(NewsNation) — Have you seen a UAP – unidentified anomalous phenomena? Or the more popular phrase UFO? Did you tell anybody, or stay silent for fear or ridicule or harassment?
One of the top advocates in Congress for learning more about what people have seen wants to make sure the government takes those reports more seriously than it has.
“Isn’t it important that the Department of Defense look into this and see exactly if there’s any possible explanation,” asks Wisconsin Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman.
Earlier this year, he and California Democrat Robert Garcia introduced what they call the “Safe Airspace for Americans Act.” It would require the FAA to come up with a plan to allow people to report incidents without fear.
“Not only pilots, but air maintenance people, flight attendants… air traffic controllers can report these phenomena without having people worrying that revenge is going to be taken on them.”
Grothman tells NewsNation “Prime” his bill would mandate thorough, timely investigations “which I think quite frankly, sometimes in the past, was not done, or even worse. Air personnel were even afraid to report it in the first place, or fear that people would say, ‘oh, yeah, there’s Joe. You know, who knows what he’s imagining?’”
Grothman says the UAP issue, especially the public frustration over a lack of transparency, has snowballed.
“As I go around my district again and again, I hear more questions from people. I can’t think of a hearing that I have chaired… that has received so much interest.”
While he won’t offer an opinion about the possibly of non-human intelligence, Grothman says the key to one day answering that question is more data.
“We’re going to hear (about) more of these instances… and the more instances that are made public, the more instances the FAA is able to look at, the more we’re gonna learn.”