Lots to report, John. I’ll try to keep it moving.

UFO/UAP

We had a congressional hearing this week about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

I'm not on the committee that held the hearing, but you’re allowed to attend committees you're not on, so I went.

Why?

Because the number one question I get from constituents these days is, "Hey Jeff, what's up with the aliens?"

So here’s what happened.

There were three witnesses. Two were former Navy fighter pilots who claim to have seen UAPs first-hand, although ten years apart. (Here’s a video from one of them.)

They both seemed like pretty serious people. No huge red flags that I saw, but they were only testifying to very limited personal experiences they had many years ago.

The third witness - Mr. Grusch - has become well-known recently for making far larger claims. A former military intelligence officer, Mr. Grusch worked with a task force at the Pentagon that was assigned to look into UAPs.

His central claim is that our government has retrieved UAPs and has attempted to reverse-engineer the technology.

He doesn’t claim to have direct knowledge of any UAPs or that he’s seen them with his own eyes, but rather that he’s spoken with many people who have, he’s seen related documentation, and he now has a detailed understanding of what’s going on.

The frustrating part about the hearing was that he refused to provide many details, claiming that he could only do so in a classified setting or he may end up in legal trouble for divulging classified material.

The majority of his answers were along the lines of, “I can’t answer that in a public setting.”

A non-public setting would mean a secure room that’s built for classified briefings. We have these rooms in and around the Capitol. There are strict rules about who is allowed to use them.

After the hearing, I was on the House floor for some votes and I walked over to a few members of the committee and we talked about it. It was a group of six of us, from both parties, and we spent some time going over how we might get more detailed answers from Mr. Grusch, likely by providing access to a secure room.

The way I see it, if he’s got more to say, then the least we can do is put him in a secure room where he can say it.

As of now, the only new feature of his testimony was that it was under oath. I’m a natural skeptic when it comes to extraordinary claims, as I think we all should be - especially in the absence of direct knowledge - but the fact that he is willing to risk a perjury charge to make these claims is at least notable.

One more observation worth sharing:

The hearing was conducted by the Oversight Committee. This year, the Oversight Committee has been - by far - the most partisan committee in Congress. Its only real function has been as a platform for partisan warfare.

But on this day, the hearing was almost completely nonpartisan. It was fascinating to see how members of both parties act when there’s no clear partisan angle on an issue. Everyone was basically rational and respectful - even the members known for being pretty extreme. It was kinda great.

My First AI Bill

Last week I told you I’d update you on an AI bill my office is working on.

Here’s how it came to be:

A few months ago, I asked my staff to start scheduling meetings for me with various AI experts to help me learn as much as possible.

In one of those meetings, I learned about the major effort we’ve made to keep this technology away from China out of concern for both military and surveillance applications.

The way to build advanced AI (like ChatGPT) is to buy roughly 20,000 special microchips and let them train on a huge dataset for about six months. If you can prevent China from getting those microchips, you can prevent it from having advanced AI. So, last year, we blocked them.

Basically, we put some export controls in place to keep them from getting the microchips needed for AI.

But, as it turns out, China has been getting around that blockade by remotely accessing American technology.

So my office worked with a few experts to write a bill to close that loophole. Once we had a draft, I pulled up a list of members of the majority party who are on the relevant committees and scrolled down, seeing if there was anyone I already knew.

Then, the next time we had a vote on the House floor, I walked across the aisle, found two of them, and told them about the bill. They were open to it. I also talked to a friend in the minority party who was interested. Our staff worked together for a few weeks to get a final version ready, and last week we filed it: Two Democrats, two Republicans.

More members are starting to sign on. Early signs are that the Biden administration will be supportive. This could pass as a stand-alone bill, or it could end up in a larger bill as an amendment (fine by me).

Obviously, this is not a super-huge AI bill. This is a small bill that we developed while working on a much larger AI bill. We just happened to find this issue while pursuing something more ambitious, and we thought we’d try to fix it.

The more ambitious bill is still in development. More on that later.

Art Museum

Last week, my wife, Marisa, and I went to an art museum we had never been to before.

Walking up to the front desk, the sign said tickets were $30. I took out my wallet.

Marisa said, “You should ask if there’s a military discount.”

I said, “Nah, there’s probably not.”

She said, “But you should ask.”

I said, “Nah.”

Then she asked the person at the desk, “Is there a military discount?”

And the person said, “There sure is. You both get in for free.”

So there you have it.

I told Marisa that to make up for being completely wrong, I would put that story in my next email to you.

And to all my friends in the military who may be reading this, just go ahead and ask if there’s a discount.

Best,

Rep. Jeff Jackson (NC-14)

P.S. - By the way, I kept my eyes open during the UAP hearing for anything unusual, but it all seemed pretty normal to me.