Anna Paulina Luna Grills Sec. Granholm On Securing DoE Nuclear Facilities From Drone 'Incursions'

5 months ago

During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the recess, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) spoke about illegal drone incursions into Department of Energy nuclear facilities.

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00:00 Berkshire asked you about some UAP stuff. You said that the DoD essentially had denied any

00:04 existence of that and you referred to them as drones, correct?

00:06 It's my understanding that the Department of Defense has looked at this issue to report about

00:11 it. I have a lot of questions, so just quick and concise if possible. There have been persistent

00:16 claims and reports, including those from credible whistleblowers, to this committee suggesting that

00:21 the U.S. government, potentially including the Department of Energy, has been involved in reverse

00:24 engineering technologies recovered from UAP. For example, the Pentagon's proposed Kona Blue program

00:30 aimed at reverse engineering such technologies, although it was ultimately not established.

00:34 Can you clarify whether the Department of Energy has been involved in any such efforts,

00:38 either historically or currently, to analyze reverse engineering materials from related to UAPs?

00:44 I have no knowledge of that.

00:46 Okay. There are several reports indicating frequent drone incursions over DOE nuclear

00:51 facilities, including an incident on April 1st, 2021 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,

00:57 also known as LLNL. Can you detail the DOE's current security measures to prevent unauthorized

01:04 drone activities or UAPs and what steps are being taken to enhance these measures

01:08 of frequencies of incidences?

01:09 Yeah, we have a whole counter drone effort to make sure that all of our national security

01:17 sites and our labs are protected from incursions from drones, I'll just say, that are not authorized.

01:27 So there's a whole series of protocols, probably not ripe for discussion in this public setting.

01:32 Correct. So I review some unclassified materials from around the '40s and '50s, and so they

01:37 weren't just being reported as drones back then, and I encourage you to look over those materials

01:41 because I think that you guys should be upgrading that program to cover down on UAPs.

01:45 There have been documented sightings of metallic spheres over DOE facilities,

01:49 if you want to call them drones in this instance, such as one report on April 30th, 2019 over

01:54 LLNL. What investigations have been conducted in regards to these sightings, and what conclusions

01:59 do you guys have about the nature and origins of these objects?

02:03 I'm happy to follow up with you on that.

02:06 Okay, we'll be submitting also too for public record some questions after this,

02:09 if you could please answer those. Considering the DOE's involvement in nuclear insensitive

02:13 research facilities, how does the DOE coordinate with agencies like the Department of Defense and

02:17 ARO to investigate UAP sightings? We are part of, we obviously are teamed

02:22 with the Department of Defense because of our national security and nuclear mission.

02:26 Are you able to cite any specific investigations or shared data analysis efforts?

02:31 I don't have information on that. Okay. As of right now, again,

02:35 we'll be submitting some questions for you after this, but I hope that you guys can answer those

02:39 in a timely fashion. And again, for those that might be tuning into this, I would encourage

02:43 you to look at some of those unclassified materials, and we'll be happy to provide

02:46 your office with that. I'll just follow up by one other question, I guess, to close it out.

02:52 Does the DOE currently work with JSOC in order to handle security measures?

02:57 We work with all of the security entities around the federal government. We're part of

03:04 overall all of government effort on both cyber as well as national security.

03:12 Do you guys work with JSOC? Yes or no?

03:14 Yes, we do. Okay. All right. Thank you very much,

03:17 ma'am. I yield the rest of my time, Chairman. Would the GLA yield your remaining time?

Anna Paulina Luna Grills Sec. Granholm On Securing DoE Nuclear Facilities From Drone 'Incursions'

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