Look! Up There in the Sky!
As of this newsletter, two American astronauts are stranded at the International Space Station (ISS).
This June, astronauts Butch Whitmore and Suni Williams took part in a mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule to go to the ISS.
The mission seemed to be going ok when they got to the ISS. But it was then discovered the Starliner’s thrusters failed during docking, leaving Whitmore and Williams stuck at the ISS.
In September, the Starliner returned to earth, but without the astronauts. The new plan is for the astronauts to wait at the ISS until 2025!
American airspace has also reported suspicious activity of late.
If you remember from last year, a reported Chinese spy balloon made its way to the United States. The balloon first flew over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands before moving into Canada, then re-entering the United States through Montana.
Despite some calling for the balloon to be shot down immediately, President Biden opted to let the balloon travel across the United States until it got to the Carolina coast.
The Chinese foreign ministry disputed accusations that the balloon was collecting intelligence, calling it a “completely accidental situation” and claiming the balloon was used for “research, mainly meteorological purposes.”
Never mind that a similar balloon was caught flying across Latin America during the same time.
That’s what the Chinese government says today. And the U.S. government claimed in 1947 that a United States Army Air Force’s high-altitude balloon crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. But many people believe that so-called balloon crash in Roswell was actually an unidentified flying object (UFO) and that aliens were on board.
I can’t say!
But Virginia’s Ninth District is no stranger to suspicious airspace activity.
In 1987, residents of Wythe County began noticing unusual objects in the sky. The objects overhead featured peculiar patterns of lights and traveled without noise or sound. To some they looked like flying saucers.
Danny Gordon, a lifelong Wytheville native and radio fixture in the community, regularly reported on these UFO sightings, whether they took place in Wytheville, Fort Chiswell or Rural Retreat.
Gordon’s reporting of these Wythe UFO sightings received a lot of publicity from across the country. Various newsrooms covered these reports and television crews flocked to the area to cover the frenzy.
Gordon has a book dedicated to his lived experiences and reporting. Don’t Look Up: The Real Story Behind the Virginia UFO Sightings provides a detailed account of the Wythe County UFO sightings.
You can likely get a copy when Wytheville holds their annual UFO festival. I was at their inaugural event in 2022 along with Gordon. There still is buzz about what exactly happened in 1987.
Also at the festival was Paul Dellinger. Dellinger, a Wytheville resident and reporter for the Roanoke Times at one point, interviewed scores of people over their UFO accounts.
Our modern world is now capturing these unusual flying objects on tape and camera, validating what Gordon and Dellinger reported on.
Congress is currently investigating the activities of the federal government in its response to UFO sightings.
Last year, the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications in National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.” A witness to the hearing, a former military intelligence official and whistleblower, asserted that officials within the Pentagon and other agencies were withholding information pertaining to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings (the newest name for UFOs).
Three Defense Department officials also admitted that UAP sightings posed national security threats.
Earlier this year, Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee’s Second Congressional District, which shares a border with Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District, introduced the UAP Transparency Act. The legislation seeks to declassify all federal documents related to UAPs.
Congressman Burchett, who leads the House UAP Caucus, has received classified briefings on the subject and thinks the government is engaged in a cover up of sorts.
Other notable government figures, like former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, have highlighted witnesses to phenomena “that are just inexplicable by any kind of science available to us.”
While I think UFOs or UAPs are interesting to speculate about, and while I would like to see the classified material, I am not yet a believer in the “little green men” or the “greys” or the “reptilians.”
But many people like fictional Agent Fox Mulder from the X Files believe “we are not alone.”
Happy Halloween!
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
