the region.
- The War Zone's technical review found the missile strike appeared to be a "peripheral hit" without fuze detonation, consistent with a grazing strike on a conventional drone's tail or wing rather than an object "absorbing" an impact.
- None of the sworn testimony includes independently verifiable physical evidence (recovered material, corroborating radar data released publicly) beyond the witnesses' own accounts.
- Retaliation and career-obstruction claims, while serious, are inherently difficult to verify from testimony alone without independent personnel-record review.
Why "Disputed"
This case is rated Disputed because it combines a confirmed, high-credibility institutional event — a formal Congressional hearing with sworn testimony from a currently serving military official — with a central piece of physical evidence, the Yemen video, that carries a specific, technically reasoned rival explanation that has not been resolved either way. The hearing itself is not in dispute; what remains disputed is whether the claims and footage presented within it depict genuinely anomalous phenomena or conventional military and drone activity.
This file does not rate the case higher because Avi Loeb's Houthi-drone analysis directly and specifically engages the video's physical parameters (size, relative speed, contextual timing with known Houthi attacks) rather than dismissing the case outright, and because several of the hearing's most striking claims (Nuccetelli's electronics-disabling disc, Wiggins' ocean emergence) rest entirely on unverified testimony with no independently released corroborating sensor data.
Observer Credibility & Occupational Profile
This case features an unusually strong observer credibility profile for this archive: five witnesses testifying under oath before a Congressional committee, including a currently serving Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer risking career and legal consequences for false statements, two retired Air Force officers with documented service records, a veteran investigative journalist with decades of UAP reporting, and a national security policy specialist. This file finds the sworn, on-the-record nature of the testimony to be the case's strongest credibility element, tempered by the fact that testimony alone, however credible the witness, does not constitute independently verifiable physical evidence.
Historical Precedents & Archive Matches
This hearing follows the House Oversight Committee's 2023 UAP hearing featuring David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and David Fravor, and directly incorporates and expands on this site's existing Langley AFB UAP Incursions file through Dylan Borland's testimony. It belongs to a growing pattern of Congressional UAP hearings functioning as a primary public disclosure mechanism distinct from AARO's own reporting.
Material Analysis
The case's physical evidence consists of the MQ-9 sensor video shown during the hearing and the official Congressional hearing record itself. No recovered material, radar data release, or independent chain-of-custody documentation for the Yemen video has been made public.
Supporting Continued Legitimate Interest
- A currently serving Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer testified under oath to Congress, a step with genuine professional and legal risk that this file treats as a meaningful credibility signal.
Supporting a Conventional Explanation
- A published, technically detailed rival analysis (Avi Loeb) directly addresses the video's central claim and proposes a specific, contextually plausible conventional identity (a Houthi drone) that has not been publicly rebutted.
The Conventional Explanation Candidate: A Houthi Samad-Series Drone
The leading, and this file's assessed, conventional explanation candidate for the Yemen video specifically is that the object was a Houthi-operated Samad-series drone, a class of unmanned aerial vehicle roughly 200 kilograms in mass with a maximum speed of approximately 70 meters per second, used extensively by Houthi forces in the Red Sea region during the period surrounding the video's October 30, 2024 date, which coincided with reported Houthi drone attacks toward Israel the day before.
Avi Loeb's Technical Analysis
Using the Hellfire missile's known 1.6-meter length as a scale reference, astrophysicist Avi Loeb estimated the object at "a few meters" in size, consistent with Samad drone dimensions, and calculated the missile's roughly 440 meters-per-second speed as approximately six times faster than the object's apparent motion, consistent with Samad's much lower top speed. He characterized the missile's effect as a "peripheral hit," breaking off small pieces without detonating — consistent with grazing a drone's tail or wing rather than a direct strike on a fundamentally different kind of object.
The Countervailing Military Novelty
This file notes a genuine tension in the case: The War Zone's independent technical review treated the footage as potentially significant precisely because MQ-9s do not typically engage aerial targets operationally, meaning the video's newsworthiness does not depend on the object being anomalous — it would represent a notable military first even if the target were an ordinary hostile drone, which somewhat reduces (without eliminating) the incentive to view the object itself as unconventional.
A Houthi Samad-Series Drone — Plausibility Rating: PLAUSIBLE BUT UNCONFIRMED
Related Cases
Confirmed Documents & Official Records
The official hearing page, including archived video and prepared written testimony from all witnesses.
PUBLIC RECORD (freely accessible)Search Government Archives Directly
Further Reading — Recommended Literature
UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There
An extensively researched history of U.S. government UAP records, including the Congressional hearing pattern this case belongs to.
UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record
A compilation of credentialed military and official UFO testimony, directly relevant to weighing this hearing's sworn witness accounts.
Inside The Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed
A guide to obtaining and interpreting declassified UFO-related government documents and Congressional hearing records.
The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry
The foundational text on scientifically rigorous UFO classification and witness evaluation.
Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth
A skeptical history of the flying saucer phenomenon, useful comparative context for the Houthi drone explanation candidate.
Sources
- "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Read online →
- "Military Whistleblowers Share New Evidence of Alleged UAP at Transparency Hearing," DefenseScoop. Read online →
- "Congressman Shows Never-Before-Seen Video at Military UFO Hearing," ABC News. Read online →
- "Video Shown at House UAP Hearing Appears to Show Missile Fired at Object Off Yemen," NBC News. Read online →
- "Revelation That MQ-9 Reapers Are Now Engaging Aerial Targets Comes From UAP Hearing," The War Zone. Read online →
- "Did a Hellfire Missile Hit a Samad Drone Launched by the Houthis on October 30, 2024?" Avi Loeb, Medium. Read online →
- "D-day (Disclosure Day)? Hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP)," LeonardDavid.com. Read online →
- "Video Shows UFO-Like Object Absorb US Hellfire Missile and Vanish," Interesting Engineering. Read online →
- "Video Shows UFO Get Hit by Hellfire Missile, Continues Flying Unobstructed," TMZ. Read online →
- "Task Force Hears Veterans' Testimony About Unexplained Flying Objects," Spectrum Local News. Read online →
- "Witness List for the UAP September 9, 2025 House Oversight Committee Hearing," Unidentified Phenomena. Read online →
- Graff, Garrett M. UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There. Avid Reader Press, 2023.
- Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. Harmony Books, 2010.
- Greenewald, John, Jr. Inside The Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
- Hynek, J. Allen. The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. Da Capo Press, 1998 (orig. 1972).
- Peebles, Curtis. Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
- "File: United States Capitol dome daylight.jpg," public domain, U.S. federal government work. View file →
Essential Viewing
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