Watch Live: Congress holds first UFO hearing in 50 years

(NewsNation) — Is there an alien force on a mission to explore strange new worlds — like ours? UFO enthusiasts are hoping some of the truth they believe is out there could be revealed Tuesday.

Congress will hold a hearing on threats posed by unidentified flying objects and unexplained aerial phenomena. Experts on the subject are hoping Pentagon officials will be more revealing than they have been in recent decades. This marks the first congressional hearings on UFOs in more than 50 years.

Chaired by Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.), the hearing will include testimony from top U.S. intelligence and defense officials and follows last year’s key government report on unidentified aerial phenomena that revealed 144 encounters from 2004 to 2021.

Just last year, Carson said UFOs were becoming a national security risk, tweeting, “Americans need to know more about these unexplained occurrences.”

Now, given the report both fell short of identifying exactly what the unidentified occurrences were and contained redacted information, the hearing will be especially appealing to lawmakers with vested interests, including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who believes the Pentagon knows more than what it's saying.

“There’s an arrogance in government at that level that we cannot handle what’s going on out there,” Burchett said as a guest of News Nation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert.” “It’s a bogus cover-up. It doesn’t fit and it’s about power and control,” he continued.

The only information the report managed to state was what enthusiasts already assumed — that most of what was seen were not physical objects or secret government technology and that there’s no evidence that another country developed them — making Tuesday’s revelations that more enticing.

“This is all virgin territory for humanity, but it could be very exciting,” said Avi Loeb on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour” on Monday.

The hearing is happening at least in part because some of the objects caught on camera move and behave in ways technology experts can't explain. Can the UFOs be explained as next generation military technology from China or another power? And if so, how would the U.S. government react?

"We already know they've come back now in the latest reports and said these do represent a national security threat. They're beyond our next generation capacity, we should take a look at this," said Ben Hanson, host of "UFO Witness" on Discovery +, during a Monday appearance on NewsNation's "Banfield."

Though the U.S. has been more transparent in recent years with UFOs, lifelong experts including Nick Pope are convinced they're holding back a world-changing secret.

"Some people say a body like the United Nations should step in; I'm not sure about that," Pope said on "Banfield." "One thing is for sure: Here in the U.S., the government knows far more about this than it is making public."

The witness list Tuesday will include the U.S. undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security as well as the deputy director of naval intelligence. There will also be a classified meeting after the public one, which only fuels the mystery surrounding these sightings.

The hearing Tuesday will be broadcast live on the House Intelligence Committee’s YouTube page.