US Congress Held A Rare UFO Hearing In Public & They Want To Get Rid Of The 'Stigma'

UFO sightings get people buzzing on social media every couple of months, but the U.S. government has only just started to acknowledge these strange sightings in public – and on Tuesday, they finally started talking about it.

A special Congress subcommittee held a live-streamed meeting about UFOs on Tuesday, though they prefer to use the term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

They didn't exactly announce that the truth is out there and aliens are among us, although they did repeat some of the same points they made last year when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report about what it does and doesn't know.

"UAPs are unexplained, it's true. But they are real," said Rep. Andre Carson, head of the House Intelligence Committee's Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee. "They need to be investigated. And any threats they pose need to be mitigated."

Carson added that the government wants to get rid of the "stigma" around reporting these things, so pilots will share what they've seen instead of staying quiet.

This is the first time in 50 years that Congress has held a public hearing about UFOs. The last time was in 1969 when the U.S. Air Force terminated Project Blue Book, which was a UFO program, reported Reuters.

The live-streamed chat is now available to watch on YouTube.

Two top U.S. defence intelligence officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, appeared before the lawmakers to say they're committed to figuring out where UFOs/UAPs come from.

The congressional hearing comes 11 months after the U.S. released a report about over 140 UFO sightings that it can't explain.

Carson tweeted about the hearing and its importance for the American people in knowing the "security risk it poses."

"Congress hasn't held a public hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena (UFOs) in over 50 years," said Carson in his tweet.

"Americans need to know more about these unexplained occurrences."

The meeting was held because of a recent push for the government to share more information on UFOs, reported CNET.

The report released by the Pentagon last year shared that UFOs might pose threats to flight safety, although it didn't explicitly mention aliens.

During the hearing, Bray admitted that there had been several sightings that "can't be explained," including situations where there wasn't enough data to formulate reasonable explanations behind them.

"There are a small handful of cases in which we have more data than our analysis simply hasn't been able to fully pull together a picture of what happened," added Bray.

"We know that our service members have encountered Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and because UAP pose potential flight safety and general security risks, we are committed to a focused effort to determine their origins," said Moultrie.

Sorry folks; no aliens. But keep your fingers crossed that we don't have to wait another 50 years to get an update on this!