A new petition to the White House is calling on Congress to hold hearings about what U.S. government officials know about the existence of extraterrestrial life.
As of Thursday evening, the petition was about 3,500 signatures toward the 100,000 signature threshold required to get a response from the White House.
In November 2011, the White House responded to a similar petition by asserting the U.S. government has no evidence that aliens exist, that aliens have visited Earth, or that there is a conspiracy to hide evidence of alien life from the U.S. public.
“There are scores of government/agency/political witnesses of rank and station prepared to testify under oath before congressional committees now about the evidence the White House states doesn’t exist,” according to the latest petition, which was submitted on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment about the petition because it does not have enough signatures to elicit a response.
“If this petition meets the requirements of the program, the White House will respond,” Bernadette Meehan said in an email Thursday to Air Force Times.