“The Subcommittee on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, will come to order.”
House Oversight UAP Hearing - July 26, 2023
- Date
- 26 Jul 2023
- Venue
- House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
- Language
- en
- Status
- Extracted
514
statements
21
speakers
15
entities mentioned
Speakers
21 speakers, A to ZAlexandria Ocasio-CortezVice Ranking Member8 statementsAndy BiggsRepresentative5 statementsAnna Paulina LunaU.S. Representative23 statementsCommander David FravorNavy Commander26 statementsCommander FravorNavy Commander20 statementsDavid FravorNavy Commander3 statementsDavid GruschFormer U.S. Space Force Officer104 statementsEric BurlisonU.S. Congressman12 statementsGarciaRepresentative40 statementsGlenn GrothmanU.S. Congressman17 statementsJamie RaskinRepresentative22 statementsJared MoskowitzRepresentative29 statementsMatt GaetzRepresentative16 statementsMr. GarciaRepresentative14 statementsMr. GravesFormer Navy Pilot3 statementsMr. GrothmanU.S. Congressman12 statementsMr. GruschFormer U.S. Space Force Officer8 statementsNancy Mace9 statementsRyan GravesFormer Navy Pilot88 statementsTim BurchettRepresentative53 statementsVirginia FoxxRepresentative2 statements
Transcript
514 statements, in transcript orderEach entry is one claim, quoted word for word. These are extracted statements, not the full record: the original document has everything.
- 001
- 002
“I would like to thank the brave military panelists and personnel, such as the witnesses on the panel today, for sharing their stories on how they have engaged UAPs, which has brought attention to this matter.”
- 003
“when I was younger in school I read a book—a 1966 book called ''Flying Saucers Serious Business'' and for a while when I was a little bit younger, I thought it was the most important issue out there.”
- 004
“The lack of transparency regarding UAPs has fueled wild speculation and debate for decades, eroding public trust in the very institutions that are meant to serve and protect them”
- 005
“in 1966, President Gerald Ford claimed to have seen a UFO, and in 1969 in Georgia, Jimmy Carter claimed to have seen a UFO”
- 006
“The National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 established the all-domain anomaly resolution officer—AARO—to conduct or to coordinate efforts across the Department of Defense and other Federal agents to detect, identify, and investigate UAPs.”
- 007
“AARO's budget remains classified, prohibiting meaningful oversight from Congress.”
- 008
“NASA is leading an independent study on UAPs to identify how UAP data is gathered from both civilian and government entities that can be analyzed to shed light on the topic.”
- 009
“The Biden Administration's handling of the Chinese spy balloon that violated U.S. air space is one example how the government is not prepared for these.”
- 010
“Between the Chinese balloon being shot down and two UAPs subsequently shot down following the event earlier this year the U.S. Government spent $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars on missiles.”
- 011
“Yet, we have seen little clarity from the Biden Administration.”
- 012
“We must demand transparency from the Department of Defense, our intelligence community, and our defense industry on the UAP work.”
- 013
“Congress recognizes the subject of UAPs is multifaceted and requires a careful data-driven approach.”
- 014
“Today, we are not just debating the existence of UAPs. We are deliberating on the principles that define our republic, which is a commitment to transparency and accountability.”
- 015
“I want to remind everybody this is a nonpartisan issue. This has nothing to do with party politics. I think the cover up goes a lot deeper than that.”
- 016
“if it had not been for Matt Gaetz, myself, him, and Luna would still be down at Eglin Air Force Base trying to get some answers.”
- 017
“I also would like to enter in—I understand now that this is unclassified, and it is public record but as we all know that is sometimes difficult for the public to get a hold of—a report, defense intelligence reference documents, ''Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (spacetime metric) Engineering,''”
- 018
“Mr. Knapp wrote since 1969, the position of our military has been that UFOs posed no threat to national security and are not worthy of further study.”
- 019
“I would say that is the biggest understatement of the decade.”
- 020
“He also goes on to talk about the dismissive attitude is at odds with what was revealed in documents, reports, and internal memos.”
- 021
“Mr. Corbell says as he writes these words, the UFO is emerging as a major topic of global importance.”
- 022
“I can state that as a fact out there. I met a fellow who came in here all the way from Denmark to be here for this meeting. So, this is huge. This is worldwide.”
- 023
“I think we suspect what is going on.”
- 024
“Some have even confided in me that they have had UFO sightings of their own. Those Members, of course, some of them wish to remain anonymous and I will keep it that way.”
- 025
“I would like to thank these three brave witnesses here. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and daggum it they are doing it and we owe them a debt of gratitude.”
- 026
“These folks, they have got nothing to gain from this and I think you are going to find out that they have endured quite a few slings and arrows.”
- 027
“They have done interviews and appeared in documentaries like ''Accidental Truth'' to get their stories out there and now they are all here to testify under oath for Congress. It has been so difficult to get here today.”
- 028
“I have said, you know, in the Baptist Church we would say that the devil is in our way and the devil has been in our way through this thing. We have run into roadblocks from Members, from the intelligence community, the Pentagon.”
- 029
“I proposed legislation to go in the FAA reauthorization that just said if an airline pilot has a sighting that when he makes that report to the FAA that it would come to Congress. But I was told that the intelligence community did not like that, and the bill was—the amendment was not even heard in committee.”
- 030
“I think it is time for this country to take back our country. We need to tell the folks at the Pentagon they work for us, daggum it. We do not work for them and that is exactly the point. This is an issue of government transparency.”
- 031
“We cannot trust a government that does not trust its people.”
- 032
“We are not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing. Sorry to disappoint about half of you all. We are just going to get to the facts. We are going to uncover the cover up and I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings and more people coming forward about this.”
- 033
“The circumstances surrounding UAPs has captivated the attention of the American people for decades, ingrained in even the minds of our Nation's leaders from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, Marco Rubio to Chuck Schumer, John Ratcliffe to National Security Council officials.”
- 034
“Yet, from Roswell, New Mexico to the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, the sightings of UAPs have rarely been explained by the people who have firsthand accounts of these situations.”
- 035
“This is largely due to the lack of transparency by our own government and the failure of our elected leaders to make good on their promises to release explanations and footage and mountains of over-classified documents that continue to be hidden from the American people.”
- 036
“This is not just how I feel. In fact, the American people largely believe that the government has actively covered up the truth about UAPs.”
- 037
“One poll, in particular, found that 68 percent of Americans believe that the government is hiding information about UAPs and not being honest about what we know about them and from my personal experience I believe the same thing.”
- 038
“Another poll found that nearly half of Americans believe that the Federal Government is doing a very bad or somewhat bad job of dealing with reports of UFO sightings.”
- 039
“Considering the thousands of testimoneys and videos taken on people's phones and eyewitnesses' accounts made by credible witnesses such as doctors, pilots, scientists, and active-duty service members, it is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans into thinking that this is not happening or that the potential of intelligent life forms exist other than humans.”
- 040
“Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are, many times, service members and have no assurance that their lives will not be negatively impacted or even harmed by their experiences.”
- 041
“In being an active-duty service member working on an airfield, I have had conversations with many pilots where they were in fear of coming forward for retribution and/or being taken off flight status.”
- 042
“How do we know this? Because the government has said nothing to assure us otherwise. They have also done nothing to calm the concerns of over 20 percent of Americans who have reported to have seen UFOs or UAPs.”
- 043
“We are simply told not to question the government and that the government has it under control.”
- 044
“Today is the first hearing of its kind where we will attempt to get down to the bottom of what is actually happening with UAPs. But we will hear from people who have had personal sightings rather than Pentagon bureaucrats who have always been sent to stonewall our investigations.”
- 045
“Just so that the press knows, and the people know, we were even denied access to a classified briefing in a SCIF prior to this hearing due to the amount of hoops that we had to jump through to grant temporary clearance to witness Grusch, who has knowledge of classified information.”
- 046
“It is time to have an open-minded discussion on this topic, to hear the evidence and understand the magnitude of what this means not just for our Nation but for humanity.”
- 047
“Our witnesses will testify today that UAPs have posed a serious safety threat and we must understand this.”
- 048
“Now, some of the earliest reporting on this issue was a groundbreaking 2017 New York Times report which revealed research as we know now on unidentified anomalous phenomena or as many call UFOs by the Defense Intelligence Agency.”
- 049
“Mr. Graves and Commander Fravor's experiences with UAPs have also been documented by the public, not just by the New York Times but CNN and many other national news outlets.”
- 050
“Now, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has published public reports documenting UAPs and on June 9, 2022, NASA announced that the agency is commissioning a study to, of course, examine unidentified anomalous phenomena.”
- 051
“Now, the sheer number of reports, whistleblowers, and stories of unidentified anomalous phenomena should raise real questions and warrant investigation and oversight and that is why we are here today.”
- 052
“Now, pilots have reported encounters for years and because of the stigma around reporting these incidents we still do not have a complete picture of actually what is going on, particularly, as your witnesses will testify, on the civilian side and that is a real problem that we have today in the country.”
- 053
“Now, I understand fully the Department of Defense is hesitant to share information that could also undermine our national security by revealing information on the capabilities of our own aircraft, our sensors, and other sensitive material.”
- 054
“At the same time, many people believe that we are withholding information from them and that is dangerous also.”
- 055
“Now, we have incidents when sensors, sometimes even multiple types of sensors, detect things that we cannot explain.”
- 056
“UAPs, whatever they may be, may pose a serious threat to our military or civilian aircraft and that must be understood.”
- 057
“I also want to note that Mr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the component of the DoD office that investigates UAP data, has testified before the Senate this year that his unit has found no evidence of extraterrestrial activity.”
- 058
“NASA has also stated they do not have evidence of extraterrestrial life either and we have heard this, of course, from some of our government agencies.”
- 059
“And we should remind viewers and witnesses, which I think is really important, that we also cannot share classified information in public settings.”
- 060
“I hear over and over from many agencies the stigma around reporting and investigating UAPs prevents us from getting real answers.”
- 061
“We know that whistleblowers have reported harassment, intimidation, or stigma as well and this is not acceptable.”
- 062
“If people cannot report incidents which would have national security or safety implications, then that also has serious consequences for us.”
- 063
“We know the Senate is taking up an amendment to their defense authorization bill which will create a commission with broad declassification authority, and we should all agree that that is an important step.”
- 064
“We should encourage more reporting, not less, on UAPs. The more that we understand, the safer we will be.”
- 065
“I also just want to say, more broadly, that we should look at this hearing and believe that everything is on the table as it relates to UAPs.”
- 066
“My career and training as a longtime and career educator and teacher and researcher tell me that we should never rule any thing out. We know that our space, of course, is vast and undiscovered.”
- 067
“But questions, of course, remain that people want to see data and information for themselves.”
- 068
“I believe in openness and transparency. That is also the role of Congress, and I want to trust that the American people will be able to weigh the evidence and make up their own minds.”
- 069
“As Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I know my job would be completely impossible if whistleblowers or others feel intimidated to come before this Committee. We cannot be afraid of asking questions and we cannot be afraid of the truth.”
- 070
“I am proud to say that this hearing builds upon bipartisan work by Members of the House and Senate dating many years back which is sought to increase awareness within the Department of Defense and more—and to mandate more of Congress of UAPs.”
- 071
“Members of both parties and senior officials in multiple administrations have taken an interest in this issue and we are proud to carry and build that confidence in the American people.”
- 072
“This hearing will also not be the end of the discussion but a new chapter and start to years and years of work that many folks both in the public and within government have been working on.”
- 073
“I want to thank first our witnesses for joining us today. I want to begin by thanking you all for your service to our country and for sharing your voices today and your courage to be here as well.”
- 074
“To Mr. Graves, I am particularly grateful to you to spend some time that we had for you to share with candor some of your experiences. So, I appreciate that as well.”
- 075
“I do want to thank all the Members of our Subcommittee today and also those that are here and have waived on for their incredible interest in this issue, particularly to Congressman Burchett. I know that your leadership has brought us to this place today and I want to thank him for that as well as everyone else that has been engaged in this work.”
- 076
“It is really important that we are here in a bipartisan way to have this conversation which really to the heart of it is about national security and key to the Subcommittee's core purpose.”
- 077
“Faith in our institutions, as we all know, is at an all-time low. Partisanship and alternative facts make it too easy to doubt narrative or our institutions.”
- 078
“But this hearing will offer the public unique perspectives, building on years of reporting by both Federal agencies and the independent media.”
- 079
“Now, it is very important that we show that Democrats and Republicans in Congress can come together in a bipartisan way to cut through misinformation and to look at the facts in a serious and thoughtful manner.”
- 080
“If we are to advance oversight and public disclosure, we must also gain the broad support of the public. We will succeed getting facts out to the public faster if there is a broad public support as part of the process.”
- 081
“The enormous interest in the hearing today underscores the importance of a fair and open look at the evidence from witnesses who can share their unique perspectives.”
- 082
“Now, I know I certainly have a lot of questions. I know that all the Members of our Committee do as well. We should come to this hearing with an open mind, and we should not let our existing ideas restrict us on either side.”
- 083
“We cannot be afraid of asking questions and we cannot be afraid of the truth.”
- 084
“I encourage all of my colleagues to engage with these difficult questions with an open mind and to follow the facts on behalf of our country.”
- 085
“I think an open mind is absolutely the best.”
- 086
“I want to thank Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna for their leadership in pushing this hearing forward.”
- 087
“it should not take the potential of nonhuman origin to bring us together”
- 088
“Unlike other hearings many times in Congress you are not here to help a political party, but you are here to share information with the American people, and it is not something that is just going on in this Administration. It is something that has spanned many administrations.”
- 089
“For decades many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it is long past time that they got some answers.”
- 090
“The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, nonhuman intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. Those are not the words of a UFO Twitter account. That is a direct quote from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer”
- 091
“In an interview with Fox News, recent former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe confirmed the U.S. Government is aware a lot more sightings of UAPs and that they have not made that information public. I quote, 'There are a lot more sightings that have not been made public,' Ratcliffe said to Fox News.”
- 092
“For me, this hearing is about transparency. We, unfortunately, live in a time in which many people distrust government and our institutions and over classification of information away from the American public or even Congress contributes to today's politics.”
- 093
“The American people have regular questions. What are UAPs? How come the media does not report more on them? Are they foreign adversaries? Are they U.S. technology? Are they something else?”
- 094
“They ask themselves how come when a Russian jet shoots flares at one of our drones—we have perfect pictures and videos to show the American people and the world—but when it comes to UAPs nothing.”
- 095
“Of course, we must always protect our national security to maintain our superiority like when stealth helicopters were only rumored to exist but were used in the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011. But we cannot allow that to be used as a shield to keep the American people completely in the dark from basic truths.”
- 096
“The American people deserve to hear more about special access programs.”
- 097
“Congress has a right to know if there is any unsanctioned weapons development satellite imagery that has not been provided to Congress.”
- 098
“Congress created the All-Domain Resolution Office in the NDAA of 2022. In its initial analysis there are 171 uncharacterized UAP reports—and this is the words from the report—that appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.”
- 099
“I believe more information is known about the 171 instances.”
- 100
“It is time for Congress to reinsert ourselves. I call on our military leaders and intelligence officials to release more information to the American people about UAPs. And to our military leaders, if there is nothing to conceal let Congress go to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the Doug Wright Proving Ground, or even Groom Lake in Nevada.”
- 101
“We should have disclosure today. We should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come.”
- 102
“Our first witness is Lieutenant Ryan Graves. He is the Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Lieutenant Graves is also a former U.S. Navy F–18 pilot with his own UAP experience.”
- 103
“The next witness, David Grusch, is a former senior intelligence officer with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was a senior technical advisor for UAP issues.”
- 104
“And, finally, retired Navy Commander David Fravor, squadron leader who worked as a naval aviator for 18 years. Mr. Fravor has his own UAP experience known as the Tic Tac event.”
- 105
“My name is Ryan "FOBS" Graves and I am a former F–18 pilot with a decade of service in the U.S. Navy including two deployments in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve.”
- 106
“I have experienced advanced UAP firsthand and I am here to voice the concerns of more than 30 commercial aircrew and military veterans who have confided their similar encounters with me.”
- 107
“As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace but they are grossly under reported. These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine.”
- 108
“Military aircrew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.”
- 109
“The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security. It silences commercial pilots who fear professional repercussions, discourages witnesses, and is only compounded by recent government claims questioning the credibility of eyewitness testimony.”
- 110
“Parts of our government are aware more about UAP than they let on, but excessive classification practices keep crucial information hidden.”
- 111
“Since 2021 all UAP videos are classified as secret or above. This level of secrecy not only impedes our understanding but fuels speculation and mistrust.”
- 112
“In 2014, I was an F–18 Foxtrot pilot in the Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 11, the Red Rippers, and I was stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach.”
- 113
“After upgrades were made to our jet's radar systems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our airspace.”
- 114
“At first, we assumed they were radar errors but soon we began to correlate the radar tracks with multiple onboard sensors, including infrared systems, eventually through visual ID.”
- 115
“During a training mission in Warning Area W–72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, two F–18 Super Hornets were split by a UAP.”
- 116
“The object, described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere, came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft and was estimated to be five to 15 feet in diameter.”
- 117
“The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned to base.”
- 118
“Our squadron submitted a safety report but there was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings.”
- 119
“Soon these encounters became so frequent that aircrew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular preflight briefs.”
- 120
“Recognizing the need for action and answers, I founded Americans for Safe Aerospace.”
- 121
“The organization has since become a haven for UAP witnesses who were previously unspoken due to the absence of a safe intake process.”
- 122
“More than thirty witnesses have come forward and almost 5,000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at safeaerospace.org.”
- 123
“The majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at major airlines. Often, they are veterans with decades of flying experience.”
- 124
“Pilots are reporting UAP at altitudes that appear above them at 40,000 feet, potentially in low Earth orbit or in the gray zone below the common line, making unexplainable maneuvers like right hand turns and retrograde orbits, or J hooks.”
- 125
“Sometimes these reports are reoccurring with numerous recent sightings north of Hawaii and in the North Atlantic.”
- 126
“Other veterans are also coming forward to us regarding UAP encounters in our airspace and oceans.”
- 127
“The most compelling involve observations of UAP by multiple witnesses and sensor systems.”
- 128
“I believe these accounts are only scratching the surface and more will share their experiences once it is safe to do so.”
- 129
“In closing, I recognize the skepticism surrounding this topic. If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change.”
- 130
“I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents.”
- 131
“If UAP are foreign drones, is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety.”
- 132
“The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue.”
- 133
“My name is David Charles Grusch. I was an intelligence officer for 14 years both in the U.S. Air Force, both active-duty Air National Guard and Reserve at the rank of Major and most recently from 2021 to 2025—excuse me, 2023—at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, at the GS–15 civilian level, which is the military equivalent of a full bird colonel.”
- 134
“I was my agency's co-lead in unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans medium object analysis as well as reporting to the UAP Task Force—UAPTF—and eventually, once it was established, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office—AARO.”
- 135
“I became a whistleblower through a PPD–19 urgent concern filing in May 2022 with the intelligence community inspector general following concerning reports from multiple esteemed and credentialed current and former military and intelligence community individuals that the U.S. Government is operating with secrecy above congressional oversight with regards to UAPs.”
- 136
“My testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country, many of whom also have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation, and classified oral testimony to myself and many of my various colleagues.”
- 137
“I have taken every step I can to corroborate this evidence over a period of 4 years while I was with the UAP Task Force and do my due diligence on the individuals sharing it.”
- 138
“In the U.S. Air Force in my National Reconnaissance Office—NRO—reservist capacity, I was a member of the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021.”
- 139
“I served at the NRO operations center on the Director's briefing staff, which included the coordination of the Presidential daily brief and supporting a variety of contingency operations, which I was the reserve intelligence division chief backup.”
- 140
“In 2019, the UAP Task Force Director asked me to identify all special access programs and controlled access programs, also known as SAPs and CAPs, we needed to satisfy our congressionally mandated mission and we would direct report at the time to the DEP/SecDef.”
- 141
“At the time, due to my extensive executive level intelligence support duties I was cleared to literally all relevant compartments and in a position of extreme trust both in my military and civilian capacities.”
- 142
“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-ons when I requested it.”
- 143
“I made the decision based on the data I collected to report this information to my superiors and multiple inspectors general and, in effect, becoming a whistleblower.”
- 144
“As you know, I have suffered retaliation for my decision, but I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency.”
- 145
“But as I stand here under oath now, I am speaking to the facts as I have been told them.”
- 146
“I am driven by a commitment of both to truth and transparency, rooted in our inherent duty to uphold the United States Constitution and protect the American people. I am asking Congress to hold our government to this standard and thoroughly investigate these claims.”
- 147
“Right now, we need a system where pilots can report without fear of losing their jobs. There is a fear that the stigma associated with this topic is going to lead to professional repercussions either through management or perhaps through their yearly physical check.”
- 148
“Well, I do not think there has been a proper reporting system to gather those reports and thus not report them. So, to answer your question, I think there is a dearth of data due to the fact that the reporting has been limited up to this time.”
- 149
“There is certainly some national security concerns when we use our advanced sensors in our tactical jets to be able to identify these objects. However, there is no reason that the objects themselves would be classified. I would be curious to see how the security classification guideline actually spells out the different nuances of how this topic is classified from the perspective of UAP, not national security.”
- 150
“I think one of it is acknowledging a vulnerability both from a collection and I will just say, you know, a countermeasure perspective. So, it is a nut we have not cracked for many years.”
- 151
“Unless it shows a specific national security vulnerability as it relates to a weakness in a particular defense system.”
- 152
“None. We had a standard debrief where the backseaters went down to our carrier intel center and briefed would have happened and that was it. No one else talked to us and I was in the top 20 in the battle group. No one came. That captain was aware. The admiral was aware. Nothing was done.”
- 153
“Yes, it was.”
- 154
“Yes, and here is why. The technology that we faced was far superior than anything that we had, and you could put that anywhere. If you had one, you captured one, you reverse engineered it, you got it to work, you are talking something that can go into space, go someplace, drop down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it wants, and leave and there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing.”
- 155
“I would also like to add from a commercial aviation and military aviation perspective, we deal with uncertainty in our operating space as a matter of our professional actions. Identifying friend from foe is very important to us, and so when we have unidentified targets, and we continue to ignore those due to a stigma or fear of what it could be that is an opening that our adversaries can take advantage of.”
- 156
“There needs to be a location where this information is centralized for processing and there needs to be a two-way communication loop so the operators on the front end have a feedback and can get best practices on how to process information, what to do, and to ensure that their reporting is being listened to. Right now, there is not a lot of back and forth.”
- 157
“Yes, I can speak to that very briefly in an unclassified manner. As you know, the preponderance of my complaint was classified to the intelligence communities. Both material acquisition and exploitation activity, also baselining the UAPs but not sharing it with, you know, intelligence professionals that are actually doing step briefs to pilots, that kind of information.”
- 158
“Certainly. I will break that down in two ways. First, when we were first experiencing these objects off the Eastern Seaboard in the 2014 to 2015 time period, anyone that had upgraded their radar systems were seeing these objects. So, there was a large number of my colleagues that were detecting these objects off the Eastern Seaboard. They were further correlating that information with their other onboard sensors and many of them also had their own eye sightings as well of these objects.”
- 159
“Now, that was our personal firsthand experience at the time. Since then, as I have engaged this topic, others have reached out to me to share their experiences both on the military side as well as a commercial aviation side. On the military aviation side, veterans that have recently got out have shared their stories and have expressed how the objects we were seeing in 2014 and 2015 continued all the way to 2019, 2020, and beyond. And so, it became a generational issue for naval aviators on the Eastern Seaboard.”
- 160
“having somewhat similar experiences as our military brothers and sisters”
- 161
“The military and Department of Defense has stated that UAP represent a critical aviation safety risk. We have not seen that same language being used in the commercial markets. They are not acknowledging this risk.”
- 162
“having a secure system, reducing the stigma, and making this information available through the public is going to reduce the concerns that aircrew have.”
- 163
“Could you tell me why you believe it is—kind of to play the devil's advocate, a reason why some of this stuff should not be available to the public?”
- 164
“Assuming that there are reasons why not all it should be made public, this has been around for a long period of time. Can you think of—can any of the three of you think of any reason why anything related to UAPs, say, 15 years and back should not be immediately made public?”
- 165
“OK. Mr. Fravor, the Tic Tac incident that you were engaged occurred in 2004. What kind of reporting took place after that incident?”
- 166
“Did your commanding officers provide any sort of justification?”
- 167
“Was this incident the only UAP event that you encountered while you were a pilot?”
- 168
“OK. This is for any one of you. Based on—based off of each of your experiences and observations do you believe UAPs pose a potential threat to our national security?”
- 169
“OK. Each of you?”
- 170
“What steps should be taken to better understand and respond to UAP encounters in the interest of national security?”
- 171
“Mr. Grusch, in your complaint to the intelligence community Inspector General, you claim that you believe information is being hidden. What kind of information do you think was hidden and do you think it should remain hidden?”
- 172
“Thank you. Again, thank you all for your service and for testifying today. I want to just talk about UAPs as it relates to what we are seeing and pilots' interaction with UAPs. Particularly, Mr. Graves, one of the, I think, concerns from Members of this Committee is this idea that pilots—there is no system to actually report UAPs and the stigma around pilots.”
- 173
“And so can you just briefly—you mentioned that you are working with 30 pilots right now that have had encounters with UAPs. But you have also, I believe, discussed and know of many more pilots. This is just those that you are currently working with. Is that correct? Can you expand on that?”
- 174
“Certainly. I will break that down in two ways. First, when we were first experiencing these objects off the Eastern Seaboard in the 2014 to 2015 time period, anyone that had upgraded their radar systems were seeing these objects. So, there was a large number of my colleagues that were detecting these objects off the Eastern Seaboard.”
- 175
“This was something we are briefing to new students. This is something that was included in the notice to airmen to ensure that there was no accidents, and now with commercial aviators, they are reaching out because they are having somewhat similar experiences as our military brothers and sisters, but they do not have any reporting system that they can send this to.”
- 176
“I think it is actually—it is a travesty that we do not have a system to correlate this and actually investigate. You know, so if you took the East Coast, you know, there is coastal radars out there that monitor our air defense identification zone so out there 200 miles. They can track these, you know, so when you see them they could actually go and pull that data and get maneuvering.”
- 177
“So, you need a centrally located repository that these reports go to. So, if you just stuck it in DoD, you would not get anything out of the Intelligence Committee because they have a tendency not to talk. But if you have got a central location where these reports are coming in, not just military but also commercial aviation because there is a lot of that going on, especially if you talk to anyone that flies from here to Hawaii over the Pacific, they see odd lights.”
- 178
“I will concur with everything Mr. Fravor said. I will continue to say that the commercial pilots that have reached out to me through Americans for Safe Aerospace are doing so because they do not feel there is another way for them to report this safety issue.”
- 179
“I think we are doing it right now. I think this hearing is going to show the American people that their government takes this topic seriously.”
- 180
“My recommendations would be to make that a sensor centric operation in order to make it as objective as possible.”
- 181
“Yes. The objects that are being seen by commercial pilots are performing maneuvers that are unexplainable due to our current understanding of our technology and our capabilities as a country, and that applies for the military as well.”
- 182
“Yes, I concur with that. We have nothing that can stop in midair and go the other direction nor do we have anything that can, like in our situation, come down from space, hang out for 3 hours and go back up.”
- 183
“Absolutely, based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over 4 years.”
- 184
“I know the exact locations and those locations were provided to the Inspector General and some of which to the intelligence committees. I actually had the people with the firsthand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the Inspector General.”
- 185
“Some of the behaviors that we saw in our working area, we would see these objects being at 0.0 Mach—that is zero airspeed—over certain pieces of the ground. So, what that means just like a river if you throw a bobber in it is going to float downstream. These objects were staying completely stationary in category four hurricane winds. These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds—1.1, 1.2 Mach—and they would do so in very erratic and quick behaviors that we do not—I do not have an explanation for.”
- 186
“Have you spoken to commercial and military pilots that have seen these off of our East Coast?”
- 187
“I have.”
- 188
“One of the things that I found fascinating in our discussion, Mr. Graves, last night as well is that you both described UAPs and formations and the way they are observed in space or in our air and the way that they move, essentially, ways in which current technology of our aircraft that we know of are unable to actually function or move.”
- 189
“Mr. Fravor, what astonished you the most about the flight capabilities of these Tic Tac, very briefly?”
- 190
“The performance. Absolute performance. It was——”
- 191
“And you are not aware of any other objects that anybody in the world has in this world that has those capabilities?”
- 192
“No. I think it is far beyond, actually, our material science that we currently possess.”
- 193You followed a link to this statement
“Are you aware of any other reconnaissance platforms have tracked or recorded the Tic Tac's maneuvers, maybe the NORAD system or any of the others?”
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- 194
“I am not.”
- 195
“Mr. Grusch, thank you for being here, brother, and thank you all very much. Have you faced any retaliation or reprisals for any of your testimony or anything on these lines?”
- 196
“Yes. I have to be careful what I say in detail because there is an open whistleblower reprisal investigation on my behalf, and I do not want to compromise that investigation by providing anything that may help provide somebody information. But it was very brutal and very unfortunate. Some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally, to be quite frank. Yes.”
- 197
“It is very unfortunate. As they say, when you are over the target that is when they do the most firing at you. Do you have any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal these extraterrestrial technology?”
- 198
“Yes, personally.”
- 199
“Have you heard—have anyone been murdered that you would—that you know of or have heard of, I guess?”
- 200
“I have to be careful asking that question. I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.”
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