Investigate Earth Conspiracy Podcast - GOP Oversight Subcommittee UFO Hearing LIVE FULL

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Listen LIVE to the GOP Oversight Subcommittee Hearing on UFOs in Full with speaker David Grush, David Fravor, and Ryan Graves

I'm going to try to get out of here in about four, and then we'll give it to some of my friends over here. Good morning and welcome to the most exciting subcommittee in Congress this week, the Subcommittee on National Security of the Border and Foreign Affairs for discussion of unidentified anomalous phenomenon. I'd like to thank the brave military pilots 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. Curiosity and speculation from all walks of life have generated interest in studying what UAPs are and what threats they may pose. I will say that when I was younger in school, I read a book, a 1966 book called Flying Sausers, Serious Business, and for a while, when I was a little bit younger, I thought it was the most important issue out there. The lack of transparency regarding UAPs, which was one of the themes of that book,

in any event, it's a slight interest in studying what UAPs are and what threats they oppose. The lack of transparency regarding UAPs has fueled wild speculation in debate for decades, eroding public trust in the very institutions that are meant to serve and protect them, as is evidenced by the large number of people we have here. I also want to point out in 1966, President Gerald Ford claimed to have seen a UFO, and in 1969 in Georgia, Jimmy Carter claimed to have seen a UFO. So this has led Congress to establish entities, to examine UAPs, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022,

established the All-Domain Anomily Resolution Office or AARO, to coordinate efforts across the Department of Defense and other federal agencies to detect, identify, and investigate UAPs. However, AARO's budget remains classified, prohibiting meaningful oversight from Congress. In addition to AARO's efforts, 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. However, despite these offices being established, there lies of pressing demand for government transparency and accountability that cannot be overlooked. And that's been a problem that's been around for 50 years. The Biden administration handling of the Chinese spy balloon that violated U.S. airspace is one example of how the government is not prepared for these. The Biden administration's description of events has shown that the government continues not to be forthright.

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, yet we have seen little clarity from the Biden administration. We must demand transparency from the Department of Defense, our intelligent community and our defense industry on the UAP work. We're going to ask some questions about that today. Congress recognizes the subject of UAPs as multifaceted and requires a careful data-driven approach. Today we'll see clarity from these witnesses' testimonies. We will see clarity as to what can be done to improve reporting for military and civilians and remain committed to objective inquiry.

Congress should work to ensure that knowledge is not driven by fear. 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. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about ways we can improve government. government efficiency and openness when it comes to UAPs. I thank each of you for your presence here today and for your dedication to safeguarding the interests of the American people. I look forward to your testimony.

Now I'm going to turn it over for two and a half or three minutes to Representative Burchard from Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. I want to thank everybody for making this happen today. And 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.

I also want to thank my colleagues, Representative Anapolina Luna, sitting beside me here. Jared Moskowitz, my friend across the aisle has an incredible mind, and I'm anxious to hear his questions. My buddy Eric Burleson, and it's not in my notes here, but Matt Gates. If it hadn't been from Matt Gates, myself, him and Luna would still be down at Eglon Air Force Base trying to get some answers. He's got an incredible legal mind. Also, I know I saw it in the crowd there, George Knapp, my buddy Jeremy Corbell. They're not witnesses, but they've provided some statements on this subject, and I seek unanimous consent to enter those statements into the record, Mr. Chairman.

Without objection. Also, I'd like to enter in. I understand now that this is unclassified and it's public record, but as we all know, that's sometimes difficult for the public to get a hold of. A report, Defense Intelligence Reference documents, advanced space, propulsion based on vacuum, space-time metric engineering, some light reading for some of our members. Without objection.

Thank you. Mr. Knapp wrote, since 1969, the position our military has been that UFOs pose no threat to national security and are not worthy of further study. I'd say that's the biggest understatement of the decade. He also goes on to talk about the dismissive attitude and said odds with what was revealed in documents, reports, and internal memos. Mr. Cabral says, as he writes these words, the UFO is emerging as a major topic of global importance. 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. I think we suspect what's going on. But I'd also like to thank the members of Congress who have supported our efforts to make this hearing happen. Some have even confided to me that they've had UFO sightings of their own. those members of course some of them wish to remain anonymous and I'll keep it that way but also finally I'd like to think these three brave witnesses here they took a oath

they took a note to uphold the Constitution of the United States and dad gum it they're doing it and we owe them a debt of gratitude you all you'll quit clapping you're cutting in on my time just kidding these folks they've got nothing to gain from this and I think you're going to find out that they've endured quite a few slings and arrows we need to remember them in our prayers and their families. And I'm thankful them for their honest testimonies. 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's been so difficult to get here today. I've said, you know, in the Baptist Church, we'd say that the devil's in our way. And the devil has been in our way through this thing. We've run into roadblocks from members, from the intelligence community, the Pentagon. I proposed legislation to go in the FAA.

reauthorization that just said if an airline pilot has a siding 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, and the amendment was not even heard in committee. I think it's time for this country to take back our country. We need to tell the folks at the Pentagon, they work for us. Godgummit, we don't work for them. And that's exactly the point.

This is an issue of government transparency. We can't trust a government that does not trust its people. We're not bringing Little Green Man or Flying Saucers into the hearing. Sorry to disappoint about half y'all. We're just going to get to the facts. We're 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.

And I yield back the remainder of my time. I think is it to represent Luna, Mr. Chairman? Yeah, we'll call Ms. Luna for her statement. The circumstances surrounding UAPs has captivated the intention 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 Radcliffe to National Security Council officials. 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. 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 explanation,

nations and footage and mountains of overclassified documents that continue to be hidden from the American people. This isn't just how I feel. In fact, the American people largely believe that the government has actively covered up the truth about UAPs. One poll in particular found that 68% 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.

Another poll found that nearly half Americans believe that the federal government is doing a very bad or somewhat bad job of dealing with reports of UFO sightings. As Representative Birchett just referenced on the FAA bill that just went through, you can tell that that's exactly happening. Considering the thousands of testimonies and videos taken on people's phones and eyewitnesses' accounts made by credible witnesses such as doctors, pilots, scientists, and active duty service members, 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. Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are many of times service members

and have no assurance that their lives will not be negatively impacted or even harmed by their experiences. In being an active duty service member working on an airfield, I've had conversations with many pilots where they were in fear of coming forward for retribution and or being taken off flight status. How do we know this? Because the government has said nothing to assure us otherwise. They have also did nothing to calm the concerns of over 20% of Americans who have reported to have seen UFOs or UAPs.

We are simply told not to question the government and that the government has it under control. 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 investigations. Just so that the press knows and the people know, we were even denied after. access to a classified briefing and a skiff prior to this hearing, do the amount of hoops that we had to jump through to grant temporary clearance to witness Grush, who has knowledge of classified information. 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. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back the rest of my time. Thank you very much, and I'd like to thank you and Mr. Burchett for bringing this topic to my attention.

Now we'll recognize National Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Garcia for 10 minutes. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 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. To Mr. Graves, I'm 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. 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 you for that as well as everyone else that's been engaged in this work. I also want to thank the oversight staff, who I know has been working very hard to ensure that today's hearing is serious, that it's transparent, and that it also provides appropriate answers as our oversight body always demands.

Now, it's really important that we're 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. This is the subcommittee on national security of the Oversight Committee. Now, our witnesses will testify today that UAPs have posed a serious safety threat, and we must understand this. More broadly, we're dealing with real questions that get to the heart of our faith in government. 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. But this hearing will offer the public unique perspectives, building on years of reporting by both federal agencies and the independent media. 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 as many call UFOs by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Graves and Commander-Fraver'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. 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. Now, the sheer number of reports, whistleblowers, and stories of unidentified anomalous phenomena should raise real questions and warrant investigation.

and oversight. And that's why we are here today. Now, pilots have reported encounters for years. Now, because of the stigma around reporting these incidents, we still don't have a complete picture of actually what's going on, particularly as our witnesses will testify on the civilian side, and that is a real problem that we have today in the country. Now, it's 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. 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. 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. At the same time, many people believe that we're withholding information from them, and that is dangerous. also. 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. Now, we have incidents where in sensors, sometimes even multiple types of sensors, detect things that we cannot explain. UAPs, whatever they may be, may pose a serious threat to our military or

civilian aircraft, and that must be understood. Now, my career in training as a long time and career educator and teacher and researcher, tell me that we should never rule anything out. We know that our space, of course, is vast and undiscovered. I also want to note that Mr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-D Main Anomily 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 extra-ex-ex-real activity. NASA has also stated that they don't have evidence of XREST real life either, and we've heard this, of course, from some of our government agencies. And we should remind viewers and witnesses,

which I think is really important, that we also cannot share classified information in public settings. But questions, of course, remain that people want to see data and information for themselves. 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. Now, I know I certainly have a lot of questions, and 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. I hear over and over from many agencies the stigma around reporting and investigating UAPs prevents us from getting real answers. We know that whistleblowers have reported harassment, intimidation, or stigma as well, and this is not acceptable.

If people can't report incidents which would have national security or safety implications, then that also has serious consequences for us. As a 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 can't be afraid of asking questions and we can't be afraid of the truth. I'm proud of 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 to mandate more of Congress of UAPs. 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. Members of both parties and senior officials and multiple administrations have taken an interest in this issue, and we're proud to carry and build that confidence in the American people. This hearing will also not be the end of this 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.

We should encourage more reporting, not less on UAPs, the more we understand, the safer we will be. We will hear testimony from witnesses today with the long record of service to the American people and with subject matter expertise. Our witnesses have a unique opportunity to share the perspective, insights, and their experiences with the American people.

And 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. 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. I think an open mind is absolutely the best. I want to yield two and a half minutes of the remainder of my time to the representative from Florida, Representative Moscovitz

for an opening statement. He also has been very much engaged in this issue and I want to thank him for his leadership. Congressman. Thank you, ranking member Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna for their leadership in pushing this hearing forward. I want to thank, obviously, committee staff and their staff working on this on a bipartisan basis, because many Americans are deeply interested in this issue, and it shouldn't take the potential of non-human origin to bring us together. Additionally, I want to thank the witnesses for coming forward to share your perspectives, your thoughts, and the sightings of UAPs. Unlike other hearings, many times in Congress, you're not here to help a political party, but you're here to share information with the American people. And it's not something that is just going on in this administration.

It's something that's spanned many administrations. For decades, many Americans have been fascinated by objects, mysterious, and unexplained, and it's long past time that they got some answers. The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. Those are not the words of a UFO Twitter account. Though that is a direct quote from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, that the American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. In an interview with Fox News, recent former director of national intelligence John Radcliffe 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, Radcliffe said to Fox News. For me, this hearing is about transparency. We unfortunately live in a time in which many people distrust government and our institutions. An over-classification of information away from the American public or even Congress contributes to today's politics. The American people have regular questions. What are you apes? How come the media doesn't report more on them? Are they foreign adversaries?

Are the U.S. technology? Are they something else? They ask themselves, how come when a Russian jet shoots flares at one of the United States, 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. 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 can't allow that to be used as a shield to keep the American people completely in the dark from basic truce. The American people deserve to hear more about special access programs. Congress has a right to know if there's any unsanctioned weapons development. Satellite imagery that has not been provided to Congress. Congress created the All-D 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. I believe more information is known about the 171 instances. It's 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's nothing to conceal, let Congress go to write Patterson Air Force Base, the Dougway Proving Ground, or even Groom Lake in Nevada. We should have disclosure today. We should have disclosure tomorrow.

The time has come. Thank you, Your Ranking Member. Thank you, Mr. Moskowitz, and I would yield back now to our chairman. Thank you. Right, now I'd like to introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Lieutenant Ryan Graves. He's the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Lieutenant Graves is also a former U.S. Navy F-18 pilot with his own U.S.

experience. The next witness, David Grush is a former senior intelligence officer with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was a senior technical advisor for UAP issues. And finally, retired Navy commander David Fraver, squadron leader who worked as a naval aviator for 18 years, Mr. Fraver has his own UAP experience known as the TikTok event. I look forward to hearing from all three of you today. Pursuant to Committee Rule 9G, the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hands. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you guide. Let the record show that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative. You may be seated.

We appreciate you all being here today and look forward to your testimony. I'll remind the witnesses that we have read your written statements. and they will appear in full in the hearing record. Please try to limit your oral statements to five minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it's on, and the members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After four minutes, it'll turn yellow, and the red light, when that comes on, it tells you your five minutes have expired. I'll now recognize Mr. Graves for five minutes for your opening statement.

Thank you. Chairman Gauthman, ranking member Garcia, distinguished members of the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Representative Burchett, and Luna. My name is Ryan FAB's Graves, and I am a former FAA team pilot with a decade of service in the U.S. Navy, including two deployments in operation enduring freedom and operation inherent resolve. I have experienced advanced UAP firsthand, and I'm here to voice the concerns of more than 30 commercial aircrew and military veterans who have confided their similar encounters with me. Today, I would like to highlight three critical issues that demand our action.

As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported. These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine. Military aircrew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena. 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.

Parts of our government are aware of more about UAP than they let on, but excessive classification practices keep crucial information hidden. Since 2021, all UAP videos are classified as secret or above. This level of secrecy not only impedes our understanding, but fuel speculation and mistrust. In 2014, I was an F-18, Foxdrop. pilot in the Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 11, the Red Rippers. And I was stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach. After upgrades were made to our jets radar systems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our airspace.

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. During a training mission in the warning area at Whiskey 72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, two The two F-18 super hornets were split by UAP. 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 5 to 15 feet in diameter. The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned base. Our squadron submitted a safety report, but there was no official acknowledgment of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings.

Soon these encounters became so frequent that air crew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular pre-flight briefs. Recognizing the need for action and answers, I founded Americans for Safe Aerospace. The organization has since become a haven for UAP witnesses who were previously unspoken due to the absence of a safe intake process. More than 30 witnesses have come forward and almost 5,000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at Safe Aerospace.org. The majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at majority major airlines. Often, they are veterans with decades of flying experience. 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 Carmen line,

making inexplicable maneuvers like right-hand turns and retrograde orbits or J-Hooks. Sometimes these reports are reoccurring, with numerous recent sightings north of Hawaii and in the North Atlantic. Other veterans are also coming forward to us regarding UAP encounters in our airspace and oceans. The most compelling involve observations of UAP by multiple witnesses and censor systems. I believe these accounts are only scratching the surface and more will share their experiences once it is safe to do so. 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. I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents.

If you AP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are concerned. for flight safety. The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue. Thank you. Mr. Rush. Mr. Chairman, ranking members and congressmen, thank you. I'm happy to be here. This is an important issue and I'm grateful for your time. My name is David Charles Grush. 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, or 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. I was my agency's co-lead, an unidentified anomalous phenomena and transmedium object analysis, as well as reporting to the UAP Task Force, UAPTF, and eventually, once it was established, the all-domain anomaly. Resolution Office Arrow. 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. My testimony is based on information I've 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, my various colleagues.

I have taken every step I can to corroborate this evidence over a period of four years while I was with the UAP Task Force, and do my due diligence on the individual sharing it. This is because of these steps, I believe strongly in the importance of bringing this information before you. 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'm asking Congress to hold our government to this standard

and thoroughly investigate these claims. But as I stand here under oath now, I am speaking to the facts as I've been told them. 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. I served at the NRO Operations Center on the director's briefing staff, which included the coordination of the presidential daily brief and supporting variety of contingency operations, which I was the Reserve Intelligence Division Chief. backup. 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 were direct report at the time to the DepSec. Def. 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 of my military and civilian capacities. 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 redons when I requested it. 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. As you know, I've suffered retaliation for my decision, but I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer your questions. Thank you. Commander Fravor? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman, Congresswoman. I want to first thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee on the UAP topic that's been in the news for the past six years and seems to be continuing to gain momentum. As you know, my name is David Fraver. I'm retired commander in the United States Navy. In 2004, I was a commanding officer of Strike Fighter and 41, the world famous Black Aces.

We are attached to carrier wing 11 stationed on board the USS Nimitz and had begun a two-month workup cycle off the coast of California. On this day, we were scheduled for a 2V-2 air-air training with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off Nuitz, my wingman was joining up, we were told that the training was going to be suspended, and we were going to proceed with real-world tasking. As we proceeded to the west, the air controller was counting down the range to an object that we were going to, and we were unaware of what we were going to see when we arrived. The controller had told us that these objects had been observed for over two weeks coming down from over 80,000 feet, rapidly descending to 20,000 feet, hanging out for hours, and then going straight back up for those who don't realize,

above 80,000 feet is space. We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000 feet in a controller called Mergeplot, which means that our radar blip was now in the same resolution cell as the contact. As we looked around, we noticed that we saw some whitewater off our right side. It's important to note that the weather on this day

was as close to perfect as you could ask for off the coast of San Diego. Clear skies, light winds, calm seas, no white caps from waves. So the white water stood out in a large blue ocean. All four of us, because we were an F-18Fs, so we had pilots and whizzo in the back seat, Looked down a small, saw a white Tick-Tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north-south

and moving very abruptly over the water like a ping-pong ball. There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any sign of visible control surfaces like wings. As we started clockwise towards the object, my wizard and I decided to go down and take a closer look with the other aircraft staying in high cover to observe both us and the Tick-Tac. We proceeded around the circle about 90 degrees from the start of our descent, and the object suddenly shifted its longitudinal action. I aligned it with my aircraft and began to climb. We continued down another 270 degrees, nose low, where the Tick-Tac, or we consumed

270 degrees and we went nose-low to where the Tick-Tac would have been. Our altitude at this point was about 15,000 feet and the Tick-Tac was about 12,000. As we pulled nose onto the object within about a half mile of it, it rapidly accelerated in front of us and disappeared. Our wingmen, roughly 8,000 feet above us, lost contact also. We immediately turned back to see where the white water was at, and it was good. gone also. So as you started to turn back towards the east, the controller came up and said, sir, you're not going to believe this, but that thing is at your cap point, roughly 60 miles away

and less than a minute. You can calculate the speed. We returned to Nimitz. We were taken off our gear. We were talking to one of my crews that was getting ready to launch. We mentioned it to them. And they went out and luckily got the video that you see that 90-second video. What you don't see is the radar taped. It was never released and we don't know where it's at. The act of jamming that the object put on an APG-73 radar. And I can get into modes later if you're interested. What is shocking to us is that the incident was never investigated. None of my crew were ever questioned. Tapes were never taken, and after a couple days it turned into great story with friends.

It wasn't until 2009 until Jay Stratton had contacted me to investigate. Unbeknownst all, he was part of the A-Tip program and the Pentagon led by Lou Alessando. There was an unofficial official report that came out that's now on the Internet. Years later, I was contacted by the other pilot, Alex Dietrich, and asked if I'd been contacted, and I said no, but I'm willing to talk. I was contacted by Mr. Alizando and we talked for a short period of time and he said we'd be in contact. A few weeks after that, I was made aware

that Lou had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLong, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice, and others to form Two Stars Academy, an organization that pressed the issue with leading industry experts and U.S. government officials. They worked with Leslie Keene,

who was present today, Ralph Blumenthal, and Helene Cooper to publish the articles in the New York Times, 2017 New York Times. And it removed the stigma on the topic of UFOs, which is why we're here today. Those articles open the door for the government and public that cannot be closed. It has led to an interest from our elected officials who are not focused on little green men,

but figuring out where these craft are, where are they from, the technology they possess, how do they operate? It also led to the whistleblower protection act in the NDAA. There are multiple witnesses coming forward to say that have firsthand knowledge, and Mr. Grush just covered that. What concerns me is that there's no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated whether government processing or working on craft, believe not from this world.

This issue is not a full public disclosure that could undermine national security, but it is about ensuring that our system of checks and balances works across all work done in the government using taxpayer funds. Relative to government programs, even unacknowledged waived programs, have some level of oversight

by the appropriate committee members in the House and Senate, and this work that is said to be occurring from whistleblower testimonies should not be exempt. In closing, I would like to say that the TICTAC object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything that we had on time have today or looking to develop in the next 10 years. If we in fact have programs that

possess this technology and needs to have oversight from those people that the citizens of this great country elected in office to represent what is best for the United States and best for the citizens, I thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I know it's very difficult for all of you all you've done in the past to try to eliminate this issue. Call myself first for some questions. I'm going to start with Mr. Graves. Are your pilots, are pilots that you interact with as part of your organization? Do you feel adequately trained in briefed on how to handle encounters with UAPs? No. Right now, military witnesses to UAP have limited options for reporting UAP, but more concerning is that commercial aviation sector has not adapted to the

lessons that the military has implemented. 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. Okay. What steps do you think have to be taken to improve pilots UAP reporting, be it military or commercial? 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. So having a secure system, reducing the stigma,

and making this information available through the public is going to reduce the concerns that aircrew have. Could you just give me a little idea that the degree to which reports in the past are not made public right now? Well, I don't 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. Could you tell me why you believe it's kind of to play the devil's advocate, a reason why some of this stuff should not be available to the public? There's certainly some national security concerns when we use our advanced sensors and our tactical jets to be able to identify these objects. However, there's 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. I'll give you a follow-up on that. Assuming that there are reasons why not always 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 in back should not be immediately made public? I think one of it is acknowledging a vulnerability, both from a collection, and I'll just say a, you know, countermeasure perspective. So it's, not, we'll always say, we haven't cracked for many years. Even say 20 years back, is there any reason why when you go back that far thing shouldn't

be made public? Unless it shows a specific national security vulnerability as it relates to a weakness in particular defense. Okay. Mr. Fravor, the TikTok incident that you were engaged occurred in 2004. What kind of reporting took place after that incident? No, and we had a standard debrief where the backseaters went down to our carrier intel center and briefed what had 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.

The captain was aware, the admiral was aware, nothing was done. Your commanding officers provide any sort of justification? No, because I was the commanding officer at the squadron, so no. Was this incident the only UAP event that you encountered while you were a pilot? Yes, it was. Okay. This is for any one of you, based on, based off the event, each of your experiences and observations, do you believe UAPs pose a potential threat to our national security?

Yes, and here's 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 reversed engineered it, you got it to work, you're talking something that can go into space, go someplace, drop down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it wants, and leave, and there's nothing we can. do about it. Nothing. Okay. Either the other, you too? I would also like to add from 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's an opening that our adversaries can take advantage of. What steps should be taken to better understand and respond to UAP and in the interest of national security? 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. Mr. Grush, in your complaint to the intelligence community inspector, 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? Yes, I can speak to that very briefly in unclassified manner as you know the preponderance in 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 that kind of information. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much. Now we'll go to Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Again, thank you all for your service and for testifying today. I want to just talk about the UAPs as relates to what we're seeing in the pilots' interaction with UAPs. Particularly Mr. Graves, one of the concerns that from members of this committee is this idea that pilots, there's no system to actually report UAPs and the stigma around pilots.

And so could you just briefly, you mentioned that you're working with 30 pilots right now that have had encounters with UAPs? but you've also, I believe, discussed and know of many more pilots. This is just those that you're currently working with. Is that correct? Can you expand on that? Certainly. I'll 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. Now, that was our personal firsthand experience at the time. Since then, as I've engaged this topic, others have reached out to me that share their experiences, both on the military side as well as the 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, 2015, continued all the way to 2019, 2020, and beyond. And so it became a generational issue for naval aviators on the Eastern Seaboard. This was something we were 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're having somewhat similar experiences as our military brothers and sisters, but they do not have any reporting system that they can send this to. And let me just add to both to Mr. Fravor as well as Mr. Graves.

Not having this system for reporting, would you both agree that is harmful to not just our national security interests, but to understand this phenomenon of what's happening with UAPs? I think it's actually a travesty that we don't have a system to correlate this and actually investigate. So if you took the East Coast, you know, there's coastal radars out there that monitor our air defense identities. identification zone, so about to 200 miles. They can track these, you know, so when you see them, they could actually go and pull that data and get maneuvering. And instead of just having the airplanes, there's other data sources out there. And I've talked to other government officials on this. So you need a centrally located repository that these reports go to. So if you just stuck it in DOD,

you wouldn't get anything out of the Intelligence Committee because they have a tendency to not to talk. But if you had a central location where these reports are coming in, not just military, but also commercial aviation, because there's 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. So I think you need to develop something that allows you a central point to collect the data in order to investigate. Mr. Graves? I would concur with everything Mr. Fraver said. I'll continue to say that the commercial pilots that have reached out to me through Americans for Safe Aerospace are doing so because

they don't feel there's another way for them to report this safety issue. And I think one of the clear outcomes of this hearing already is that there has to be a safe and transparent reporting process for pilots, both on the commercial side and the military side, to be able to report UAPs in a way that's also transparent, but also understands the scope of our national security interests and what may be classified or not, but I think there has to be some sort of system. And so that's something that I hope can be an outcome that this committee can work on. Is there anything else, just for the two of you, briefly, beyond the reporting system that you think that we can do with the government to encourage and facilitate more civilian reporting?

I think we're doing it right now. Okay, great. I think this hearing is going to show the American people that their government takes this topic seriously. And how about civilians that may not be pilots? What kind of process could be in place for civilians who are not pilots who may have UAP encounters? Do either of you have any suggestions that could facilitate that?

My recommendations would be to make that a sensor-centric operation in order to make it as objective as possible. Okay. Sir, Mr. Favord? No, I agree with Mr. Graves on that. Okay. Just briefly, I also just want to note, particularly for the two pilots, and have a question for Mr. Grush.

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 is essentially ways in which current technology or aircraft that we know of aren't unable to actually function or move. And so, will you just, for the public record, again, once again, just briefly just either describe or note that aircraft that we witnessed, particularly by the 30 folks that you're working with,

are essentially outside the scope of anything that we know of today and the technology we have today. Mr. Graves, Mr. Fraver? 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.

Mr. Weber? Yeah, I concur with that. We have nothing that can stop in mid-air and go the other direction, nor do we have anything that can, like in our situation, come down from space, hang out for three hours, and go back up. Thank you. My last question. And sometimes you have also said some of these answers in the past.

We're trying to get them on the public record as well, which is really important. Mr. Gresh, finally, do you believe that our government is in possession of UAPs? Absolutely based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over four years. And where? 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. Thank you.

And Mr. Chairman, I would just say that I think that these questions are important questions, and I look forward to being involved in the process to get those answered. I know there will be a lot of questions from other committee members, so I yield back. Thank you. We'll go to Mr. Richard himself. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Garcia. I would like to have you on my legislation to do just that on the reporting.

and we'll get together on that. Maybe you can be my co-sponsor on that. That'd be really cool. Thank you for those great questions. Mr. Graves, again, I'd like to know, how do you know that these were not our aircraft? Some of the behaviors that we saw in a working area, we would see these objects being at 0.0 Mach.

That's zero airspeed over certain pieces of the ground. So what that means, just like a river, if you throw a bobber in, it's 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 I don't have an explanation for. Okay. Have you spoken to commercial and military pilots that have seen these off of our East Coast?

I have. Okay. Mr. Favre, I noticed that in the Tick-Tac video, it's Tick-Tac like the candy, not Tick-Tock like the Chinese Communist app. That's correct. Yes, sir. I just want to make that, because my daughter corrected me on that and called me a boomer and said, hey, boomer. And I said, no, baby, it's Tick-Tac like the candy. You're going to have to just look it up.

But now I would also like to say today is a day of many first. It's a miracle that we're having this meeting, and it's also a miracle that my wife has put up with me for nine years today. Today is my anniversary, so I want to tell my wife, happy anniversary, and that I love her very much. As she likes to say, this nine years have been the best two years of her life. Thank you. Mr. Favor, what astonished you the most of?

about the flight capabilities of these TICTAC, very briefly? The performance. Absolute performance. And you're not aware of any other objects that anybody in the world has in this world that has those capabilities? No, I think it's far beyond actually our material science that we currently possess. Are you aware of any other reconnaissance platforms that have tracked or recorded the TICTAC's maneuvers, maybe the NORAD system or any of the others? I am not.

Okay. Mr. Grush, thank you for being here, brother. Thank you all very much. Have you faced any retaliation or reprisals for any of your testimony or anything on these lines? Yeah, I have to be careful what I say in detail because there is an open whistleblower reprisal investigation on my behalf, and I don't 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. It's very unfortunate, as they say, when you're open to target, that's 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? Yes, personally. Have you heard of anyone been murdered that you would think, that you know of or have heard of? I have to be careful asking that question.

I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities. Maybe if we could get in a confidential area of SCIF, we could talk about that. But unfortunately, we were denied access to the SCIF. And that's very unfortunate in this scenario. Mr. Favre, do you believe that you witness an additional object under the water in relation to your encounter? I will say we did not see an object that there was something there to cause the whitewater,

and when we turned around it was gone, so there was something there that obviously moved. Okay, it was not the same object, though, that you were looking at, correct? No, we actually joked that the Tick-Tac was communicating with something when we came back, and because the whitewater disappeared. We were, in another instance, we're told about the capabilities of a jamming

during viewing of some of, when there were some people chasing some of these objects. Did you experience any of that jamming or interrupting your radar or weapon system? My crew that launched after we landed experienced significant jamming to the APG 73 radar, which was what we had on board, which is a mechanically scan, very high-end system prior to the APG 79. And yes, it did pretty much everything you could do, range, velocity, aspect, and then it spit the lock, and the targeting pot is passive. That's what we're able to get the video on.

I'm about to run out of time, but are you aware of any? any of our enemies that have that capability? No. Okay, I would also like to know for the record that, like George Knapp, break in area 51, he's the reason I knew about that. And the reason I know about the tick tax is Leslie Keene from New York Times article, and I would encourage everybody to read that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yield back to you for no time. Very good. Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Graves, you reported U.S. RAP encounters during training flights, I think, and have since come forward to warn the Pentagon that these encounters may be putting pilots at risk. My first question is you've identified these as taking place on the East Coast. Is it just on the East Coast where these encounters

have been reported? No. Since the events initially occurred, I've learned that the objects have been detected essentially where all operations, Navy operations are being conducted across the world. And that's from the Altamane Anomaly Resolutions Office reporting. Can you describe your experience after you decided to come forward and go public with your experience? Certainly. Like many others in 2017, I saw the New York Times article come out as well. And for me, it was special because I recognized the voices on the video. I recognized the video itself. I had seen it when it was taken.

I seen it when it was debriefed. And so that was kind of shook me because I realized that this problem was still ongoing. And so I reached out with the colleagues back on the East Coast and realized that this was still a safety risk that they were dealing with, that they had essentially hit a wall with how they could move forward on this conversation. It was at that point when I decided to try to move the conversation forward myself. Are there common characteristics to the UAPs that have been cited by different pilots? and can you describe what the convergence of descriptions is? Certainly.

We were primarily seeing dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere. I'm sorry, dark gray or black cubes? Yes, inside of a clear sphere, where the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of that sphere. And that was primarily what was being reported when we were able to gain a visual tally of these objects. That occurred over almost eight years. And as far as I know, it's still occurring.

So I take it that you're arguing what we need is real transparency in a reporting system so we can get some clarity on what's going on out there because there are many pilots in your situation, but we should have a way of developing a systematic inventory of all of such encounters. Is that right? Yes, and I think we need both transparency and the reporting. We have the reporting, but we need to make sure that information can be promulgated to commercial aviation as well as the rest of the populace.

Mr. Grush, what about you? What was your experience after you came forward? Well, it's only been in about two months or so, so I guess my experience has been overwhelming support from former colleagues of mine that have privately messaged me, and I do appreciate that. But I do have knowledge of active planned reprisal activity against myself and other colleagues,

and it's very upsetting to me. Coming from where? certain senior leadership at previous agencies I was associated with. And that's all I'll say publicly. But I can provide more details in a closed environment. Okay. Well, I hope you understand that there would be bipartisan rejection of any attempt to vilify, demonize, or engage in other reprisals against our witnesses and people who are telling the truth from their perspective.

Yeah, there were certain colleagues of mine that were brutally administratively. attacked. And it actually makes me very upset as a leader to see that happen to other co-workers and actually superiors of mine over the last three years. How do you account for that response? That seems like a bizarre response. I call it administrative terrorism. That's their quiver, their tool in the toolbox to silence people, especially, you know, the career government service cares about their career, cares about their clearance, their reputation to climb the ladder. and when you threaten that flow career path, a lot of people back off. But I'm here to represent those people.

Mr. Fravor, what about you? What has your experience been since you've come forward with your perspective on this? Actually, I've been treated very well. And the six people that were involved, myself included, all of them have or will be retiring from the military is 0506s. and all my friends that are very senior, three and four stars, I've talked to them, they believe, they understand there's a problem, but now I was actually treated really well. And what is your general interpretation of these phenomena, or what is your current thinking of trying to make sense of them? Well, I'll say, you know, I'm not like a UFO fanatic. It's not, it's not me, but I will tell you that what we saw,

With four sets of eyes over a five-minute period, still there's nothing, we have nothing close to it. It was amazing to see. I told my buddy I wanted to fly it, but it's just an incredible technology. All right. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I'll yield back to you. Thanks. And Ms. Luna.

Mr. Grush, in speaking to you yesterday, I just wanted to follow up on Representative Raskin's questions. in the last couple of years, have you had incidences that have caused you to be in fear for your life for addressing these issues? Yes, personally. I just want everyone to note that he's coming forward in fear of his life to put in perspective if they were really not scared about this information coming out. Why would someone be intimidated like that? To your knowledge, are NHIs working with adversarial foreign governments in either technology exchange programs or back-end? engineering programs. I don't have data on that. I'm not sure. Have you heard or you had people come forward to present that evidence? Not that particular evidence that you just exposed. Okay, on the 19th of

April, Dr. Kirkpatrick, head of Arrow, had said that he did not find any evidence of UAPs. You also stated that you had in your interview that you had briefed him on information that you were uncovering, but that he did not follow up with you. Were the items that you divulged to him important to national security. Yes, him and I had a classified conversation in April 22 before he took over Arrow in July 2022, and I provided him some concerns I had. Do you know why he might not have fallen up with you?

Unfortunately, I cannot read his mind. I wish he did. I was happy to give Sage counsel to him on where to look when he took the helm of Arrow. Okay, and then my last question for you, before I move to Mr. Graves, is you received prior approval from the Defense Department to speak on certain issues, correct? Correct. Through DOPSR, DOD, pre-publication, and security review. And I just want to remind the public, they're just looking from a security perspective. These are my own personal views and opinions,

not the departments. Okay. I'm asking that, though, mainly because I think that there are many people that would like to discredit you. So it does bring a certain amount of credibility to your testimony. I'm required by law to do that as a former intelligence officer or I go to jail for revealing classified information. Yeah, we don't want you to go to jail. My next question would actually be for Mr. Graves. Can you please explain to me in detail the event that occurred at Vanderbork Air Force Base? Certainly. In the 2003 time frame, a large group of Boeing contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vanderbork Air Force Base when they observed a very very,

large 100-yard-sided red square approached the base from the ocean and hover at low altitude over one of the launch facilities. This object remained for about 45 seconds or so before darting off over the mountains. There was a similar event within 24 hours later in the evening. This was a morning event, I believe 8.45 in the morning. Later in the evening, post-sunset, there were reports of other sightings on base, including some aggressive behaviors. These objects were approaching some of the security guards at rapid speeds before darting off. And this is information that was received through one of the witnesses that have approached me at Americans for Safe Aerospace. Was this documented in any official form, whether it was a police blotter? Yes. They had official

documentation and records from the event that the witness held over the years. And I'm not going to ask you to do it right now for time reasons, but you'd be able to sketch what was witness, correct? And have you seen that before on any other equipment and or during your flight time? I have not seen what they have described. This object was estimated to be almost a size of a football field, and I have not seen anything personally that large. Okay, and then another question on follow-up referencing the gimbal video,

Go Fast incident. Can you just clarify because to our understanding, the footage was actually cut off at a certain point, but what happens at the end of that video, just for those Americans specifically that are wanting to know about the rest of that footage? Certainly. There was some uncertainty or instability with the object. It seemed to rock a bit, and that's the last I had seen in the video.

Much of the data that I would recommend be analyzed would consist of radar data that would provide precise kinematics on the object, as well as the fleet of objects that were operating nearby. Okay, and follow up, in regards to the reporting procedures that Mr. Garcia had addressed on, as well as Representative Birchett, with the FAA, to your understanding, pilots that are seeing this commercial airline pilots, are they receiving cease and desist letters from corporations for coming forward with information in regards to safety for potential airline passengers? I have been made privy to conversations with commercial aviators who have received cease and desist orders. So the American public should know that corporations are putting their own reputations on the, not the line, but ahead of the safety of the American people. And I think would you agree with that statement?

It appears so. Okay. I guess this would be my last, I'm out of time, I yield. I'll be back. Good. Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, let's talk about the laws of physics for a second.

Mr. Graves and Commander Favre, I heard you talk about speed. When those objects broke the sound barrier, did they make a sonic boom? I was in a jet. You can't hear anything. It's kind of loud in there. Yeah, you're not able to actually personally tell within the vehicle. I will say the objects that we were seeing, they were spherical, and they were observed up the Mach 2, which is a very non-aerodynamic shape. What about G-forces? Let's talk about G-forces of those vehicles. Could a human survive those G-forces with known technology today? No. No, not for the acceleration rates that we observed. Okay. What about what they look like? How close to the...

did you get? Did you see a seam or a rivet or a section? And what I mean is, obviously, the jets you're flying have all those things. Did these objects have those? I didn't have the detail to be able to tell that. So we got within a half mile at Ticktack, which people say that's pretty far, but in airplanes, that's actually relatively close. No, it was perfectly white, smooth, no windows. Although when we did take the original Fleer video that is out there, when you put it on a big screen, it actually had two little objects that came out of the bottom of it. But other than that, no windows, no seams, no nothing.

Mr. Grush, as a result of your previous government work, have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself of non-human origin craft? Yes, I personally interviewed those individuals. Mr. Grush, as a result of your previous government work, have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself about A.T's, advanced technologies that the U.S. government has?

based on conventional advanced tech I was brief to the preponderance of the defense departments both space and aerospace compartment of programs yeah do you have knowledge or do you have reason to believe that there are programs in the advanced tech space that are unsanctioned yes I do okay and when you say that they're above congressional oversight what do you mean a complicated question So there's some, I would call it abuse here. So congressional oversight of conventional special access programs. So I'll use Title X, so DOD as an example, right? So 10 U.S. Code Section 119 discusses congressional oversight of SAP,

discusses the Deps' ability to waive congressional reporting. However, the gang of aid is at least supposed to be notified if a waived or waived, bigoted, unacknowledged SAP is created, and that's public law. Well, so that how does, I mean, I don't want to cut you off, but how does a program like that get funded? I will give you generalities. I can get very specific in a closed session, but a misappropriation of funds and self-fund. Does that mean that there is money in the budget that is said to go to a program, but it doesn't, and it goes to something else? Yes, I have specific knowledge of that. Do you think U.S. corporations are overcharging for certain tech they're selling to the U.S. government, and that additional money is going to programs?

Correct. through something called irad. Okay. Satellite imagery. Let's talk about satellite imagery. We have satellites all over the place, some that we're aware of and many that we're not aware of, right? We're taking pictures of everything at every point in second.

Mr. Grush, are you aware? Do you have direct knowledge? We talk to people with direct knowledge that there are satellite imagery of these events? That was one of my primary tasks at NGA, since we process, exploit, and disseminate that kind of information. I've seen multiple cases, some of which, to my understanding, and of course I left NGA in April, so that's my information cutoff date. But I personally reviewed both what we call overhead collection and from other strategic and tactical platforms

that were, I could not even explain prosaically. And I have a degree in physics, by the way, as well. And I am aware that you guys have not seen these. reports, unfortunately. And I don't know why. Do you have direct knowledge of you had spoken people with direct knowledge that this imagery applies to crash sites? Crash imagery. I can't discuss that in an open session. Okay.

Do you have any information that the U.S. government is involved in a disinformation campaign to deny the existence of certain UAPs? I can't go beyond what I've already stated publicly in my News Nation interview. because it touches other sensitivities. Okay. I'll yield the balance of my time back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Fox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Geroosh, in your sworn testimony, you state that the United States government has retrieved supposedly extraterrestrial spacecraft and other UAP-related artifacts. You go so far as to state that the U.S. is in possession of, quote, non-human spacecraft, end quote, and that some of these artifacts have circulated with defense contractors. Several other former military and intelligence officials have come forward with similar allegations,

albeit in non-public settings. However, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of AARO, previously testified before Congress that there has been, and I quote, no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity or of, quote, off-world technology brought to the attention of the office. To your knowledge, is that statement correct? It's not accurate. I believe Dr. Capatrick mentioned he had about 30 individuals that have come to Arrow thus far. A few of those individuals have also come to Arrow that I also interviewed, and I know what they provided Dr. Capatrick and their team.

Okay. I was able to evaluate that information. I need to go on. Sure. But my understanding, his statement is accurate, came from a direct quote. And this contradiction is a perfect example. of why we need to inject transparency into our government. And for another example, look no further than the pitiful response

to the Chinese spy balloon debacle earlier this year. You may remember the mass confusion that ensued when the balloon was first spotted over Montana, four days after it first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska. The Biden administration's initial inability to address the object grew into a new issue grew into a continuous series of embarrassments. After news of the balloon reached the mainstream media,

we were assured that the balloon posed no threat to our security. However, after the balloon was allowed to transit the entire continental United States, fighter jets were scrambled off the coast of South Carolina to shoot it down. This flip-flopping and obfuscation caused needless confusion, fear and panic across the country. It's my hope, Mr. Chairman, that this sort of confusion will not be repeated. We should investigate the extent to which elements of our government possess or do not possess information that is of critical value to the American people.

We owe it to the citizens of this nation to make sure that our government is transparent and accountable. We must make sure that our government provides answers, and Congress must do its duty to solicit those answers. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Yeah, Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 2022, NASA announced that it was commissioning an independent study team to examine UAPs. The NASA team is comprised of scientists across different fields, as well as former astronauts and pilots. In May, the independent study team held that its first public meeting, which included the perspectives from NASA senior leaders, as well as perspectives from the Department of Defense and Intelligence agencies.

The NASA study team is also expected to release its first report pretty soon, and I think it's safe to say that we all eagerly await its results. Mr. Graves, how might NASA's research influence the commercial industry regarding safety and UAP? I think NASA has a big role to play as far as commercial aviation safety, and it's one of their original charges as an organization. One of the recommendations that have been put forward is to utilize their existing aviation safety reporting system to serve as a short-term fill and trusted platform for pilots that want to report on UAP. It also has built-in analytics capability and is funded by Congress. Gotcha. And also, Mr. Graves, are there any other industries that may be influenced by the NASA research on UAPs? and if so, how so? Well, I think there is a large swath of commercial capabilities

that could be brought to bear on this topic from space-based or ground-based sensor systems that are available open-source or through commercial marketplaces. And I think NASA's work, as they work to identify and highlight specific parameters that can be found, we can take that information and promulgate this through the public sector

so that we can have more open conversation about what we're seeing. You know, in 2020, the Department of Defense released several videos of UAP. including Mr. Freyer's experience, U.S. Navy pilots that recorded footage. In 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary report on UAP events. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that NASA would begin to investigate these events. In fact, I sit on Science, Space and Technology Committee, and when we were doing a hearing with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson,

I asked why NASA needed to be fully funded, and there were many great reasons, but one of them was actually had to do with UAPs. He actually mentioned, you know, is their life out there? I don't know. And so either way, these actions ultimately led NASA to assemble the independent study team that I mentioned earlier. Also in 2021, Harvard University stood up the Galileo project to research and examine the origins of UAP. So it seems like both, you know, from NASA and in the higher education community, because of the work that y'all have done and people standing up,

you know, I think we're seeing some of that stigma slowly going away. Mr. Freyer, do you believe that military pilots feeling empowered to share their UAP experiences has directly impacted the scientific community's research goals on this topic? I would say yes. I would say that, you know, starting in 2017, when it actually came out, it took that stigma away. I mean, I've talked to multiple senators who said prior to that, if you'd have mentioned UAP, you'd have been laughed off the hill. And now we're sitting here today for a public testimony on what's actually going on.

You know, I'm hoping that this curve will be more of an exponential and we'll get more and more transparent to the level that we can. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, it's important. I couldn't imagine, you know, I'm not a pilot, but I used to fly gliders in Civil Air Patrol. Huh? Yeah, I got, yeah. A pilot?

You know. And so either way, I mean, I mean, I couldn't imagine, you know, being in the glider and seeing something and then not feeling like I had the agency to talk about it. Mr. Graves, can you discuss the importance of seeking scientists to sit on your advisory board? Absolutely. I think ultimately this is going to be a scientific problem. And not only that, it's also an engineering problem. I've been working with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics to help them stand up a UAP integration committee to help integrate their engineering prowess into this problem. And so, yes, very much, I think this is an engineering and scientific problem as much as a national security problem.

And how might Congress help to facilitate partnerships between the scientific community and the UAP focus groups within government? Well, I think one of the things they can do is to have these types of hearings to communicate to the public that this is a topic of interest. I think that there is a pseudo-market, if you will, of interested capabilities and talent that want to approach this topic. And we're seeing that start to grow now. So I think continued conversation, reduction of stigma is going to allow that to flourish and allow answers to help generate themselves. 100%. Well, thank you all for being here and thank you for your work. I think it's important that we keep our top scientific minds focused on this issue and look for ways to increase collaboration.

Thank you so much. I yield back. Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say I want to thank you for having this hearing. I want to thank Mr. Burchett and Ms. Luna for leading this hearing. And with that, I yield by five minutes to Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to direct this, I believe, to Mr. Grush, but if any of you all feel like you need to jump in, just jump right in. We're good. Has the U.S. government become aware of actual evidence of extraterrestrial, otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence? And if so, when do you think this first occurred? I like to use the term non-human. I don't like to denote origin. Keeps the aperture open, both scientifically. Certainly, like I've discussed,

publicly, previously in 1930s? Okay. Can you give me the names and titles of the people with direct firsthand knowledge and access to some of this crash retrieval, some of these crash retrieval programs and maybe which facilities, military bases, that would, the recovered material would be in? And I know a lot of Congress talked about we're going to go to Area 51 and, you know, and there's nothing there anymore anyway. It's just, you know, and we move like a glacier, and as soon as we announce it,

I'm sure the moving vans would pull up, but please. I can't discuss that publicly, but I did provide that information both to the Intel committees and the Inspector General. And we could get that in the SCIF if we were allowed to get in a SCIF with you. Would that be probably what you would think? Sure, if you had the appropriate accesses. Yeah. What special access programs cover this information, and how is it possible that they have

evaded oversight for so long? I do know the names. Once again, I can't discuss that publicly and how they've evaded oversight. in a close setting, I can tell you the specific tradecraft use. All right. When do you think those programs began and who authorized them? I do know a lot of that information, but that's something I can't discuss publicly because of sensitive.

All right. If any of you all want to jump in on any of this, you're more than welcome to. What level of security clearance is required to fully access these programs? Well, anybody who has... And I say that because myself, Representative Gates and Representative Bluna were basically turned away at one point at Eglon, so please go right ahead.

Certainly a difference between member access and say somebody like me, but anybody who has a TSSCI clearance and meets the eligibility criteria, the access adjudicative authority should be able to grant you access. Ms. Burchard, if you'll yield, so just to be put a fine point on that, there's nothing that you're aware of that's above special access program classification.

It's a misnomer that there's anything actually above top secret. Executive Order 13.526 delineates the classification levels. Right. But I draw a point on that because we can have access to those programs. And so the notion that we're not being given that access sort of defies our typical muscle memory here in Congress. Thank you, Mr. Burchard. I'll go back to you. Thank you, Mr. Gates.

Along those lines, Title 10, you may not know this or not, but Title 10 and Title 50 authorization, as they seem to say they're inefficient. So who gets to decide this, in your opinion, in the past? It's a group of career senior executive officials. Okay. Are they government officials? Both in and out. Do what?

Both in and out of government. And that's about as far as I go there. All right. Well, that leads to my next question. Which private corporations are directly involved in this program? How much taxpayer money has been invested in these programs, to your knowledge? I mean, we know we audit the Pentagon every year, and I've been here five years, and they failed the dad-gum thing every year.

They lose over a billion dollars a year, we think, and I've told Department of Defense maybe 60% of their assets are unaccounted for, whatever heck that means. In the public sector, you go to jail for that kind of crap. So tell me. Yeah, I know when I'm a dollar off of my DTS. travel voucher, I get hammered, but it seems like it doesn't work the other way. If you sell over $600 worth of stuff on eBay, now you get a call from the IRS.

So please, what corporations? Yeah, I don't know the specific metrics towards the end of your question. The specific corporations I did provide to the committees in specific divisions. And I spent 11.5 hours with both Intel committees. Okay. Has there been any, has there been an active U.S. government disinformation campaign to deny the existence of unadiped, identified aerial phenomena, and if so, why?

I can't go beyond what I've already exposed publicly about that. Okay, I've been told to ask you what that is and how to get it in the record. What have you stated publicly in your interviews for the congressional record? If you reference my News Nation interview and I talk about a multi-decade campaign to disenfranchise public interest, basically. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I yield back negative 21 seconds. Thank you. Ms. Ocadillo-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for coming here today. I do concur with the ranking members as well as several other members here on this committee

that this is a committee for whistleblowers and for the protection of whistleblowers as well. So we understand what you're putting on the table here and we're putting on the line here and we thank you for that. Mr. Grush, you sat on the unidentified anomalous phenomenon task force created in the 2020 NDAA, correct? Yes. There have been some things that have been mentioned here during this hearing that I wanted to pick up on. Mr. Graves, you mentioned specifically during the answers to one of your questions. You named Boeing contractors being engaged in an incident regarding this red cube about a football field wide. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about the interaction or Mr. Gresh,

either of you, the interactions between defense contractor companies and any UAP-related programs or activities. So I'll just say that the information about the contractor themselves were provided by a witness, and I have no particular detail in that relationship. Mr. Gresh. The kind of general unclass wavtops, certainly the contractors, you know, are the metal benders, so to speak, the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts. Are they required to issue any disclosure regarding UAP sightings, or do they engage in any reporting around this?

In terms of the contractors, not that I'm aware of. They do not. Okay. Now, when it comes to notification that you had mentioned about IRAP programs, we have seen defense contractors abuse their contracts before through this committee. I have seen it personally, and I have also seen the notification requirements to Congress abused. I am wondering, one of the loopholes that we see in the law is that there is, at least from my vantage point, is that depending on what we're seeing

is that there are no actual definitions or requirements for notification, are there, what methods of notification did you observe? Like when they say they notified Congress, Congress. How did they do that? Do you have insight into that? For certain IWAT activities, I can only think of one's conventional in nature. Sometimes they flow through certain, I would say, SAP programs that have cognizant authority over the Air Force or something. And those are congressionally reported compartments. But IRA is literally internal to the contractor. So as long as it's money, either profits, private investment, etc., they can do whatever they want. a finer point on it, when there is a requirement for any agency or company to notify, or any agency, to notify Congress, do they contact the chairman of a committee? Do they get them on the phone specifically? Is this through an email to hypothetically a dead email box?

A lot of it comes through what they call the PPR periodic program review process. If it's a SAP or controlled access program equity, and then those go to the specific committees, whether it be the SASCAS, Thank you. I apologize. My time is limited. Mr. Graves, one of your main concerns that the FAA currently does not have an official process to receive reports of UAP from pilots or others, correct? Correct. And in your experience, what data should the Aero program prioritize for potential collection? We have, you know, location date time, but are there other specific characteristics that should be included in these reports? Certainly. I think that there's two categories that would be important. One would be kinematics and understanding the specifics of how the vehicle or objects are moving. And the second would be a more resumed out approach of being able to look at origin and destination after before the incident, as well as getting a better contextual understanding of how these objects are interacting with each other. Thank you. Now, because I only have a minute left, I apologize, we only have five minutes today. But for the record, If you were me, where would you look? Titles, programs, departments, regions,

if you could just name anything. And I put that as an open question to the three of you. I'd be happy to give you that in a closed environment. I can tell you specifically. Thank you. Commander Fraver. I would say, and I've told people that you have to know where to look. They're not going to divulge it to you because of the classification levels.

but if you know where to look and who to talk to, which is exactly what Mr. Grush can point you, then you have them. Okay. Mr. Graves? I was an operator, so I was defending on folks like Mr. Grosch to do that homework. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back to the chair.

Mr. Bags? Thanks, thanks, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses for being here today. I'm over here. Thank you so much for being here. I want to get into specifics here, and the reason I'm going to go this way is because you've talked a bit about what I would call misdirection by official U.S. government with regard to UAPs, right? And so I'm going to get to that in a second.

But last week, White House NSA spokesman John Kirby stated that UAPs are having an impact on our training ranges and need to be treated as a legitimate issue. Do you concur with the statements? That's for each of you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Now, having said that, I'm going to take you to specific instances around the Phoenix Valley, because that's where I live. In 97, we had the famous Phoenix Light case. I don't know if any of you were familiar with that. There were two things that went along with that, and the explanation was military training range off Luke and the Barry Goldwater

range. Do you know anything different other than the official explanation of those lights? Only what's in the public vernacular about it. That was outside the scope of my duties. And if we wanted to, just my question along with my colleague from New York, Ms. Akazio-Cortez, if we wanted to find out more about that, where would we go to find the files and who would we address? And are you going to tell me we need to go to a skiff so you can tell us in a skiff? I could potentially give you a vector on that. That specific case, I'm not, I mean, I'm familiar with it in terms of public, but I give you a vector in a close environment. That would be good, thank you.

So if it's true that UAPs are having an impact on training ranges and this administration considers it to be a legitimate issue, what steps can Congress take to address training range impacts? And I say that having two very large training ranges in my state. and so we'll start with Mr. Graveson going down the panel. Some of the initial procedures have been implemented, such as within the United States Navy, that have a range file report that gathers information from pilots. I understand that a service-wide reporting mechanism is still pending.

However, that would be a great next step, not only for gathering information, but for showing the troops that is an acceptable topic in reducing the stigma. Okay, please, I'll be you continue. Yeah, as a recipient of a lot of those training, range reports. Sometimes we only get contextual kind of oral reporting. It'd be nice if they attached all sensor data and there's a system in place that can handle multiple classifications

of data. And that's an issue with the F-35, right? That jet was never built to be an ISR platform. And it's a pain in the, we'll just say, but to get that data off. So, yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah, I would agree with the previous two being a user of those training ranges, that the data has to be out there. You have to acknowledge that you're seeing them, and then you have to collect the data. Right now you get the report. Someone says, I saw something,

but no one collects the radar data to back it up and do research. Okay. Do you believe that the 2019 classification guidelines for UAPs interferes with the federal government's ability to be transparent with the American people, and do you think we need to be more transparent with the American people? All of you, yeah. I'll say yes to that.

I'm familiar with the, at least, the, at least the UAP Task Force, 2019 security classification guide. I think it's fair. I did actually help author that with the record. You got a bias that way then. But I will say, I'll call it a lazy attitude about declassifying videos. I mean, I've seen some of the videos of the recent shootdown, and I saw no reason that couldn't have been released as long as they mask some data.

The American people deserve to see that imagery and full motion video. I would think, well, in my opinion, I will say, things are overclassified. I know for a fact, the video or the pictures that came out in the 2018, I think it was 2020 report that had the stuff off the East Coast. They were taken with an iPhone off the East Coast. The buddy of mine was one of the senior people there, and he said they were originally classified to TSSCI. And my question in was, what's TSSCI about these?

They're an iPhone literally off the vacates. That's not TSSCI. So they're overclassified, and as soon as they do that, they go in a vault, and then you all have to look for them. Yeah, so with the over classification, that may be one way. Are there other ways that the DOD or intelligence agencies are keeping this information from the American people or even from Congress? I think part of that has been not encouraging reporting. If the problem is not something that can be measured, it's not something that's going to be fixed.

Okay, very good. Well, I'm out of time, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you'll bet. First of all, without objection, Representative Nick Langworthy of New York has waved down the subcommittee for purpose of questioning witnesses at today's subcommittee hearing. And then we go to Mr. Burleson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you guys coming out today, testifying. Look, I've been here for six months, and I'm pretty skeptical. I don't trust anything in this town.

And so I think that's because I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me, right? With that being said, there's been a lot of things that have been said in the public, Mr. Grush. And so I want to get down to, if we can, some specific. right so at one point you had said that there there has been harmful activity or aggressive activity has any of the activity been aggressive been hostile in your reports I know of multiple colleagues of mine that got physically injured and the activity by by UAPs or by people within the

federal government. Both. Okay. So there has been activity by alien or non-human technology and or beings that has caused harm to humans. I can't get into the specifics in an open environment, but at least the activity that I personally witnessed, and not to be very careful here, because you don't, you know, they tell you never to acknowledge tradecraft, right?

So what I personally witnessed myself and my wife was very disturbing. Okay. One of my constituents actually sent this next question, and I figured I'd ask it since I had the same thought. You've said that U.S. has intact spacecraft. You said that the government has alien bodies or alien species. Have you seen the spacecraft? I have to be careful to describe what I've seen firsthand and not in this environment, but I could answer that question behind closed doors.

And have you seen any of the bodies? That's something I've not witnessed myself. Okay. And so with that being said, you know, the other statement that has been made that was intriguing to me because, and it's intriguing because my view has been that we are billions of light years away from, any other system. And the concept that an alien species is technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive Earth or crashes is something that I find a little bit far-fetched. And with that being said,

you have mentioned that there's interdimensional potential. Could you expound on that? I'll yet answer your first question, and I'm here as a fact witness and expert, but I will give you a theoretical framework, at least to work off to kind of expouse crashes, regardless of your level of sentience, right? You know, planes crash, cars, crash, and number of sorties, however high, a small percentage you're going to end in, you know, mission failure, if you will, as we say, in the Air Force. And then in terms of multi-dimensionality, that kind of thing, the framework, that I'm familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle, both it drives itself from general relativity and quantum mechanics. And that is, if you want to imagine 3D objects such as yourself, casting a shadow onto a 2D surface, that's the holographic principle. So you can be projected, quasi-projected from higher-dimensional space to lower-dimensional. It's a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally,

as far as I understand, but there's probably guys of PhD. that we could probably argue about that. But you have not seen any documentation that that's what's occurring. Only a theoretical framework discussion. Okay. Okay. Occam's razor is that these aircraft, have they been identified that they are being produced by domestic,

you know, military contractors? Has there any evidence that that's what's being recovered? not to my knowledge plus the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs that I previously am witting of so would it be safe to say that there could be a scenario today where you have an aircraft that crashes and because it's been involved in one program from one federal agency and but the but the agency that retrieves it does is not aware of that program and to them it appears alien in origin I mean, that's a hypothetical situation. I'm not aware of any historical situation that would match that you described.

It has not happened that you're aware of. That I'm aware of. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglan Air Force Base indicating that there was a UAP incident that required my attention. I sought a briefing regarding that episode and brought with me, Congressman Burchett and Congresswoman Luna, we asked to see any of the evidence that had been taken by flight crew in this endeavor and to observe any radar signature as long as well as to meet with the flight crew. We were not afforded access to all of the flight crew. And initially, we were not afforded access to images and to radar. Thereafter, we had a bit of a discussion about how authorities flow in the United States.

of America, and we did see the image. And we did meet with one member of the flight crew who took the image. The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries. And I'm somewhat informed on the matter, having served on the Armed Services Committee for seven years, having served on the committee that oversees DARPA and advanced technologies for several years. When we spoke with the flight crew. And when he showed us the photo that he'd taken, I asked why the video wasn't engaged, why we didn't have a fleer system that worked. Here's what he said. They were out on a test mission that day over the Gulf of Mexico, and when you're on a test mission, you're supposed to have

clear airspace, not supposed to be anything that shows up. And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the United States Congress. One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb, again, like I said, not of any human capability that I'm aware of. And when he approached, he said that his radar went down, he said that his FLIR system malfunctioned, and that he had to manually take this image from one of the lenses, and it was not automated in collection, as you would typically see in a test mission. So I guess I'll start with Commander Fravor. How should we think about

the fact that this craft that was approached by our pilot had the capability of the disarming a number of the sensor and collection systems on that craft. Well, I think this goes to that national security side, and you can go back through history of things showing up at certain areas and disabling our capabilities, which is disheartening. And for us, I mean, like I said, it completely disabled the radar on the aircraft when I try to do it. And the only way we could see it is passively, which is how you got that image.

So I think that's a concern on what are these doing, not only how do they operate, but their capabilities inside to do things like this. And how should we think about for craft moving in a very clear formation, equidistant from one another, in a diamond? In all of the phenomenon, perhaps Mr. Grave, that you've analyzed, have we ever seen multiple craft in a single formation? I have one particular case, and that was during the gimbal incident. The recording on the AT-Fleer system shows a single object that rotates. You hear the pilots refer to a fleet of objects that is not visible on the Fleer system. And that was something that I witnessed during the debrief as part of the radar data on the situational awareness page.

I would like to add, however, Congressman, there's a small bit of anger, I would say. I would feel that those pilots are still facing that difficulty in reporting this topic, and they don't have the tools to be able to mitigate this issue. It just goes to show how serious this is and why this is such an important issue for our pilots and for our nation. It was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that if you have a U of AP experience, the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone, because any type of reporting either above the surface or below the surface does have a perceived consequence to these people, and that is a culture we must change if we want to get to the truth.

Mr. Chairman, I would observe that perhaps as we move forward from this hearing, there are some obvious next steps. Every person watching this knows that we need to meet with Mr. Grush in a secure compartmentalized facility so that we can get fulsome answers that do not put him in jeopardy and that give us the information we need. Second, I would suggest that the radar images that were collected of this formation of craft out of Eglan Air Force Base

and specifically the actual image taken by the actual flight crew that we can actually validate, be provided to the committee, subpoenaed if necessary, so that we're able to track how to get this type of reporting and analysis done in a more fulsome way. That would be my recommendation humbly as a guest here of the Fine Oversight Committee. I yield back. Ms. Mays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to our witnesses who are testifying today. I want to thank each of you for being here to discuss a topic of grave importance to our national security.

Earlier this year, Chinese spy balloon was shot down. off the coast of my home state of South Carolina. Since the Roswell incident in 1947, many Americans have wondered about the dangers of unknown objects criss-crossing are skies, whether these are UAPs or weather phenomena, advanced technology from American Allied or enemy forces or something more out of this world. So my first question, I have several questions, and if we can just be quick on these first two, I'm going to ask each of you the same question, and then I'll get to each of you individually. The first one, when you reported your experiences with a UAP,

did any of you face any repercussions with your superiors, yes or no? No. No. I've actually never seen anything personally, believe it or not. All right. And then do you believe there's an act of disinformation campaign within our government to deny existence of UAPs? Yes or no?

I don't have an answer to that. As previously stated publicly, yes. I think previously with Project Blue Book, yes. Currently, I don't speak for the United States government. Okay. Thank you. I have a few questions for Mr. Graves. What percentage of UAP sightings in your belief go unreported by our pilots? This is an approximation based off of my personal experience speaking with a number of pilots, but I would estimate we're somewhere near 5% reporting perhaps.

So like 95% basically don't report seeing UAPs. That's just my personal estimate. In the incident off Virginia Beach, do you believe the Navy took the danger to your aircraft seriously? after it was reported. Absolutely. A few questions for Mr. Favre. As an expert naval aviator, have you ever seen an object that looked and moved like the Tick-TAC UAP? No.

Did the TICT-TAC UAP move in such a way that defied the laws of physics? The way we understand them, yes. Many dismiss UAP reports as classified weapons testing by our own government, but in your experience as a pilot, does our government typically test advanced weapons? weapons systems right next to multi-million dollar jets without informing our pilots. No, we have test ranges for that. It took over 15 years for your encounter with the Tick-Tac to be declassified. Do you feel there was a good reason to prevent lawmakers from having access to this footage?

No, I just think it was ignored when it would happen, and it just sat somewhere in a file. Never got reported. It happens a lot up here. Shocker. Mr. Grush, a couple of questions for you, too. Souter this morning. What percentage of UAPs do you feel are adequately investigated by the U.S. government, of the 5% of that are reported? I can only speak for my personal leadership over at NGA. I tried to look at every report that came through that I could triage. Do you believe that officials at the

highest levels of our national security apparatus have unlawfully withheld information from Congress and subverted our oversight authority? There are certain elected leaders. that had more information that I'm not sure what they've shared with certain gang of eight members or etc but certainly I would not be surprised okay you've said that the government is in possession of potentially non-human spacecraft based on your experience and extensive conversations with experts do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials something I can't discuss in public setting Okay, I can't ask when you think this occurred.

If you believe we have crashed craft stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.

And was this documentary evidence, this video, photos, eyewitness? Like, how would that be determined? The specific documentation I would have to talk to you in a skiff about. Gotcha. Okay. So, and you may or may not be able to answer my last question, and maybe we get into a skiff at the next hearing that we have. But who in the government either, what agency, sub-agency, what contractors,

who should be called into the next hearing about UAPs, either? In a public setting or even in a private setting, and you probably can't name names, but what agencies or organizations, contractors, etc., do we need to call in to get these questions answered, whether it's about funding, what programs are happening, and what's out there? I can give you a specific cooperative and hostile witness list of specific individuals that were in those. And how soon can we get that list? I'm happy to provide that to you after the hearing. Super. Thank you. And I yield back. Okay. Now we have Mr. Langworthy's here. Okay.

Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for being here today to discuss this very unique topic. And I'd like to jump right in my questions if you don't mind. Commander Fravor, can you briefly describe your background? Yeah, I was an enlisted Marine, Naval Academy graduate. Navy flew for 18 years, got a master's from University of Houston. And I've worked in the private sector for the last, what now, 1960. 16 years, 17 years. I do a lot of defense work.

Really gold-plated credentials. Commander Fravor, we have all seen the floating Tick-Tac video that you engage with on November 14, 2004. Can you briefly talk about why you were off the coast of San Diego that day? Yeah, we were at a workup with all the battle group, so we integrate the ships with the carrier, the airwing with the carrier, and we start working. So we were doing an air-dair defense to hone not only our skills, but those of the USS. Princeton when they had been tracking them for two weeks. The problem was that there was never manned aircraft airborne when they were tracking them, and this was the first day, and

unfortunately we were the ones airborne and went and saw it. Do you remember the weather that day? Was it cloudy or windy or anything out of the ordinary on the Pacific coast? It was actually, if you're familiar with San Diego, it was a perfect day, light winds, no white caps, clear skies, not a cloud. It was for flying, it was the best. Now, is it true that you saw, in your words, a 40-foot flying? tick-tock shaped object. That's correct. Or for some people that can't know what a Tick-Tac is,

it's a giant flying propane tank. Fair enough. Did this object come up on radar or interfere with your radar or the USS Princeton? The Princeton tracked it, the Nimitz tracked it, the E2 tracked it. We never saw it on our radars.

Our fire control radar has never picked it up. The other airplane that took the video did get it on a radar. As soon as it tried to lock it, it jammed the radar, spit the lock, and he's rapidly switched over to the targeting pod, which you can do in the F-18. From what you saw that day and what you've seen on video,

did you see any source of propulsion from the flying object, including on any potential thermal scans from your aircraft? No, there's none. There's no IR plume coming out, and Chad, who took the video, went through all the EO, which is black and white TV and the IR modes, and there's no visual signs of propulsion. It's just sitting in space at 20,000 feet.

In your career, have you ever seen a propulsion system that creates no thermal exhaust? No. Can you describe how the aircraft maneuvered? Abruptly, very determinate. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was aware of our presence, and it had acceleration rates. I mean, it went from zero to matching our speed in no time at all.

Now, if the fastest plane on Earth was trying to do these maneuvers that you saw, would it be capable of doing that? No, not even close. and just to confirm this object had no wings correct no wings now was the aircraft that you were flying was it armed no never felt threatened at all if the aircraft was armed you believe that your aircraft or any aircraft in possession of the united states could have shot the tick tack down

i'd say no just on the performance it would just left in a split second it looks like that we have a problem here that needs further investigation yes in your belief is this this flying tick-tac I mean is this

is it capable of being the product of any other nation on the earth no I actually said like I said earlier I think it defies current material science and the ability to develop that much propulsion and I know there's been some physicists of them calculations which is beyond anything that we have. Well, either the United States has an adversary here in this world that we don't know

or we really have some serious investigations to do. I really appreciate you being here. Is there anything else about the November 14th, 2004 incident that you think is important for this committee to know that you haven't been asked here today? No, you know, it's been said it's probably the most credible UFO sighting in history based on all the sensors that we're tracking it and then for us to get visual and to go against the naysayers

it's something on the screen or whatever. I mean, there's four sets of human eyeballs. We're all very credible. Of the six of us that were involved in the thing, including the video, every one of us is going to do 20 plus years in the military in very responsible positions. So I'd say the world needs to know that.

It's not a joke. Thank you very much for your testimony here today for all of you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Douglas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here and the courage it took to come forward and, again, the sacrifice that each you have made. I serve on the National Security Subcommittee for the Financial Services Committee, so I really want to stay in the national security lane, if I may. So when we think about traditional adversaries and both us towards them and them towards us, you know, we probe their capabilities. We look for weaknesses, and we collect that data, that reconnaissance for in the event we need it in the future.

For each of you, yes or no question, based off of your own experience or the data that you've been privy to, is there any indication that these UAPs could be essentially collecting reconnaissance information? Mr. Graves? Yes. Mr. Grush? Fair assessment. Mr. Fraver. Very possible.

Again, in the national security vein, is it possible that these UIPs would be probing our capabilities? Yes, Mr. Graves? Yes. Bras? Yes. Graver? Definitely. Is it possible that these UAPs are testing for vulnerabilities in our current systems?

Yes. Yes. Possible. Do you feel, based off of your experience and information that you've been privy to, that these UAPs provide an APS, existential threat to the national security of the United States? Mr. Graves? Potentially. Yes, sir, potentially. Same answer potentially. I'd say definitely, potentially. Mr. Graves and Fravor, you know, in the event that your encounters had become hostile,

would you have had the capability to defend yourself, your crew, your aircraft? Absolutely not, sir. No. Is based off of the information that you've been privy to, is there any indication that these UAPs are interested in our nuclear technology and capabilities? Yes. By external observation, sure, that could be a fair assessment, yeah. Yes.

Is there any indication that Department of Energy is involved in UAP data collection and housing? I don't have an answer. I can't confirm or deny that in a public setting. Could you do it in a secure setting? Yes. Mr. Frazier? No, I don't know. Mr. Chairman, I think I'm the last member to go, but there clearly is a threat to the national security of the United States of America.

As members of Congress, we have a responsibility to maintain oversight and be aware of these activities so that, if appropriate, we take action. I would encourage the Chairman to demand that we have any and all, but in particular Mr. Grush, talked to us in a skiff, and if that access is denied, I will personally volunteer to initiate the Holman Rule against any personnel or any program or any agency that denies access to Congress. Mr. Chairman, with that, I will yield the remainder of my time to my fellow colleague from Tennessee. Mr. Burchard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Ogles, for the great questions, brother. Mr. Grush, I might have asked this before, but I want to make sure, do you have any personal knowledge of someone who's possibly been injured working on Legacy UAP reverse engineering? Yes. Okay.

How are they injured? Was it something like a radioactive type situation or something we didn't understand? I've heard people talk about Havana syndrome type. incidents. What was your recollection of that? I can't get into specifics, but you could imagine assessing an unknown unknown there's a lot of potentialities you can't fully prepare for.

How do you think we ought to handle UAP whistleblower complaints like years in the future? Yeah, there was some issue with mine, so you know, PPD-19 process, it goes to the intel committees either through PPD-19 or ICD-120. There's not a good way

for the intelligence community and Inspector General to provide that to other committees. And I asked my information to be sent to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee because there are Title X equities at play, but there was no smooth process to do so. Yeah. That's a trash can. Are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non-terrestrial craft? Personally, yes. You know anything that would be willing to testify if there were protections for them? certainly closed door and assurances, breaking their NDA, they're not going to get administratively punished for so. Yeah. I yield.

Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I'm going to do something a little bit out of the ordinary here. We're going to give three people a chance at an additional three minutes. So Mr. Birchit, do you want to keep going? Why don't you come back to me, Mr. Chairman? Ms. Luna, if she is on, is she on that list? Sure.

Chairman, I'd like to submit for the record an article by News Nation, and it follows Mr. Gresh's full interview for the record. Without objection. Thank you. Mr. Grush, why is it that you refer to the phenomenon as non-human intelligence? Why deviate from the basis of extraterrestrial life? I think the phenomenon is very complex, and I like to leave an open mind analytically to specific.

origin. When you say specific origin, are you referring, can you elaborate on that for those that might not be? If it's a traditional extraterrestrial origin or something else that we don't quite understand from either biological or astrophysics perspective, yeah. I just like to keep an open mind on what it could be, yeah. Okay. And referring to your News Nation interview, you had referenced specific treaties between governments. Article 3 of the Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia identify as UAPs. It specifically mentions them. To your knowledge, are there safety measures in place with foreign governments or other superpowers to avoid an escalatory situation in the event that a UAP malevolent event occurs? Yeah, you're referring to actual public treaty in the

UN register. It's funny you mentioned that. Yeah, the agreement on measures to reduce the risk of outbreak a nuclear war signed in 1971, unclassified treaty publicly available. And if you cite the George Washington University National Security Archives, you will find the declassified in 2013 specific provisions in the specific red line flash message traffic with the specific codes pursuant to Article 3 and Article, also Situation 2, which is in the previously classified NSA archive. What I would recommend, and I tried to get access, but I got a wall of silence at the White House was the specific incidents when those message traffic was used. I think some scholarship on that would open the door to a further investigation using those publicly available information.

Thank you. And then my last question with 51 seconds remaining, you mentioned white collar crimes potentially being taking place in regards to a cover up. Can you please elaborate? I have concerns based on the interviews I conducted under my official duties of potential violations of the federal acquisition regulations, the FAR? Thank you very much. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time. Okay, we'll go to Mr. Raskin for three minutes. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for their endurance and service today. Mr. Fravor, you've described your episode in detail now, and you call it the most credible UFO citing in history. I wonder, was this the first time that you encountered a UFO or a UAP in 2004? Yes. And what was your general attitude or perspective on the UFO discussion before that happened? I never felt that we were alone with all the planets out there, but I wasn't a UFO person. I wasn't watching History Channel and Mufon and all that.

And have you had experiences or encounters since that happened? No. And so have you formed any general conclusions about what you think you experienced then? Yes. I think what we experienced was, like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time that we have currently or that we're going to have in the next 10 to 20 years. very good mr grush

you've been able to answer in great detail on certain questions and then other things you say you're not able to respond to can you just explain where you're drawing the line what's the basis for that yeah based on my dopser security review and what they've determined that is unclassified I see so you're answering any questions that just call upon your knowledge of unclassified questions but anything that relates to to classified matters you're not commenting on in this context?

In an open session, but happy to participate in a closed session at the right level, yeah. Okay. And Mr. Graves, you've said that there are dozens of fellow pilots, military pilots. Are there also commercial pilots who've encountered the same kind of sightings that you described before? They are similar. commercial pilots have less range and less sensors to be able to reach out and look for objects over wide swath of airspace. And so pilots are seeing them, commercial pilots are seeing them, and they're typically closer, and the range of what they're seeing is pretty large. What is the most vivid concrete sighting with the naked eye of the objects that you described before, the cube-like objects? Certainly. I think the most vivid sighting of that would have been near mid-air that we had at the entrance. to our working area. One of these objects was completely stationary at the exact entrance to our working areas, not only geographically but also at altitude. So it was right where all the jets

are going essentially on the eastern seaboard. The two aircraft flew within about 50 feet of the object, and that was a very close visual sighting. And you were in one of the aircraft? I was not. I was there when the pilot landed. He canceled the mission after, and I was there. He was in the ready room with all his gear on with his mouth open. And I asked him what the problem was, and he said he almost hit one of those darn things. He said he was 50 feet away from it? Yes, sir. And his description of the object was consistent with the description you gave us before?

A dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere. Inside of a clear sphere. Yes. And with no self-evident propulsion system. No wings, no IR Energy coming off of the vehicle, nothing tethering it to the ground. And that was primarily what we were experiencing of. there. I'm over time. Thank you very much for your service and I go back to Mr. Chairman. Very good. Mr. Burchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is for all three of you all, starting Mr. Grades. Why did you come forward on this issue? I came forward because I felt that my colleagues did not have a way to mitigate the safety threat and I wanted to help them. I was trained as an aviation safety officer by the Navy and this seemed, it just felt right. I felt like I had to help the folks that were still flying and dealing with this. Mr. Grush. Purely a sense of duty. I first swore an oath when I was a cadet 18 years ago, and I still uphold that even out of the uniform.

Commander? I was pestered by a friend, and I asked why, and he said you're the one person that they can't discredit, and you'll add credibility to the New York Times article, and so after about six times, I said, okay. Yeah. This town isn't. made unfortunately by people like y'all.

We thank you. And I do want to also thank the people in the audience and the people that are watching this that can't be people all over the world that have kept this issue alive. You've endured criticism and derogatory remarks and we're trying to get to the bottom of it.

So God bless y'all. Thank you all so much. We really appreciate you guys and gals. That's why we need term limits. Y'all keep clapping, us politicians, just keep talking. So let me ask you all, how can when the public contribute to UAP reporting and what avenues you think are available to the public to report these sightings? Well, right now, I don't think there is a lot of public options for every man to be able to report on this. I think even for professionals that have censored data that are seeing these on a regular basis,

they're still hesitant to come forward. And so for the general public, I think encouraging the conversations that we're having today, looking for technology solutions that can be distributed so the objective data can be gathered is the first place to go. Mr. Grosch. I'll just touch on the whistleblower sign of it. I do encourage current former military intelligence community and industry contractors to come forward in a legal way, either through the IC or DOD or whatever the cognizant IGs are, to join me in this discussion. Commander and I guess I should say this for the record my daddy was United States Marine Corps

First Marine Division so uh-huh yes sir he was old school him and Chesty Puller on Pelaloo so thank you brother wow wow yes I'm not I'm not anything like my daddy he was incredible I'm very mediocre to say the least but go ahead you seem to be doing fine yeah for me uh you know I was an accident investigator so the biggest thing you learn and I think that witnesses need to do is One, don't try and make the fish bigger than it was. Stick to the facts, write it down, and don't speculate what you think it is because it will your decision. Just write the facts down.

We can get all the facts together, and we can start to investigate and get a real honest story instead of it was this big. Thank you, all, and I want to thank everybody we made history today. Mr. Chairman, I yield. Thank you much, Mr. Garcia. I think I know now we're going to be making some closing remarks, and so I just want to just say a few things. First, to our witnesses, I want to thank all.

all of you for being here with us today. I know that it takes a lot, a lot of courage. You're telling really important information to this committee, and I just want to thank you also for all three of you, your service to our country. I also want to just note that today's hearing was both important but also serious. And I want to thank our subcommittee chairman,

Mr. Groffman, I think for running a very fair and substantive hearing. I do want to thank the committee staff on both sides for the amount of work that I think took to put this hearing in place, and certainly to all the members that have been involved in this issue prior to the hearing. I also want to note for our witnesses and for the public that I'm a freshman member of Congress, and I've only been here for seven months, but this is by far the most bipartisan conversation and discussion that I have seen happen in the Congress. And I think

that a topic of this significance as it relates to our national security, as it relates to information that we're trying to gather for the for the for the for the American public does bring people together and I think that's been really great to see um I think it's also important to note for the public we today in our hearing we had on our side also both our full um ranking member which is mr raskin and our vice ranking member which is miss accio cortez uh both here at our hearing I think it shows the importance and seriousness that um our side of the aisle is taking to this important hearing but also the broader issue as it relates to working with our Republican counterparts on this committee.

I want to additionally add that I think, and I encourage, I think it's really important that we have and continue these discussions and these hearings. Clearly, there's a lot of information that we don't know, but it's also very clear that we have to continue our investigation and accountability on asking the right questions and ensuring that they're part of the public record. One thing that was important today is some folks might wonder, why are we asking questions that might already be out there or that have been asked before, it's important that they're asked and put into the public record as it relates to this committee.

And so I want to thank you for answering some questions multiple times, I know, not just in maybe meetings you had with some members, but also here in the public. Let me also just add an additional note that it's important also that our friends in the media and those that are not just reporting on this hearing, but that have reported on this topic and that may in the future, the media has an important role in this process. And it's very important that the media engages, does independent investigation, and reports on not just what happened today, but what they see independently as what is happening around UAPs in the broader community.

That is also an important public benefit that we have in trying to get the information and the facts as it relates to this. Let me also just say finally that as a teacher and an educator, a long-time teacher and researcher, that I also really believe in following facts, in doing your homework, and I'm making sure that you follow science as we try to give the most information as possible. And so I want to thank you all for agreeing to do that today. Transparency is a cornerstone of government. We live in a vast galaxy. A lot of unanswered questions. and thank you all for being here today. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I'd like to one more time. Thank Mr. Birchon, Ms. Luna, for bringing this to our attention. It's a topic that has interested me since I was in school.

It was a very illuminating hearing. Obviously, I think several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this. I sure. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I need to compliment the folks in my office that did a lot of the work on this. Rachel and Noah sitting behind me here.

They're very quiet and humble, but without them, this thing would not have come off like it did, so I apologize. Thank you. I think we're going to want to look into what we can do to make more of this information public. I think there's certainly

a time period after which it should always be made public, and people have been concerned about these issues, like I said, since I was in high school. But in any event, I'd like to thank everybody who was here sticking through the entire hearing. Without objection, the members will have five legislative days to submit materials and to submit additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be forward to the witnesses for their response. If there's no further business without objection, the subcommittee stands abjurned.