Peter Welch

“On the other hand, as the DOD, you have the responsibility to make sure that our national security is protected and that if there are surveillance drones or active drones, it can disable our systems that has to be analyzed and has to be stopped.”

“So how do you divide these -- how do you separate the responsibilities where you get all of these reports from folks who may be in good faith, maybe not, believe that you should be investigating every possible report of an extraterrestrial incident?”

“We are going to have a classified briefing. Without going into the details of what kinds of secrets that we can't share here, what is it -- what are we protecting? I don't know if you can answer this question in this open forum, but, in fact, your perception of what it is we have to, quote, protect.”

“Gentlemen, what seems incredibly difficult for you is that there is two almost competing but different narratives. One is it is -- no one knows whether there is extraterrestrial life. It is a big universe. And it would be pretty presumptuous to have a hard and fast conclusion. And, if there is, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that there is some exploration coming here, and that underlies a lot of the reports you get.”

“So the transparency actually is very important --”

“Thank you very much. I want to thank you both you, Mr. Bray, and you, Mr. Moultrie, for your appearance today.”