Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin : “There are things that happen, that have happened, and probably will continue to happen that are difficult to explain”
During a press conference in Laos on November 20, 2024, the US Secretary of Defense answered a question on unidentified anomalous phenomena.
As the Biden administration lives out its final hours after the landslide election of Donald Trump, a particularly interesting exchange took place at this press conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The reporter began by recalling the testimony of the Director of the All Domain Anomalies Resolution Office (AARO), Jon Kosloski, who appeared before the Senate on the 18th to present the work carried out by the Pentagon's UFO study group.
When questioned by New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, he presented a number of unexplained cases and suggested avenues of investigation.
The reporter then asked the US Secretary of Defense if “any briefings have reached you on that and in your career, if you’ve seen UAP threaten national security and the progress that the office has made under your leadership?”
Lloyd J. Austin III replied:
Quite frankly I have not seen any UAP incidents that I would categorize as threatening non-security (sic). There are things that happen, that have happened, and probably will continue to happen that are difficult to explain.
When we encounter things like that, we will go and investigate those things because, whether it’s some really unexplained phenomena or it’s just something that is explainable, we just have to get to the root cause.
We’ve organized our effort to ensure that we can methodically identify and assess these incidents, and I want to thank Congress for continuing to support us with the resources that we need to be effective.
While former presidents, former intelligence chiefs and former Department of Defense officials have spoken out on the subject of UAP, it is extremely rare for an official government representative to discuss the subject at a press conference. President Biden, then in office, was asked about former President Barack Obama's statements on the subject of UAPs at a press conference. President Biden simply replied that the reporter should ask former President Obama the same question again, before hastily leaving the press room.
The fact that the Secretary of Defense does not consider ‘UAPs’ to be a threat to national security also comes as a surprise, after the case of Langley Air Force Base, which was blocked by UAPs for weeks, as revealed in an investigation by The Warzone, despite being one of the most sensitive areas for national defense.
His response also contrasts with the statements made to the Senate by the Director of AARO, who explained in his statements that UAPs were being observed near areas where US forces were concentrated, and with statements made by witnesses at the House of Representatives hearings November 13, 2024, most of whom stressed the danger posed by UAPs to national defense.
We can also applaud the reporter's boldness in questioning a Secretary of Defense on this subject, as Department of Defense press conferences are often silent on the subject, apart from the rare exception of journalists who do not hesitate to put their reputation on the line to force the Department of Defense to answer the questions that many American citizens are asking.