Rep Crane (AZ) Response

It’s a canned response, I was surprised (but not really) to see the majority of it is focused on China…

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

As you may already know, there has been a great push for the Pentagon to collect and declassify UAP data. In 2020, the Department of Defense formed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF) in order to gain greater insight into the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

This year, Congress held hearings in June and July on threats posed by unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and UAPs in response to a report documenting more than 140 cases of UAPs that U.S. military pilots have reported observing since 2004 and recent information of UAP sightings in which aircraft appear to fly without discernible means of propulsion near military bases and coastlines. UFOs/UAPs are a national security concern if they originate from our nation’s adversaries.

Given all this, it cannot be emphasized enough that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) represent one of the primary national security threats to our nation. It is imperative the U.S. remains vigilant in the face of China’s hegemonic ambitions and desire to reshape the global order so as to not threaten U.S. sovereignty and primacy. The U.S. must remain vigilant and ensure that our readiness and weapons development remain top-tier and extinguish any prospect of secret Chinese weapons technologies surpassing our defense capabilities.

To be sure, the CCP regularly engages in nefarious practices at the expense of U.S. national security. Recently, the CCP launched a high-altitude surveillance balloon to move across the U.S. homeland. As the Chinese Communist government claimed it was simply a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes” that deviated from its course, the balloon itself was observed to be maneuvering in the vicinity of U.S. military installations that host intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable bombers in Montana. Rather than immediately disable this surveillance balloon, President Biden allowed it to cross the U.S. before shooting it down off the coast of the Carolinas.

Such blatant surveillance of our nation by the Chinese government is a gross violation of U.S. airspace and international law. The CCP’s surveillance balloon, along with other UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) that the U.S. Military has since engaged with in places such as Alaska, northern Canada, Lake Huron near Michigan, should have never been permitted to enter U.S. airspace. Ultimately, President Biden’s soft stance towards China invited belligerent behavior from U.S. adversaries and has resulted in a direct national security threat to the U.S. homeland.

Given all this, I joined my colleague and Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), in expressing our concerns in a letter directed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, over the Biden Administration’s failure to defend our homeland from this invasion of sovereign U.S. airspace by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surveillance balloon.

I appreciate you sharing your opinion with me and would like to assure you that I will continue to stand up for Arizona’s 2nd District and fight against the Biden Administration’s America-last agenda. If you have any further questions, please call my Washington, DC office at (202) 225 3361, and if you would like to keep up with what I’m doing in Washington, you can subscribe to my newsletter at crane.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Elijah Crane

Member of Congress