The November 2024 House hearing: four witnesses and different sources of knowledge
Programme allegations, a recalled Navy communication, reporting from protected sources and proposals for scientific investigation require different forms of assessment.
The House hearing on 13 November 2024 brought together Luis Elizondo, Tim Gallaudet, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold. Their testimony addressed overlapping concerns about secrecy and research, but their access to the underlying material differed. Elizondo asserted knowledge of government programmes; Gallaudet recalled receiving a safety-related email; Shellenberger presented reporting from protected sources; Gold discussed scientific policy and reporting systems. The official record establishes what each told Congress. Their appearance together does not establish that they independently observed the same object or authenticated one another's claims.
Former Department of Defense official giving programme and secrecy testimony
Luis Elizondo
Programme claims and the limits of the public account
Elizondo's written statement asserted that technologies made by neither the United States nor other governments were monitoring sensitive installations, and that the United States and some adversaries possessed UAP technologies. He described a secret arms race and alleged intimidation of people trying to disclose information. These were his substantive claims to Congress, rather than findings announced by the committee.
Under questioning by Nancy Mace, he answered affirmatively when asked whether the government had conducted secret UAP crash-retrieval programmes and whether these were designed to identify and reverse-engineer alien craft. He declined to discuss specific access and contractor questions in public, citing documentation signed three years earlier and the review of material permitted in his book. His account therefore combines direct assertions with a stated boundary on the supporting detail he would provide in that setting.
He also said he had seen government documentation concerning people injured in UAP incidents. The public exchange did not supply those records for examination. When Clay Higgins referred to the material Shellenberger had presented, Elizondo said he had not read that report or article. His broader claims cannot consequently be treated as a review of the particular anonymous report entered that day.
Evidence review
The distinction between asserting programme knowledge and publicly demonstrating it is central to this testimony. Elizondo's account identifies allegations for congressional investigation, but the public statements do not expose the relevant programme records, recovered material or custody history. His reference to a restriction document is itself part of his testimony; its undisclosed contents cannot independently authenticate the activities he described.
The hearing also records his proposed remedies: a coordinated national approach, greater transparency and protection for people reporting misconduct. Those recommendations can be assessed as policy positions without treating the underlying technological claims as established. His government background is relevant to the access he claimed, while the evidential basis for each assertion still requires its own records.
Statement and reporting history
13 November 2024: submits a written statement asserting government possession of UAP technologies and alleging secrecy and retaliation.
13 November 2024: answers Mace's retrieval questions affirmatively while reserving specified details for a closed setting.
13 November 2024: tells Higgins that he had not read Shellenberger's report or article.
Official three-page PDF acquired and all three page images visually inspected. Documents his assertions and policy proposals; classified supporting records, restriction document and full book not inspected.
Official GPO HTML acquired. Selected opening, oath, statement and question-and-answer passages read, including Mace, Grothman, Burchett, Higgins and Biggs exchanges used here. Printed in 2025 for the 13 November 2024 hearing. Complete proceeding, video and separately listed questions for the record not comprehensively reviewed.
Retired Navy rear admiral recalling a communication and advocating disclosure
Tim Gallaudet
The safety email and the explanation he inferred
Gallaudet's written statement dates his experience to January 2015, when he commanded the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. He recalled an email on the Navy's secure network from the Fleet Forces operations officer, addressed to subordinate commanders. Its subject concerned an urgent safety-of-flight issue. He described the message as warning about near-midair collisions and identified its attachment as the video now called Go Fast. This is his account of receiving a communication and viewing an attachment, rather than an account of personally seeing its aerial subject from an aircraft.
He said the email disappeared the next day and the subject was not raised in subsequent senior meetings. Answering Tim Burchett, he confirmed that the exercise continued. He expressly described his explanation of the disappearance as speculation because he had not discussed it with the sender. Answering Andy Biggs, he said he had not made inquiries and had inferred that the video belonged to a special access programme to which the participants were not admitted.
His testimony also addressed reports of submerged objects. When Burchett asked about personal experience, Gallaudet said he had none and described accounts brought to him by submarine witnesses. Those reports have a further source history; they are not additional incidents he personally observed. His written recommendations supported stronger congressional oversight, a records review board and coordination across government.
Evidence review
His recollection supplies an identifiable participant's account of a reported safety communication. The original email, network records and other recipients' separately recorded statements were not examined here. The account therefore preserves the distinction between his recalled receipt and disappearance of a message, the events reported by its sender, and his inference about why it disappeared.
A missing message does not by itself identify the authority responsible or establish a particular classification programme. Gallaudet's own answers make the inferential step explicit. His interpretation of the video's performance likewise requires technical evidence beyond his identification of an attachment. The record supports examining the communication and its handling without converting him into the flight crew or sonar operator whose reports he discussed.
Statement and reporting history
January 2015: period assigned by Gallaudet to the email and attachment in his 2024 recollection.
The following day: timing he assigns to the email's disappearance; no exact calendar day supplied.
13 November 2024: distinguishes his recalled communication from his speculative explanation and denies personal experience of submerged objects.
Official seven-page updated statement acquired and all seven page images visually inspected. Email history, interpretations and recommendations distinguished. Original email, system records, attachment provenance and complete linked supporting library not independently examined.
Official GPO HTML acquired. Selected opening, oath, statement and question-and-answer passages read, including Mace, Grothman, Burchett, Higgins and Biggs exchanges used here. Printed in 2025 for the 13 November 2024 hearing. Complete proceeding, video and separately listed questions for the record not comprehensively reviewed.
Journalist presenting protected-source reporting and an anonymous programme allegation
Michael Shellenberger
Reporting the Immaculate Constellation allegation
Shellenberger presented allegations concerning a programme called Immaculate Constellation. His written testimony attributed the report to a current or former government official and described its claims about imagery and human-intelligence records. The same document quoted a Department of Defense spokesperson denying any present or historical record of a special access programme with that name. The allegation and the response are therefore both part of the submitted material.
In exchanges with Mace and Glenn Grothman, he said he had checked the identities of sources, had more than one source and had obtained additional confirmation of the programme's name. He also said the report contained cases he had not found in existing reporting, which he treated as a reason against obvious circular sourcing. These are accounts of his journalistic checks; the protected identities and underlying databases were not opened to public scrutiny through those answers.
Higgins asked whether he had authored the report. Shellenberger said he had not, said he knew the author, and said he did not know where its nonpublic version could be found. He declined to narrow the agency affiliations of his sources. His written discussion of a video reportedly showing an orb near Kuwait likewise attributes the viewing to another source. It does not present the video as an object he personally observed or footage he independently analysed at the hearing.
Evidence review
The testimony preserves a reporting chain: an unnamed author's claims, Shellenberger's stated source checks and his presentation to Congress. Entering a document into the hearing record establishes its submission and availability for examination. It does not supply an official finding that the described programme or imagery has been authenticated.
His claim of additional confirmation deserves to be represented accurately, alongside the limits imposed by source protection. Without access to the sources' records, this review cannot determine whether their information was independent or derived from a common account. The Department's denial remains a competing institutional statement, rather than a substitute for examining the alleged records.
Statement and reporting history
October 2024: earlier reporting month identified in Shellenberger's November testimony.
13 November 2024: presents the programme allegation and describes his checks on source identities and additional confirmation.
13 November 2024: distinguishes himself from the anonymous report's author under Higgins's questioning.
Official 214-page file acquired. Programme/source discussion on PDF pages 6–8 visually inspected; selected surrounding prose read as extracted text. The cover prints 13 November 2023, while the official hearing page and transcript establish the 2024 submission. Extensive appendices, underlying confidential-source records, alleged imagery and the separately submitted anonymous report were not comprehensively examined.
Official GPO HTML acquired. Selected opening, oath, statement and question-and-answer passages read, including Mace, Grothman, Burchett, Higgins and Biggs exchanges used here. Printed in 2025 for the 13 November 2024 hearing. Complete proceeding, video and separately listed questions for the record not comprehensively reviewed.
Former NASA official and independent study team member proposing scientific and reporting measures
Michael Gold
Scientific access and a civilian reporting proposal
Gold's written and oral statements expressly say that he was speaking for himself, rather than for NASA, Redwire or another organisation. He discussed his work on NASA's UAP Independent Study Team and argued that stigma impeded the collection and study of reports. His contribution concerned how institutions could obtain useful information and conduct research, rather than a personal aerial encounter.
He proposed searching NASA's archives with artificial intelligence or machine learning, seeking information from international partners, and building clearer routes for civilian and commercial reports. He cited the study team's recommendation concerning NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, which NASA administers for the Federal Aviation Administration. His written statement also considered dedicated instruments, while acknowledging their greater cost and NASA's budget constraints.
When Mace asked whether the study team had been briefed on the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program, Gold said he had raised it with the chair and designated federal officer but that the team had not received a briefing. That answer defines an access limit. His interest in further investigation does not amount to the study team having reviewed or validated that programme's underlying records.
Evidence review
Gold's testimony contributes a proposed method for improving the record: clearer reporting, archival searches and instruments suited to the questions being asked. The value of those proposals depends on data quality, implementation and subsequent testing. His references to anomalies describe reasons for investigation, rather than results identifying a nonhuman technology.
His previous NASA role and study-team membership explain his policy perspective. His personal-capacity statement prevents his recommendations from being presented as new NASA commitments. The hearing supplies neither a completed archival search nor results from dedicated instruments; those remained proposed activities.
Statement and reporting history
13 November 2024: offers written and oral testimony in a personal capacity.
13 November 2024: proposes archival searches, civilian reporting and further scientific investigation.
13 November 2024: says the NASA study team did not receive the programme briefing about which Mace asked.
Official five-page PDF acquired and all five page images visually inspected. Its personal-capacity statement and proposed activities are retained. The quoted study-team recommendation was read in this statement; this review does not claim a new inspection of the full NASA report or any completed archival search.
Official GPO HTML acquired. Selected opening, oath, statement and question-and-answer passages read, including Mace, Grothman, Burchett, Higgins and Biggs exchanges used here. Printed in 2025 for the 13 November 2024 hearing. Complete proceeding, video and separately listed questions for the record not comprehensively reviewed.
What the shared hearing record establishes
The committee placed four different kinds of contribution into one public proceeding. An assertion based on claimed programme access has a different evidential structure from a recollected email, a journalist's report of confidential sources or a proposal for collecting future data. Comparing them clarifies where the record contains a participant's own experience and where it depends on another person's observation, an undisclosed document or a proposed investigation.
Several exchanges sharpen those distinctions. Gallaudet called his explanation of the email's disappearance speculation and said he had no personal submerged-object experience. Shellenberger identified himself as the reporter rather than the anonymous document's author. Gold described a briefing his study team had not received. Elizondo said he had not read Shellenberger's report or article. Agreement about the need for transparency therefore supplies no automatic independent confirmation of that particular report.
The oath and official transcript preserve an accountable record of the witnesses' statements. They do not turn every statement into a committee finding or make a submitted document an authenticated government programme record. The next evidential step differs by claim: communication records could test the email history, programme and custody records could test retrieval assertions, and access to the alleged databases could test the confidential-source reporting. Gold's proposals address how a more openly examinable scientific record might be created.
The hearing's historical significance lies in making these claims and access limits explicit before Congress. It brought a policy debate and disputed factual allegations into a durable public record while leaving their different underlying sources visible. Their shared setting supports comparison, rather than treating the four participants as interchangeable witnesses to one encounter.
Key dates
January 2015
Period Gallaudet assigns to receiving the Navy safety email in his later testimony.
October 2024
Shellenberger's written testimony refers to his earlier reporting on the programme allegation.
13 November 2024
The joint House subcommittees hear the four witnesses under oath and receive their written statements.
13 November 2024
Questioning records the distinctions between claimed programme access, a recalled communication, protected-source reporting and scientific policy.
2025
The Government Publishing Office issues the printed hearing record as Serial No. 118-135.
Official hearing page inspected for date, witness roster, listed roles and links to written statements. Embedded hearing video not watched in this review.
Official GPO HTML acquired. Selected opening, oath, statement and question-and-answer passages read, including Mace, Grothman, Burchett, Higgins and Biggs exchanges used here. Printed in 2025 for the 13 November 2024 hearing. Complete proceeding, video and separately listed questions for the record not comprehensively reviewed.
Official three-page PDF acquired and all three page images visually inspected. Documents his assertions and policy proposals; classified supporting records, restriction document and full book not inspected.
Official seven-page updated statement acquired and all seven page images visually inspected. Email history, interpretations and recommendations distinguished. Original email, system records, attachment provenance and complete linked supporting library not independently examined.
Official 214-page file acquired. Programme/source discussion on PDF pages 6–8 visually inspected; selected surrounding prose read as extracted text. The cover prints 13 November 2023, while the official hearing page and transcript establish the 2024 submission. Extensive appendices, underlying confidential-source records, alleged imagery and the separately submitted anonymous report were not comprehensively examined.
Official five-page PDF acquired and all five page images visually inspected. Its personal-capacity statement and proposed activities are retained. The quoted study-team recommendation was read in this statement; this review does not claim a new inspection of the full NASA report or any completed archival search.