More than a year has passed since elected leaders in Congress last heard from experts on mystifying objects beyond our military and claims of shadowy government programs to study alien craft.

The now infamous congressional hearing was full of sensational claims about UFOs. Despite the government’s rebranding of UFOs with a less stigmatizing acronym – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP – the hearing still captivated an audience long obsessed with ideas of flying saucers and little green men.

So when military officers spent hours giving compelling testimony not just about strange craft flying uncontrollably through US airspace, but about a concerted effort by our government to capture and study those craft, the public was won over.

The hearing served to reignite long-standing public suspicions that the US military and other high levels of government are suppressing information about alien activity and galvanized a movement for transparency. Now, just over a year later, the government has signaled that after years of secrecy, it is slowly returning to sharing more information publicly.

But some lawmakers and lawyers say it wasn’t enough. And now, they are about to deepen the subject of the UAP once again on Wednesday.

Before the next congressional hearing, here’s what happened since Congress’ last foray into UFOs.

UFO Hearing: US Congress hopes to ‘pull back the curtain’ on UFOs in latest hearing

Watch Wednesday’s hearing

USA TODAY has a live stream of Wednesday’s hearings in the embed below:

July 2023: Military officials testify about UFOs at last congressional hearing

In the July 2023 hearing, House members heard testimony from two former Navy pilots who presented information about objects that routinely violate US airspace.

Lt. Ryan Graves and Cmdr. David Fravor each provided accounts of specific incidents they had either witnessed over the years or heard about from other pilots they believed to be credible. Some of the accounts they described were of aircraft exhibiting capabilities they believed to be beyond any known human technology.

Fravor himself was among the navy pilots who noticed the now famous Tic Tac shaped object which was filmed in 2004 during a flight off the coast of Southern California. Testifying about the well-known sighting, Fravor described the oval object as “perfectly white, smooth, windowless” and displaying unheard-of flight capabilities.

But the most sensational part of the hearing came when former Pentagon intelligence official David Grusch testified about an alleged “decades-long” shadowy Pentagon program to recover and study not only downed spacecraft, but and alien pilots. Without providing concrete evidence, Grusch accused the Pentagon under oath of being aware of extraterrestrial activity since the 1930s and of hiding the program from Congress while diverting funds to operate it.

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied that such a program exists.

August 2023: Pentagon reveals UFO website with declassified information

Within about two months of the hearing, the Pentagon office will investigate UFOs unveiled a new website for the public to have access to declassified information about reported sightings.

The SITEoperated by the All-Area Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)—a relatively new Pentagon program created to analyze UAP reports—also has a mechanism for military pilots to report views.

More than a year after its launch, the site includes a handful of videossome of which were explained as merchant vessels and others labeled as “unsolved”. Each video contains a brief description with an AARO explanation of where it was captured and what characteristics the object had.

Visitors to the site can also access an assortment of laws, memos, congressional briefings, and press releases related to the UAP.

But if you’re going to the site looking for evidence of aliens, you’ll be disappointed. In January, AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick has since been replaced by Jon T. Kosloski – appeared on a podcast and made one thing clear:

“There is no evidence of aliens and no evidence of government conspiracy,” he said.

September 2023: NASA publishes UAP report, names research chief

Weeks later, NASA released a long-awaited UFO report stating that there is no evidence to confirm that extraterrestrial ships have visited Earth.

However, in what Administrator Bill Nelson described as a signal of the agency’s transparency, NASA named a UAP research director.

Because of the potential threat to national security and aviation safety, NASA embarked in 2022 on the space agency’s first study of UFOs, for the report, experts commissioned by the space agency outlined ways that NASA can work with the US government and private commercial organizations to better study and understand unidentified flying objects.

The legislation aims to declassify records, facilitate reporting

Following the hearing, Congress attempted to take action in the form of bipartisan legislation to demystify UFOs for the public.

Last December, President Joe Biden signed into law a watered-down version of a bill calling for it release of executive branch UFO recordswhich was included in an annual defense policy bill.

However, lawmakers like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and many UFO transparency advocates derided the legislation as a letdown. While the measure directs the government to release at least some records about the UAP to the public, it gives various agencies wide latitude to withhold certain information.

Was America “Ripped Up”? The UFO Disclosure Bill has been derided for its lack of transparency

Then, according to a bill of the Chamber introduced in Januarycommercial airline pilots who witness craft flying through the sky in unexplained ways could report UFO sightings to the federal government. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin) sponsored both billwhich would create a mechanism for civilian pilots and other airline workers to report sightings to the Federal Aviation Administration.

However, the bill appears to have since it stagnated since its introduction.

The Alien Revival in Pop Culture

Congressional fire hearing served at rekindles a public obsession with UFOs which first came into focus after the infamous Roswell incident in 1947.

In the last year, Netflix launched a docuseries. Brands like MoonPie jumped on the wagon. And conspiracy theories flourished. Even Lexington, Kentucky’s tourism office capitalized on the craze with a tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign to encourage aliens on vacation in the city.

The idea that, in the absence of any immediate logical explanation, strange craft seen Flying through our skies must surely be extraterrestrial visitors seems to continue to gain momentum – even as astrophysicists warn that the absence of obvious natural explanations for UFOs it does not make the extraterrestrials likely.

Some experts even see the UFO hola as “a widespread societal problem.”

Eric Lagatta covers breaking news and trends for USA TODAY. Contact him at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Congressional UFO Hearings: What Happened Since the July 2023 Session?