The Senate Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities held the April 19, 2023 hearing to receive testimony on AARO's mission, activities, oversight, and budget, listing Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick as the witness and posting his statement, case-video files, and transcript as hearing materials.123
Chairwoman Kirsten Gillibrand opened the public session after an earlier closed session, framing the hearing around AARO's funding, direct reporting chain to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, access to surveillance data, interagency coordination after the North American object shootdowns, and a public safe-disclosure process for UAP witnesses.34
Kirkpatrick's statement matters because it documents AARO's April 2023 public posture under its first director: a nine-month-old office with more than three dozen experts, organized around operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications, prioritizing DoD and Intelligence Community reports in or near national-security areas.2
The same posture was deliberately evidence-first. Kirkpatrick said a small percentage of reports displayed anomalous signatures, most reports had mundane characteristics or insufficient data, unresolved cases would stay open until defensible conclusions could be reached, and AARO had found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects defying known physics.25
The hearing record also preserves the public case examples that shaped AARO's April 2023 briefing: a 2022 Middle East MQ-9 "metallic orb" case retained in active archive, plus South Asia MQ-9 footage that AARO assessed as likely commercial aircraft imagery with a video-compression artifact, pending final review or peer review.67859
Use this link as the official Senate anchor for AARO's early public testimony, with AARO's congressional-products index providing another official access point to the hearing transcript, video, and briefing slides.110