Source Library · SRC-209 · Official hearing transcript
July 26, 2023 UAP hearing transcript
U.S. Government Publishing Office · 2023-07-26
July 26, 2023 UAP hearing transcript · 54 pages · PDF 0.2 MB
US Congress hearing transcript (GPO, govinfo.gov). Public domain; hosted here so it can be read and searched. Original source ↗
Loading the page…
Text (54 pages)
The text of 1 scanned page is imperfect. It was produced by machine OCR (PDF text layer; Windows.Media.Ocr (en-US) for the 1 scanned pages). Words are misread, redaction marks read as letters, and handwriting is mostly lost; 1 of 1 scanned pages gave little or no usable text. Use it to find a page, then quote from the page image, not from this text.
Show the text of all 54 pages
Page 1
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 53–022 PDF 2023 UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA: IMPLICATIONS ON NATIONAL SECURITY, PUBLIC SAFETY, AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JULY 26, 2023 Serial No. 118–53 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability ( Available on: govinfo.gov oversight.house.gov or docs.house.gov
Page 2
(II) COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman JIM JORDAN, Ohio MIKE TURNER, Ohio PAUL GOSAR, Arizona VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin GARY PALMER, Alabama CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana PETE SESSIONS, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona NANCY MACE, South Carolina JAKE LATURNER, Kansas PAT FALLON, Texas BYRON DONALDS, Florida KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, Georgia LISA MCCLAIN, Michigan LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina ANNA PAULINA LUNA, Florida CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina NICK LANGWORTHY, New York ERIC BURLISON, Missouri JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking Minority Member ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois RO KHANNA, California KWEISI MFUME, Maryland ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York KATIE PORTER, California CORI BUSH, Missouri JIMMY GOMEZ, California SHONTEL BROWN, Ohio MELANIE STANSBURY, New Mexico ROBERT GARCIA, California MAXWELL FROST, Florida SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania GREG CASAR, Texas JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas DAN GOLDMAN, New York JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida Vacancy MARK MARIN, Staff Director JESSICA DONLON, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel KAITY WOLFE, Senior Professional Staff Member GRAYSON WESTMORELAND, Senior Professional Staff Member MALLORY COGAR, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5074 JULIE TAGEN, Minority Staff Director CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin, Chairman PAUL GOSAR, Arizona VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana PETE SESSIONS, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona NANCY MACE, South Carolina JAKE LATURNER, Kansas PAT FALLON, Texas KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania ROBERT GARCIA, California, Ranking Minority Member STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DAN GOLDMAN, New York JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida KATIE PORTER, California CORI BUSH, Missouri MAXWELL FROST, Florida Vacancy Vacancy
Page 3
(III) C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held on July 26, 2023 ............................................................................... 1 WITNESSES Mr. Ryan Graves, Executive Director, Americans for Safe Aerospace Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 10 Mr. David Grusch, Former National Reconnaissance Office Representative, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, Department of Defense Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 11 Commander David Fravor (Ret.), Former Commanding Officer, United States Navy Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 12 Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository at: docs.house.gov. INDEX OF DOCUMENTS * Report, Jeremy Corbell, ‘‘The UAP Puzzle’’; submitted by Rep. Burchett. * Statement for the Record, by George Knapp; submitted by Rep. Burchett. * Defense Intelligence Reference Document, ‘‘Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering’’; submitted by Rep. Burchett. * Article, NewsNation, ‘‘We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaks’’; submitted by Rep. Luna. Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
Page 4
(no text recognized)
Page 5
(1) UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA: IMPLICATIONS ON NATIONAL SECURITY, PUBLIC SAFETY, AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY Wednesday, July 26, 2023 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS Washington, D.C. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Glenn Grothman, [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Grothman, Gosar, Foxx, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, LaTurner, Armstrong, Perry, Garcia, Moskowitz, and Frost. Also present: Representatives Luna, Burlison, Gaetz, Burchett, Comer, Ogles, Langworthy, Raskin, and Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. GROTHMAN. The Subcommittee on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, will come to order. Welcome, everyone. Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any time. Additionally, without objection, the following Members are waived on to the Subcommittee for the purpose of participating in today’s hearing: Mr. Burchett of Tennessee, Ms. Luna of Florida, Mr. Gaetz of Florida, Mr. Burlison of Missouri, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Mr. Ogles of Tennessee. With- out objection so ordered. For today’s Subcommittee hearing both the Chair and Ranking Member will have 10 minutes for opening remarks. We may both be giving some of those minutes to other Members of our party. I am now going to recognize myself for 10 minutes. I am actually going to try to get out of here in about four and then we will 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, the Border, and Foreign Affairs for discussion of unidentified anoma- lous phenomenon. I would like to thank the brave military panelists and personnel, such as the witnesses on the panel today, for sharing their stories on how they have engaged UAPs, which has brought attention to this matter.
Page 6
2 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 Saucers 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 has led to interest in study- ing what UAPs are and what threats they pose. The lack of transparency regarding UAPs has fueled wild specu- lation and debate for decades, eroding public trust in the very insti- tutions 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 anomaly resolution officer—AARO—to conduct or to co- ordinate efforts across the Department of Defense and other Fed- eral agents to detect, identify, and investigate UAPs. However, AARO’s budget remains classified, prohibiting meaningful over- sight 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 ci- vilian and government entities that can be analyzed to shed light on the topic. However, despite these offices being established there lies a pressing demand for government transparency and accountability that cannot be overlooked and that has been a problem that has been around for 50 years. The Biden Administration’s handling of the Chinese spy balloon that violated U.S. air space is one example how the government is not prepared for these. The Biden Administration’s description of events has shown that the government continues not to be forth- right. 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 intelligence community, and our defense industry on the UAP work. We are going to have some questions about that today. Congress recognizes the subject of UAPs is multifaceted and re- quires a careful data-driven approach. Today, we will seek clarity from these witnesses’ testimonies as to what can be done to im- prove 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 efficiency and openness when it comes
Page 7
3 to UAPs. I thank 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 am going to turn it over for two and a half or 3 minutes to Representative Burchett from Tennessee. Mr. BURCHETT. 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 Anna Paulina Luna, sitting beside me here; Jared Moskowitz, my friend across the aisle, who has an incredible mind, and I am anxious to hear his questions; my buddy, Eric Burlison. And it is not in my notes here but Matt Gaetz—if it had not been for Matt Gaetz, myself, him, and Luna would still be down at Eglin Air Force Base trying to get some answers. He has got an incredible legal mind. Also, I know I saw out in the crowd there George Knapp, my buddy, Jeremy Corbell. They are not witnesses, but they have pro- vided some statements on this subject, and I seek unanimous con- sent to enter those statements into the record, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Without objection. Mr. BURCHETT. I also would like to enter in—I understand now that this is unclassified, and it is public record but as we all know that is sometimes difficult for the public to get a hold of—a report, defense intelligence reference documents, ‘‘Advanced Space Propul- sion Based on Vacuum (spacetime metric) Engineering,’’ some light reading for some of our Members. Mr. GROTHMAN. Without objection. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you. You know, Mr. Knapp wrote since 1969, the position of our military has been that UFOs posed no threat to national security and are not worthy of further study. I would say that is the biggest understatement of the decade. He also goes on to talk about the dismissive attitude is at odds with what was revealed in documents, reports, and internal memos. And Mr. Corbell 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 is going on. But I would also like to thank the Members of Congress who have supported our efforts to make this hearing happen. Some have even confided in me that they have had UFO sightings of their own. Those Members, of course, some of them wish to remain anony- mous and I will keep it that way. But also, finally, I would like to thank these three brave witnesses here. They took an oath to up- hold the Constitution of the United States and daggum it they are doing it and we owe them a debt of gratitude. [Applause.] Mr. BURCHETT. You all quit clapping. You are cutting in on my time. [Laughter.]
Page 8
4 Mr. BURCHETT. Just kidding. These folks, they have got nothing to gain from this and I think you are going to find out that they have endured quite a few slings and arrows. We need to remember them in our prayers and their families, and I am thankful to them for their honest testimoneys. They have done interviews and appeared in documentaries like ‘‘Accidental Truth’’ to get their stories out there and now they are all here to testify under oath for Congress. It has been so difficult to get here today. I have said, you know, in the Baptist Church we would say that the devil is in our way and the devil has been in our way through this thing. We have run into roadblocks from Members, from the intelligence community, the Pentagon. I proposed legislation to go in the FAA reauthorization that just said if an airline pilot has a sighting that when he makes that re- port to the FAA that it would come to Congress. But I was told that the intelligence community did not like that, and the bill was—the amendment was not even heard in com- mittee. I think it is time for this country to take back our country. We need to tell the folks at the Pentagon they work for us, daggum it. We do not work for them and that is exactly the point. This is an issue of government transparency. We cannot trust a government that does not trust its people. We are not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing. Sorry to disappoint about half of you all. We are just going to get to the facts. We are going to uncover the cover up and I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings and more people coming forward about this. And I yield back the remainder of my time, I think—is it to Rep- resentative Luna, Mr. Chairman, or is that—— Mr. GROTHMAN. Yes, we will call Ms. Luna for her statement. Ms. LUNA. The circumstances surrounding UAPs has captivated the attention of the American people for decades, ingrained in even the minds of our Nation’s leaders from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, Marco Rubio to Chuck Schumer, John Ratcliffe to National Security Council officials. Yet, from Roswell, New Mexico to the coast of Jacksonville, Flor- ida, 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 gov- ernment and the failure of our elected leaders to make good on their promises to release explanations and footage and mountains of over-classified documents that continue to be hidden from the American people. This is not just how I feel. In fact, the American people largely believe that the government has actively covered up the truth about UAPs. One poll, in particular, found that 68 percent of Americans be- lieve 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 of Americans believe that the Federal Government is doing a very bad or somewhat bad job of dealing with reports of UFO sightings.
Page 9
5 As Representative Burchett just referenced on the FAA bills that just went through, you can tell that that is exactly happening. Considering the thousands of testimoneys and videos taken on people’s phones and eyewitnesses’ accounts made by credible wit- nesses such as doctors, pilots, scientists, and active-duty service members, it is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans into thinking that this is not happening or that the potential of intel- ligent life forms exist other than humans. Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are, many times, service members and have no assurance that their lives will not be negatively impacted or even harmed by their expe- riences. In being an active-duty service member working on an airfield, I have had conversations with many pilots where they were in fear of coming forward for retribution and/or being taken off flight sta- tus. How do we know this? Because the government has said nothing to assure us otherwise. They have also done nothing to calm the concerns of over 20 percent of Americans who have reported to have seen UFOs or UAPs. 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 our investigations. Just so that the press knows, and the people know, we were even denied access to a classified briefing in a SCIF prior to this hearing due to the amount of hoops that we had to jump through to grant temporary clearance to witness Grusch, who has knowledge of clas- sified 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you very much. And I would like to thank you and Mr. Burchett for bringing this topic to my attention. Now we will recognize National Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Garcia for 10 minutes. Mr. GARCIA. 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 am particularly grateful to you to spend some time that we had for you to share with candor some of your experi- ences. 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 incred- ible 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 has 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
Page 10
6 it is transparent, and that it also provides appropriate answers as our Oversight body always demands. Now, it is really important that we are here in a bipartisan way to have this conversation which really to the heart of it is about national security and key to the Subcommittee’s core purpose. This is the Subcommittee on National Security of the Oversight Committee. Now, our witnesses will testify today that UAPs have posed a se- rious safety threat and we must understand this. More broadly, we are 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 nar- rative 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 re- search as we know now on unidentified anomalous phenomena or as many call UFOs by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Graves and Commander Fravor’s experiences with UAPs have also been documented by the public, not just by the New York Times but CNN and many other national news outlets. Now, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has pub- lished 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 is why we are here today. Now, pilots have reported encounters for years and because of the stigma around reporting these incidents we still do not have a complete picture of actually what is going on, particularly, as your witnesses will testify, on the civilian side and that is a real prob- lem that we have today in the country. Now, it is very important that we show that Democrats and Re- publicans 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 secu- rity 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 are 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.
Page 11
7 Now, we have incidents when sensors, sometimes even multiple types of sensors, detect things that we cannot explain. UAPs, what- ever they may be, may pose a serious threat to our military or civil- ian aircraft and that must be understood. Now, my career and training as a longtime and career educator and teacher and researcher tell me that we should never rule any- thing out. We know that our space, of course, is vast and undis- covered. I also want to note that Mr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the component of the DoD office that investigates UAP data, has testified before the Senate this year that his unit has found no evidence of extraterrestrial ac- tivity. NASA has also stated they do not have evidence of extra- terrestrial life either and we have 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 hear- ing 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. 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 re- porting and investigating UAPs prevents us from getting real an- swers. We know that whistleblowers have reported harassment, in- timidation, or stigma as well and this is not acceptable. If people cannot report incidents which would have national secu- rity or safety implications, then that also has serious consequences for us. As Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I know my job would be completely impossible if whistleblowers or others feel intimi- dated to come before this Committee. We cannot be afraid of asking questions and we cannot be afraid of the truth. I am proud to say that this hearing builds upon bipartisan work by Members of the House and Senate dating many years back which is sought to increase awareness within the Department of Defense and more—and to mandate more of Congress of UAPs. We know the Senate is taking up an amendment to their defense authorization bill which will create a commission with broad de- classification authority, and we should all agree that that is an im- portant step. Members of both parties and senior officials in multiple adminis- trations have taken an interest in this issue and we are proud to carry and build that confidence in the American people. This hearing will also not be the end of the discussion but a new chapter and start to years and years of work that many folks both in the public and within government have been working on. We should encourage more reporting, not less, on UAPs. The more that we understand, the safer we will be.
Page 12
8 We will hear testimony from witnesses today with a long record of service to the American people and with subject matter exper- tise. Our witnesses have a unique opportunity to share their perspec- tive, insights, and their experiences with the American people and I encourage all of my colleagues to engage with these difficult ques- tions 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 the two and a half minutes, the remainder of my time, to the representative from Florida, Representative Moskowitz, for an opening statement. He also has been very much engaged in this issue and I want to thank him for his leadership. Congressman? Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Thank you, Ranking Member Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Tim Burchett and Anna Pau- lina Luna for their leadership in pushing this hearing forward. I want to thank, obviously, committee staff and their staff work- ing on this on a bipartisan basis because many Americans are deeply interested in this issue, and it should not take the potential of nonhuman 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 are not here to help a political party, but you are here to share information with the American people, and it is not something that is just going on in this Administration. It is something that has spanned many administrations. For dec- ades many Americans have been fascinated by objects mysterious and unexplained and it is long past time that they got some an- swers. The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, nonhuman intelligence, and unexplainable phe- nomena. Those are not the words of a UFO Twitter account. That is a direct quote from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, that the American public has a right to learn about technologies of un- known origins, nonhuman intelligence, and unexplainable phe- nomena. In an interview with Fox News, recent former Director of Na- tional Intelligence John Ratcliffe confirmed the U.S. Government is aware a lot more sightings of UAPs and that they have not made that information public. I quote, ‘‘There are a lot more sightings that have not been made public,’’ Ratcliffe said to Fox News. For me, this hearing is about transparency. We, unfortunately, live in a time in which many people distrust government and our institutions and over classification of information away from the American public or even Congress contributes to today’s politics. The American people have regular questions. What are UAPs? How come the media does not report more on them? Are they for- eign adversaries? Are they U.S. technology? Are they something else?
Page 13
9 They ask themselves how come when a Russian jet shoots flares at one of our drones—we have perfect pictures and videos to show the American people and the world—but when it comes to UAPs nothing. Of course, we must always protect our national security to main- tain our superiority like when stealth helicopters were only ru- mored to exist but were used in the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011. But we cannot allow that to be used as a shield to keep the American people completely in the dark from basic truths. The American people deserve to hear more about special access pro- grams. Congress has a right to know if there is any unsanctioned weap- ons development satellite imagery that has not been provided to Congress. Congress created the All-Domain Resolution Office in the NDAA of 2022. In its initial analysis there are 171 uncharacterized UAP re- ports—and this is the words from the report—that appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capa- bilities. I believe more information is known about the 171 instances. It is time for Congress to reinsert ourselves. I call on our military leaders and intelligence officials to release more information to the American people about UAPs. And to our military leaders, if there is nothing to conceal let Congress go to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the Doug Wright Proving Ground, or even Groom Lake in Nevada. We should have disclosure today. We should have disclo- sure tomorrow. The time has come. Thank you, Ranking Member. Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Moskowitz, and I will yield back now to our Chairman. Thank you. Mr. GROTHMAN. Alright. Now I would like to introduce our wit- nesses. Our first witness is Lieutenant Ryan Graves. He is the Ex- ecutive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Lieutenant Graves is also a former U.S. Navy F–18 pilot with his own UAP experience. The next witness, David Grusch, is a former senior intelligence officer with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was a senior technical advisor for UAP issues. And, finally, retired Navy Commander David Fravor, squadron leader who worked as a naval aviator for 18 years. Mr. Fravor has his own UAP experience known as the Tic Tac event. I look forward to hearing from all three of you today. Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hands. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? [Witnesses are sworn.] Mr. GROTHMAN. Let the record show that all the witnesses an- swered in the affirmative. You may be seated. We appreciate you all being here today and look forward to your testimony. I will remind the witnesses that we have read your written state- ments and they will appear in full in the hearing record. Please try to limit your oral statements to 5 minutes.
Page 14
10 As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you. When you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green. After 4 minutes it will turn yellow and the red light when that comes it tells you your 5 minutes have expired. I will now recognize Mr. Graves for 5 minutes for your opening statement. STATEMENT OF RYAN GRAVES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AMERICANS FOR SAFE AEROSPACE Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member Garcia, distinguished Members of the House Oversight Sub- committee on National Security, Representatives Burchett and Luna. My name is Ryan ‘‘FOBS’’ Graves and I am a former F–18 pilot with a decade of service in the U.S. Navy including two deploy- ments in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Re- solve. I have experienced advanced UAP firsthand and I am here to voice the concerns of more than 30 commercial aircrew and mili- tary 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 under reported. These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine. Military aircrew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are fre- quently witnessing these phenomena. The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security. It silences commercial pilots who fear profes- sional repercussions, discourages witnesses, and is only com- pounded by recent government claims questioning the credibility of eyewitness testimony. Parts of our government are aware more about UAP than they let on, but excessive classification practices keep crucial informa- tion hidden. Since 2021 all UAP videos are classified as secret or above. This level of secrecy not only impedes our understanding but fuels speculation and mistrust. In 2014, I was an F–18 Foxtrot pilot in the Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 11, the Red Rippers, and I was stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach. After upgrades were made to our jet’s radar sys- tems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our air- space. At first, we assumed they were radar errors but soon we began to correlate the radar tracks with multiple onboard sensors, includ- ing infrared systems, eventually through visual ID. During a training mission in Warning Area W–72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, two F–18 Super Hornets were split by a UAP. The object, described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere, came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft and was estimated to be five to 15 feet in diameter. The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned to base. Our squadron submitted a safety report but there
Page 15
11 was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings. Soon these encounters became so frequent that aircrew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular preflight 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 thirty witnesses have come forward and almost 5,000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at safeaerospace.org. The majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at 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 common line, making unexplainable 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 vet- erans 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 sensor 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 na- tional conversation would change. I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents. If UAP are foreign drones, is an urgent national security prob- lem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety. The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue. Thank you. Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Grusch? STATEMENT OF DAVID GRUSCH FORMER NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICER REPRESENTATIVE UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA TASK FORCE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Mr. GRUSCH. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Members and Congress- men, thank you. I am happy to be here. This is an important issue, and I am grateful for your time. My name is David Charles Grusch. I was an intelligence officer for 14 years both in the U.S. Air Force, both active-duty Air Na- tional Guard and Reserve at the rank of Major and most recently from 2021 to 2025—excuse me, 2023—at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, at the GS–15 civilian level, which is the military equivalent of a full bird colonel. I was my agency’s co-lead in unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans medium object analysis as well as reporting to the UAP Task Force—UAPTF—and eventually, once it was established, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office—AARO.
Page 16
12 I became a whistleblower through a PPD–19 urgent concern fil- ing in May 2022 with the intelligence community inspector general following concerning reports from multiple esteemed and credentialed current and former military and intelligence commu- nity individuals that the U.S. Government is operating with se- crecy above congressional oversight with regards to UAPs. My testimony is based on information I have been given by indi- viduals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country, many of whom also have shared compelling evi- dence in the form of photography, official documentation, and clas- sified oral testimony to myself and many of my various colleagues. I have taken every step I can to corroborate this evidence over a period of 4 years while I was with the UAP Task Force and do my due diligence on the individuals sharing it. It is because of these steps, I believe strongly in the importance of bringing this in- formation before you. I am driven by a commitment of both to truth and transparency, rooted in our inherent duty to uphold the United States Constitu- tion and protect the American people. I am 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 have been told them. In the U.S. Air Force in my National Re- connaissance 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 a 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 would direct report at the time to the DEP/SecDef. At the time, due to my extensive executive level intelligence sup- port duties I was cleared to literally all relevant compartments and in a position of extreme trust both in my military and civilian ca- pacities. I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-dec- ade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-ons 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 have 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 am happy to answer your questions. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. Commander Fravor?
Page 17
13 STATEMENT OF DAVID FRAVOR (RET.) FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER UNITED STATES NAVY Commander FRAVOR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressmen and Congresswomen. I want to first thank you for the invitation to speak to the Com- mittee on the UAP topic. This has been in the news for the past 6 years and seems to be continuing to gain momentum. As you know, my name is David Fravor. I am a retired Com- mander in the United States Navy. In 2004, I was a commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the world-famous Black Aces. We were tasked to Carrier Airwing 11 stationed on board the USS Nimitz and had begun a 2-month workup cycle off the coast of Cali- fornia. On this day we were scheduled for a 2 V 2 air to air training with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off, Nimitz, my wingman, was joining up. We were told that the train- ing was going to be suspended and we are 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. There the controller told us that these objects had been observed for over 2 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 that do not realize, above 80,000 feet is space. We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000 feet and the controller called merge plot, 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 is 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 whitecaps from waves. So, the whitewater stood out in a large blue ocean. All four of us, because we were an F–18F so we had pilots and WSO in the backseat, looked down and saw a white Tic 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 toward the object my WSO 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 Tic Tac. We proceeded around the circle about 90 degrees from the start of our descent and the object suddenly shifted its longitudinal axis, aligned it with my aircraft, and began to climb. We continued down another 270 degrees, nose low, where the Tic Tac would have been. Our altitude at this point was about 15,000 feet and a Tic 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 dis- appeared. Our wingman, roughly 8,000 feet above us, lost contact also. We immediately turned back to see where the whitewater was at, and it was gone also. So, as we started to turn back toward the
Page 18
14 east, the controller came up and said, ‘‘sir, you are not going to be- lieve this, but that thing is at your CAP point roughly 60 miles away in less than a minute.’’ You can calculate the speed. We returned to Nimitz. We were taking off our gear. We were talking to one of my crews, who was getting ready to launch. We mentioned it to him, and they went out and luckily got the video that you see, that 90-second video. What you do not see is the radar tape that was never released, and we do not know where it is at, of the act of jamming that the object put on an APG–73 radar, and I can get into modes later if you are interested. What is shocking to us is that the incident was never inves- tigated. None of my crew were ever questioned. The tapes were never taken and after a couple days it turned into a great story with friends. It was not until 2009, until Jay Stratton had con- tacted me to investigate. Unbeknownst to all, he was part of the ATIP program in the Pentagon led by Lue Elizondo. There was an unofficial official report that came out that is now on the internet. Years later, I was contacted by the other pilot, Alex Dietrich, and asked if I would been contacted and I said no, but I am willing to talk. I was contacted by Mr. Elizondo, and we talked for a short period of time. He said we would be in contact. A few weeks after that I was made aware that Lue had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLonge, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice and others to form To the Stars Academy, an organization that pressed the issue with leading industry experts and U.S. Government officials. They work with Leslie Keane, who is present today, Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper to publish the articles in the 2017 New York Times and it removed the stigma on the topic of UFOs, which is why we are here today. Those articles opened the door for the government and public that cannot be closed. It has led to an interest from our elected offi- cials 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. Grusch just covered that. What concerns me is that there is no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated with our government processing or working on craft believed not from this world. This issue is not a full public disclosure that can 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 com- mittee members in the House and Senate and this work that is said to be occurring from whistleblower testimoneys should not be exempt. In closing, I would like to say that the Tic Tac 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.
Page 19
15 If we in fact have programs that possess this technology, it 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you very much. I know it was very dif- ficult for all of you, all you have done in the past to try to illu- minate this issue. I call on myself first for some questions. I am going to start with Mr. Graves. Are your pilots, or pilots that you interact with as part of your organization, do you feel are adequately trained and briefed on how to handle encounters with UAPs? Mr. GRAVES. No. Right now, military witnesses to UAP have lim- ited options for reporting UAP. But more concerning is that the commercial aviation sector has not adapted to the lessons that mili- tary 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. What steps do you think have to be taken to improve a pilot’s UAP reporting, be it military or commercial? Mr. GRAVES. Right now, we need a system where pilots can re- port without fear of losing their jobs. There is a fear that the stig- ma associated with this topic is going to lead to professional reper- cussions 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Could you just give me a little idea of the degree to which reports in the past are not made public right now? Mr. GRAVES. Well, I do not think there has been a proper report- ing 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Could you tell me why you believe it is —kind of to play the devil’s advocate, a reason why some of this stuff should not be available to the public? Mr. GRAVES. There is certainly some national security concerns when we use our advanced sensors in our tactical jets to be able to identify these objects. However, there is no reason that the objects themselves would be classified. I would be curious to see how the security classification guideline actually spells out the different nuances of how this topic is classified from the perspective of UAP, not national security. Mr. GROTHMAN. I will give you a followup on that. Assuming that there are reasons why not all it should be made public, this has been around for a long period of time. Can you think of—can any of the three of you think of any reason why anything related to UAPs, say, 15 years and back should not be immediately made public?
Page 20
16 Mr. GRUSCH. I think one of it is acknowledging a vulnerability both from a collection and I will just say, you know, a counter- measure perspective. So, it is a nut we have not cracked for many years. Mr. GROTHMAN. Even, say, 20 years back. Is there any reason why when you go back that far things should not be made public? Mr. GRUSCH. Unless it shows a specific national security vulner- ability as it relates to a weakness in a particular defense system. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Mr. Fravor, the Tic Tac incident that you were engaged occurred in 2004. What kind of reporting took place after that incident? Commander FRAVOR. None. We had a standard debrief where the backseaters went down to our carrier intel center and briefed would have happened and that was it. No one else talked to us and I was in the top 20 in the battle group. No one came. That captain was aware. The admiral was aware. Nothing was done. Mr. GROTHMAN. Did your commanding officers provide any sort of justification? Commander FRAVOR. No, because I was the commanding officer of the squadron. So, no. Mr. GROTHMAN. Was this incident the only UAP event that you encountered while you were a pilot? Commander FRAVOR. Yes, it was. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. This is for any one of you. Based on—based off of each of your experiences and observations do you believe UAPs pose a potential threat to our national security? Commander FRAVOR. Yes, and here is why. The technology that we faced was far superior than anything that we had, and you could put that anywhere. If you had one, you captured one, you reverse engineered it, you got it to work, you are talking something that can go into space, go someplace, drop down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it wants, and leave and there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Each of you? Mr. GRAVES. I would also like to add from a commercial aviation and military aviation perspective, we deal with uncertainty in our operating space as a matter of our professional actions. Identifying friend from foe is very important to us, and so when we have unidentified targets, and we continue to ignore those due to a stigma or fear of what it could be that is an opening that our adversaries can take advantage of. Mr. GROTHMAN. What steps should be taken to better understand and respond to UAP encounters in the interest of national security? Mr. GRAVES. There needs to be a location where this information is centralized for processing and there needs to be a two-way com- munication 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. GROTHMAN. Mr. Grusch, in your complaint to the intelligence community Inspector General, you claim that you believe informa- tion is being hidden. What kind of information do you think was hidden and do you think it should remain hidden?
Page 21
17 Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, I can speak to that very briefly in an unclassi- fied manner. As you know, the preponderance of my complaint was classified to the intelligence communities. Both material acquisition and exploitation activity, also baselining the UAPs but not sharing it with, you know, intelligence professionals that are actually doing step briefs to pilots, that kind of information. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Thank you very much. Now we will go to Mr. Garcia. Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. Again, thank you all for your service and for testifying today. I want to just talk about UAPs as it re- lates to what we are seeing and pilots’ interaction with UAPs. Particularly, Mr. Graves, one of the, I think, concerns from Mem- bers of this Committee is this idea that pilots—there is no system to actually report UAPs and the stigma around pilots. And so can you just briefly—you mentioned that you are working with 30 pilots right now that have had encounters with UAPs. But you have also, I believe, discussed and know of many more pilots. This is just those that you are currently working with. Is that correct? Can you expand on that? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. I will break that down in two ways. First, when we were first experiencing these objects off the Eastern Sea- board 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 detect- ing these objects off the Eastern Seaboard. They were further cor- relating that information with their other onboard sensors and many of them also had their own eye sightings as well of these ob- jects. Now, that was our personal firsthand experience at the time. Since then, as I have engaged this topic, others have reached out to me to share their experiences both on the military side as well as a commercial aviation side. On the military aviation side, veterans that have recently got out have shared their stories and have expressed how the objects we were seeing in 2014 and 2015 continued all the way to 2019, 2020, and beyond. And so, it became a generational issue for naval avi- ators on the Eastern Seaboard. This was something we are briefing to new students. This is something that was included in the notice to airmen to ensure that there was no accidents, and now with commercial aviators, they are reaching out because they are having somewhat similar experi- ences as our military brothers and sisters, but they do not have any reporting system that they can send this to. Mr. GARCIA. And let me just add to—and both to Mr. Fravor as well as Mr. Graves, not having the system for reporting would you both agree that is harmful to not just our national security inter- est, but to understand this phenomena of what is happening with UAPs? Commander FRAVOR. I think it is actually—it is a travesty that we do not have a system to correlate this and actually investigate. You know, so if you took the East Coast, you know, there is coastal radars out there that monitor our air defense identification zone so out there 200 miles.
Page 22
18 They can track these, you know, so when you see them they could actually go and pull that data and get maneuvering. And in- stead of just having the airplanes, there is other data sources out there, and I have 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 would not get anything out of the Intelligence Committee because they have a tendency not to talk. But if you have got a central location where these reports are coming in, not just military but also commercial aviation because there is a lot of that going on, especially if you talk to anyone that flies from here to Hawaii over the Pacific, they see odd lights. So, I think you need to develop something that allows you a cen- tral point to collect the data in order to investigate. Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Graves? Mr. GRAVES. I will concur with everything Mr. Fravor said. I will continue to say that the commercial pilots that have reached out to me through Americans for Safe Aerospace are doing so because they do not feel there is another way for them to report this safety issue. Mr. GARCIA. And I think one of the clear outcomes of this hear- ing 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 is 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 is 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 this reporting system that you think that we can do as a government to encourage and facilitate more civilian reporting on this? Mr. GRAVES. I think we are doing it right now. Mr. GARCIA. OK. Great. Mr. GRAVES. I think this hearing is going to show the American people that their government takes this topic seriously. Mr. GARCIA. And how about civilians that may not be pilots? What kind of process could be in place for civilians who are not pi- lots who may have UAP encounters? Do either of you have any sug- gestions that could facilitate that? Mr. GRAVES. My recommendations would be to make that a sen- sor centric operation in order to make it as objective as possible. Mr. GARCIA. OK. Sir? Mr. Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. I agree with Mr. Graves on that. Mr. GARCIA. OK. Just briefly, I also just want to note for—par- ticularly for the two pilots and then a question for Mr. Grusch. One of the things that I found fascinating in our discussion, Mr. Graves, last night as well is that you both described UAPs and for- mations and the way they are observed in space or in our air and the way that they move, essentially, ways in which current tech- nology of our aircraft that we know of are unable to actually func- tion 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,
Page 23
19 particularly by the 30 folks that you are working with, are essen- tially outside the scope of anything that we know of today and the technology we have today. Mr. Graves? Mr. Fravor? Mr. GRAVES. 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. GARCIA. Mr. Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. Yes, I concur with that. We have nothing that can stop in midair and go the other direction nor do we have anything that can, like in our situation, come down from space, hang out for 3 hours and go back up. Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. My last question—and sometimes—I know that you have also said some of these answers in the past, but we are trying to get them on the public record as well, which is really important. Mr. Grusch, finally, do you believe that our government is in pos- session of UAPs? Mr. GRUSCH. Absolutely, based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over 4 years. Mr. GARCIA. And where? Mr. GRUSCH. I know the exact locations and those locations were provided to the Inspector General and some of which to the intel- ligence committees. I actually had the people with the firsthand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the Inspector General. Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just say that I think that these questions are important questions and I look forward to being in- volved in the process to get those answered. I know there will be a lot of questions from other Committee Members. So, I yield back. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. We will go to Mr. Burchett himself. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gar- cia. I would like to have you on the—my legislation to do just that on the reporting and we will get together on that. Maybe you can be my co-sponsor on that. That would be really cool. Thank you for those great questions. Mr. Graves, again, I would like to know how do you know that these were not our aircraft? Mr. GRAVES. Some of the behaviors that we saw in our working area, we would see these objects being at 0.0 Mach —that is zero airspeed—over certain pieces of the ground. So, what that means just like a river if you throw a bobber in it is going to float downstream. These objects were staying completely stationary in category four hurricane winds. These same objects would then accelerate to su- personic speeds—1.1, 1.2 Mach—and they would do so in very er- ratic and quick behaviors that we do not—I do not have an expla- nation for. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Have you spoken to commercial and military pilots that have seen these off of our East Coast? Mr. GRAVES. I have.
Page 24
20 Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Mr. Fravor, I noticed that in the Tic Tac video—it is Tic Tac like the candy, not TikTok like the Chinese Communist app. Commander FRAVOR. That is correct. Mr. BURCHETT. 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 is Tic Tac like the candy. You are going to have to just look it up. And but I would also like to say today is a day of many firsts. It is a miracle that we are having this meeting and it is also a mir- acle that my wife has put up with me for 9 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 9 years have been the best 2 years of her life. [Laughter.] Mr. BURCHETT. So, thank you. Mr. Fravor, what astonished you the most about the flight capa- bilities of these Tic Tac, very briefly? Commander FRAVOR. The performance. Absolute performance. It was—— Mr. BURCHETT. And you are not aware of any other objects that anybody in the world has in this world that has those capabilities? Commander FRAVOR. No. I think it is far beyond, actually, our material science that we currently possess. Mr. BURCHETT. Are you aware of any other reconnaissance plat- forms have tracked or recorded the Tic Tac’s maneuvers, maybe the NORAD system or any of the others? Commander FRAVOR. I am not. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Mr. Grusch, thank you for being here, brother, and thank you all very much. Have you faced any retaliation or reprisals for any of your testi- mony or anything on these lines? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I have to be careful what I say in detail be- cause there is an open whistleblower reprisal investigation on my behalf, and I do not want to compromise that investigation by pro- viding anything that may help provide somebody information. But it was very brutal and very unfortunate. Some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally, to be quite frank. Yes. Mr. BURCHETT. It is very unfortunate. As they say, when you are over the target that is when they do the most firing at you. Do you have any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal these extraterrestrial tech- nology? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, personally. Mr. BURCHETT. Have you heard—have anyone been murdered that you would—that you know of or have heard of, I guess? Mr. GRUSCH. I have to be careful asking that question. I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities. Mr. BURCHETT. Maybe in a—if we could get in a confidential area, a SCIF, we could talk about that. But unfortunately, we were
Page 25
21 denied access to the SCIF and that is very unfortunate in this sce- nario. Mr. Fravor, do you believe that you witnessed an additional ob- ject under the water in relation to your encounter? Commander FRAVOR. I will say we did not see an object. There was something there to cause the whitewater and when we turned around it was gone. So, there was something there that obviously moved. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. It was not the same object, though, that you were looking at, correct? Commander FRAVOR. No. We actually joked that the Tic Tac was communicating with something when we came back and—because the whitewater disappeared. Mr. BURCHETT. We were—in another instance—were told about the capabilities of a jamming during viewing of some—when there were some people chasing some of these objects. Did you experience any of that jamming or interrupting your radar or weapons sys- tem? Commander FRAVOR. My crew that launched after we landed ex- perienced 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 split the lock, then the targeting pod is passive. That is what we were able to get the video on. Mr. BURCHETT. I am about to run out of time. But are you aware of any of our enemies that have that capability? Commander FRAVOR. No. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. I would also like to note for the record that, like George Knapp, Breaking Area 51, he is the reason I knew about that, and the reason I know about the Tic Tacs is because Leslie Keane from a New York Times article and I would encourage everybody to read that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back to you no time. Mr. GROTHMAN. Very good. Mr. Raskin? Mr. RASKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Graves, you reported UAP 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 ques- tion is, you have identified these as taking place on the East Coast—is it just on the East Coast where these encounters have been reported? Mr. GRAVES. No. Since the events initially occurred, I have learned that the objects have been detected, essentially, where all operations—our Navy operations are being conducted across the world and that is from the All-Domain Anomaly Resolutions Office reporting. Mr. RASKIN. Can you describe your experience after you decided to come forward and go public with your experience? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. Like many others in 2017, I saw the New York Times article come out as well and for me it was special be- cause I recognized the voices on the video. I recognize the video itself. I had seen it when it was taken. I had seen it when it was debriefed.
Page 26
22 And so that was—kind of shook me because I realized that this problem was still ongoing and so I reached out to 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 my- self. Mr. RASKIN. Are there common characteristics to the UAPs that have been cited by different pilots and can you describe what the convergence of descriptions is? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. We were primarily seeing dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere. Mr. RASKIN. I am sorry. Dark gray or black cubes? Mr. GRAVES. 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 8 years and as far as I know is still occurring. Mr. RASKIN. So, I take it that you are arguing what we need is real transparency and a reporting system so we can get some clar- ity on what is going on out there because there are many pilots in your situation. But we should have a way of developing a system- atic inventory of all of such encounters. Is that right? Mr. GRAVES. 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. RASKIN. Mr. Grusch, what about you? What was your experi- ence after you came forward? Mr. GRUSCH. Well, it has only been about 2 months or so. So, I guess my experience has been overwhelming support from former colleagues of mine that have, you know, 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 is very, very upsetting to me. Mr. RASKIN. Coming from where? Mr. GRUSCH. Certain senior leadership at previous agencies I was associated with and that is all I will say publicly. But I can provide more details in a closed environment. Mr. RASKIN. OK. 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. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. 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 3 years. Mr. RASKIN. How do you account for that response? That seems like a bizarre response. Mr. GRUSCH. I call it administrative terrorism. That is their quiver—their tool in the toolbox to silence people, especially, you know, career government service cares about their career, cares about their clearance, their reputation to climb the ladder, and
Page 27
23 when you threaten that flow—career path—a lot of people back off. But I am here to represent those people. So—— Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Fravor, what about you? What has your experi- ence been since you have come forward with your perspective on this? Commander FRAVOR. Actually, I have been treated very well and the six people that were involved, myself included, all of them have or will be retiring from the military as 05s, 06s, and all my friends that are very senior, three and four stars, I have talked to them. They believe. They understand there is a problem. But no, I was actually treated really well. Mr. RASKIN. And what is your general interpretation of these phenomena or what is your current thinking of trying to make sense of them? Commander FRAVOR. Well, I will say, you know, I am not like a UFO fanatic. It is not me. But I will tell you that what we saw with four sets of eyes over a 5-minute period still—there is noth- ing—we have nothing close to it. It was amazing to see. I told my buddy, I wanted to fly it. But that is—just an incredible technology. Mr. RASKIN. All right. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I yield back to you. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks. On to Ms. Luna. Ms. LUNA. Mr. Grusch, in speaking to you yesterday, I just want- ed to followup 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? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, personally. Yes. Ms. LUNA. I just want everyone to note that he is 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 intimi- dated like that. To your knowledge, are NHIs working with adversarial foreign governments in either technology exchange programs or back engi- neering programs? Mr. GRUSCH. I do not have data on that. I am not sure. Ms. LUNA. Have you heard or you had people come forward to present that evidence? Mr. GRUSCH. Not that particular evidence that you just espoused. Ms. LUNA. OK. On the 19th of April, Dr. Kirkpatrick, head of AARO, had said that he did not find any evidence of UAPs. You also stated that you had—in your interview that you briefed him on information that you were uncovering but that he did not fol- lowup with you. Were the items that you divulged to him pertinent to national security? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Him and I had a classified conversation in April 2022 before he took over AARO in July 2022 and I provided him some concerns I had. Ms. LUNA. Do you know why he might not have followed up with you? Mr. GRUSCH. 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 AARO.
Page 28
24 Ms. LUNA. OK. And then my last question for you before I move to Mr. Graves is you received prior approval from the Defense De- partment to speak on certain issues, correct? Mr. GRUSCH. Correct, through DODSR—DoD Prepublication and Security Review—and I just want to remind the public they are just looking from a security perspective. These are my own per- sonal views and opinions, not the Department’s. Ms. LUNA. OK. I am 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. Mr. GRUSCH. I am required by law to do that as a former intel- ligence officer, or I go to jail for revealing classified information. Ms. LUNA. Yes, we do not 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 Vanden- berg Air Force Base? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. In the 2003 timeframe, a large group of Boeing contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base when they observed a very large 100-yard sighted red square approach 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 re- ceived through one of the witnesses that have approached me at Americans for Safe Aerospace. Ms. LUNA. Was this documented in any official form whether it was a police blotter? Mr. GRAVES. Yes. They had official documentation and records from the event that the witness held over the years. Ms. LUNA. And I am not going to ask you to do it right now for time reasons, but you would be able to sketch what was witnessed, correct? And you have—have you seen that before on any other equipment and/or during your flight time? Mr. GRAVES. I have not seen what they have described. This ob- ject was estimated to be almost the size of a football field and I have not seen anything personally that large. Ms. LUNA. OK. And then another question on followup ref- erencing the Gimbal video Go Fast incident. Can you just clarify? Because to our understanding the footage was actually cutoff at a certain point. But what happens at the end of that video, just for those Ameri- cans specifically that are wanting to know about the rest of that footage? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. There was some uncertainty or, you know, instability with the object. It seemed to rock a bit, and that is the last I had seen of the video. Much of the data that I would recommend be analyzed would consist of radar data that would
Page 29
25 provide precise kinematics on the object as well as the fleet of ob- jects that were operating nearby. Ms. LUNA. OK. And the followup, in regard to the recording pro- cedures that Mr. Garcia had addressed on as well as Representa- tive Burchett, 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 infor- mation in regard to safety for potential airline passengers? Mr. GRAVES. I have been made privy to conversations with com- mercial aviators who have received cease and desist orders. Ms. LUNA. So, the American public should know that corpora- tions 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? Mr. GRAVES. It appears so. Ms. LUNA. OK. I guess this would be my last—oh, I am out of time. I yield. I will be back. Mr. GROTHMAN. Good. Mr. Moskowitz? Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, let us talk about the laws of physics for a second. Mr. Graves and Commander Fravor, I heard you talk about speed. When those objects broke the sound barrier, did they make a sonic boom? Commander FRAVOR. I was in a jet. You cannot hear anything. It is kind of loud in there. Mr. GRAVES. Yes. You are 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 to Mach 2, which is a very nonaerodynamic shape. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. What about G forces? Let us talk about G forces of those vehicles. Could a human survive those G forces with known technology today? Mr. GRAVES. No. Commander FRAVOR. No, not for the acceleration rates that we observed. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. OK. What about what they looked like? How close did you get? Did you see a seam or a rivet or a section? And what I mean is, obviously, the jets you are flying have all those things. Did these objects have those? Mr. GRAVES. I did not have the detail to be able to tell that. Commander FRAVOR. So, we got within a half mile of the Tic Tac, which people say that is pretty far, but in airplanes that is actually relatively close. No, it was perfectly white, smooth, no windows, al- though when we did take the original FLIR 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. MOSKOWITZ. Mr. Grusch, as a result of your previous govern- ment work, have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself of nonhuman origin craft? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I personally interviewed those individuals. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Mr. Grusch, as a result of your previous govern- ment work have you met with people with direct knowledge or
Page 30
26 have direct knowledge yourself about ATs—advanced tech- nologies—that the U.S. Government has? Mr. GRUSCH. Based on conventional advanced tech I was briefed to the preponderance of the Defense Department’s both space and aerospace compartmented programs. Yes. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Do you have knowledge, or do you have reason to believe, that there are programs in the advanced tech space that are unsanctioned? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, I do. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. OK. And when you say that they are above con- gressional oversight what do you mean? Mr. GRUSCH. A complicated question. So, there is, you know, some—I would call it abuse here. So, congressional oversight of conventional Special Access Programs—and I will use Title 10, DoD as an example, right. So, 10 U.S. Code Section 119 discusses congressional oversight of SAPs, discusses the DEP/SecDef’s ability to waive congressional re- porting. However, the Gang of 8 is at least supposed to be notified if a—you know, a waived or a waive bigoted unacknowledged SAP is created and that is public law. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Well, so then how does—I mean, I do not want to cut you off, but how does a program like that get funded? Mr. GRUSCH. I will give you generalities. I can get very specific in a closed session. But misappropriation of funds and self-fund. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Does that mean that there is money in the budget that is set to go to a program, but it does not, and it goes to something else? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I have specific knowledge of that. Yes. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Do you think U.S. corporations are overcharging for certain tech they are selling to the U.S. Government and that additional money is going to programs? Mr. GRUSCH. Correct, through something called IR&D. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. OK. Satellite imagery—let us talk about sat- ellite imagery. We have satellites all over the place, some that we are aware of and many that we are not aware of, right. We are tak- ing pictures of everything at every point and second. Mr. Grusch, are you aware—do you have direct knowledge, or have you talked to people with direct knowledge, that there are satellite imagery of these events? Mr. GRUSCH. That was one of my primary tasks at NGA since we process, exploit, and disseminate that kind of information. I have seen multiple cases, some of which to my understanding— and, of course, I left NGA in April so that is my information cutoff date. But I personally review 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 had—I am aware that you guys have not seen these reports, unfortunately and I do not know why. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Do you have direct knowledge, or have you spo- ken to people with direct knowledge, that this imagery applies to crash sites—crash imagery? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot discuss that in an open session.
Page 31
27 Mr. MOSKOWITZ. OK. Do you have any information that the U.S. Government is involved in a disinformation campaign to deny the existence of certain UAPs? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot go beyond what I have already stated pub- licly in my News Nation interview because it touches other sen- sitivities. Mr. MOSKOWITZ. OK. I will yield the balance of my time back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Ms. Foxx? Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Grusch, in your sworn testimony you state that the U.S. 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, ‘‘nonhuman spacecraft,’’ end quote, and that some of these artifacts have circulated with defense con- tractors. Several other former military and intelligence officials have come forward with similar allegations albeit in nonpublic set- tings. However, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Director of AARO, previously testified before Congress that there has been, and I quote, ‘‘no cred- ible 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? Mr. GRUSCH. It is not accurate. I believe Dr. Kirkpatrick men- tioned he had about 30 individuals that have come to AARO thus far. A few of those individuals have also come to AARO that I also interviewed. Ms. FOXX. OK. Mr. GRUSCH. And I know what they provided Dr. Kirkpatrick and their team. Ms. FOXX. OK. Mr. GRUSCH. I was able to evaluate that information. Ms. FOXX. OK. I need to go on. Mr. GRUSCH. Sure. Ms. FOXX. But my understanding—this—his statement is accu- rate. Came from a direct quote, and this contradiction is a perfect example of why we need to inject transparency into our govern- ment. And for another example, look no further than the pitiful re- sponse 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 4 days after it first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska. The Biden Administration’s initial inability to address the object 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 con- tinental 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 is my hope, Mr. Chairman, that this sort of confusion will not be repeated. We should investigate the extent to which elements of
Page 32
28 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Yes. Mr. Frost? Mr. FROST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 2022, NASA announced that it was commissioning an inde- pendent study team to examine UAPs. The NASA team is com- prised of scientists across different fields as well as former astro- nauts and pilots. In May, the independent study team held 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 is safe to say that we all eagerly await its results. Mr. Graves, how might NASA’s research influence the commer- cial industry regarding safety and UAP? Mr. GRAVES. I think NASA has a big role to play as far as com- mercial aviation safety and it is 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. Mr. FROST. Gotcha. And also, Mr. Graves, are there any other in- dustries that may be influenced by the NASA research on UAPs and, if so, how so? Mr. GRAVES. 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 con- versation about what we are seeing. Mr. FROST. You know, in 2020 the Department of Defense re- leased several videos of UAPs including Mr. Fravor’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 the Science, Space and Technology Committee and when we were doing a hearing with the NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, I asked, you know, why NASA needed to be fully funded. And there were many great reasons, but one of them was actu- ally—had to do with UAPs. He actually mentioned, you know, is there life out there? I do not know. And so, either way these ac-
Page 33
29 tions 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 be- cause of the work that you all have done and people standing up, you know, I think we are seeing some of that stigma slowly going away. Mr. Fravor, 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? Commander FRAVOR. I would say yes. I would say that, you know, starting in 2017 when it actually came out, it took that stig- ma away. I mean, I have talked to multiple Senators who said prior to that if you would have mentioned UAP, you would have been laughed off the Hill and now we are sitting here today for a public testimony on what is actually going on. You know, I am hop- ing that this curve will be more of an exponential and we will get more and more transparent to the level that we can. Mr. FROST. I mean, it is important. I could not imagine—you know, I am not a pilot, but I used to fly gliders in Civil Air Patrol. Commander FRAVOR. A pilot? Mr. FROST. And so, either way, I mean, I could not imagine, you know, being in the glider and seeing something and then not feel- ing 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? Mr. GRAVES. Absolutely. I think, ultimately, this is going to be a scientific problem, and not only that, it is also an engineering problem. I have been working with the American Institute of Aero- nautics 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 sci- entific problem as much as a national security problem. Mr. FROST. And how might Congress help to facilitate partner- ships between the scientific community and the UAP focus groups within government? Mr. GRAVES. 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 are seeing that start to grow now. So, I think continued conversation and reduction of stigma is going to allow that to flourish and allow answers to help generate themselves. Mr. FROST. A hundred percent. Well, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your work. I think it is 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. GROTHMAN. Mr. Comer? Mr. COMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say I want to thank you for having this hearing and I want to thank Mr.
Page 34
30 Burchett and Ms. Luna for leading this hearing. And with that, I yield my 5 minutes to Mr. Burchett. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to direct this, I believe, to Mr. Grusch. But if any of you all feel like you need to jump in just jump right in. We are good. Has the U.S. Government become aware of actual evidence of ex- traterrestrial or otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence and, if so, when do you think this first occurred? Mr. GRUSCH. I like to use the term nonhuman. I do not like to denote origin. Keeps the aperture open both scientifically. Cer- tainly, like I have discussed publicly, previously 1930’s. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. 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 are going to go to Area 51 and, you know, there is nothing there anymore anyway. It is just—you know, and we move like a glacier, as soon as we an- nounce it, I am sure the moving vans have pulled up. But please? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot discuss that publicly, but I did provide that information both to the intel committees and the Inspector General. Mr. BURCHETT. And we could get that in the SCIF if we were al- lowed to get in a SCIF with you? Would that be probably what you would think? Mr. GRUSCH. Sure, if you had the appropriate accesses. Yes. Mr. BURCHETT. What Special Access Programs cover this infor- mation and how is it possible that they have evaded oversight for so long? Mr. GRUSCH. I do know the names. Once again, I cannot discuss that publicly in how they have evaded oversight. In a closed set- ting, I can tell you the specific tradecraft used. Mr. BURCHETT. All right. When do you think those programs began and who authorized them? Mr. GRUSCH. I do know a lot of that information, but that is something I can discuss publicly because of sensitivities. Mr. BURCHETT. All right. If any of you all want to jump in on any of this, you are more than welcome to. What level of security clearance is required to fully access these programs? Mr. GRUSCH. Well, anybody who has—— Mr. BURCHETT. And I say that because myself, Representative Gaetz and Representative Luna were basically turned away at one point at Eglin. So, please go right ahead. Mr. GRUSCH. Certainly, a difference between Member access and, say, somebody like me, but anybody who has a, you know, TS/SCI clearance and meets the eligibility criteria. The access adjudicative authority should be able to grant you access. Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Burchett, if you will yield. So, just to be—put a fine point on that there is nothing that you are aware of that is above Special Access Program classification?
Page 35
31 Mr. GRUSCH. It is a misnomer that there is anything actually above top secret. Executive Order 13526 delineates the classifica- tion levels. Mr. GAETZ. Right. But I draw upon that because we can have ac- cess to those programs and so the notion that we are not being given that access sort of defies our typical muscle memory here in Congress. Thank you, Mr. Burchett. I will yield back to you. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Gaetz. Along those lines, Title 10—you may not know this or not, but Title 10 and Title 50 authorization they seem to say they are ineffi- cient. So, who gets to decide this, in your opinion, in the past? Mr. GRUSCH. It is a group of career senior executive officials. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Are they government officials? Mr. GRUSCH. Both in and out. Mr. BURCHETT. Be what? Mr. GRUSCH. Both in and out of government and that is about as far as I can go there. Mr. BURCHETT. I got you. 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 have been here 5 years and they fail the daggum thing every year. Lose over a billion dollars a year, we think, and I was told the Depart- ment of Defense maybe 60 percent of their assets are unaccounted for, whatever the heck that means. In the public sector, you go to jail for that kind of crap. So, tell me. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I know when I am a dollar off on my DTS trav- el voucher I get hammered, but seems like it does not work the other way, right. Mr. BURCHETT. If you sell over—if you sell over $600 worth of stuff on Ebay now you get a call from the IRS. So, please, what corporations? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I do not know the specific metrics toward the end of your question. The specific corporations I did provide to the committees in specific divisions and I spent 11‡ hours with both intel committees. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Has there been any—has there been an ac- tive U.S. Government disinformation campaign to deny the exist- ence of unidentified aerial phenomena and, if so, why? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot go beyond what I have already espoused publicly about that. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. I have been told to ask you what that is and how to get it in the record. Mr. GRUSCH. Which—— Ms. LUNA. What you stated publicly in your interviews for the congressional Record. Mr. GRUSCH. If you reference my News Nation interview and I talked about a multi-decade, you know, campaign to disenfranchise public interest, basically. Ms. LUNA. Thank you. Mr. BURCHETT. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I yield back negative 21 seconds.
Page 36
32 Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez? Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for coming here today. I do concur with the Rank- ing Member as well as several other Members here on this Com- mittee that this is a committee for whistleblowers and for the pro- tection of whistleblowers as well. So, we understand what you are putting on the table here and what you are putting on the line here. We thank you for that. Mr. Grusch, you sat on the unidentified anomalous phenomenon task force created in the 2020 NDAA, correct? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. 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 answer 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 inter- action—or Mr. Grusch, either of you—the interactions between de- fense contractor companies and any UAP-related programs or ac- tivities. Mr. GRAVES. So, I will just say that the information about the contractors themselves were provided by a witness and I have no particular detail in that relationship. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Understood. Mr. Grusch? Mr. GRUSCH. The kind of general unclassed wave tops. Certainly, the contractors, you know, or the metal benders, so to speak, the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Are they required to issue any disclosure re- garding UAP sightings or do they engage in any reporting around this? Mr. GRUSCH. In terms of the contractors? Not that I am aware of. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. They do not. OK. Now, when it comes to no- tification that you had mentioned about IR&D 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 loop- holes that we see in the law is that there is—at least from my van- tage point, is that depending on what we are 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, how did they do that? Do you have insight into that? Mr. GRUSCH. For certain IR&D activities, I can only think of ones conventional in nature. Sometimes they flow through certain, I will just say SAP programs, that have cognizant authority over the Air Force or something and those are congressionally reported compartments.
Page 37
33 But IR&D is literally internal to the contractors. So, as long as it is money, either profits, private investment, et cetera, they do whatever they want. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. And to put a finer point on it, when there is a requirement for any agency or company to—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? Mr. GRUSCH. A lot of it comes through what they call the PPR— Periodic Program Review process—if it is, you know, a SAP or con- trolled access program equity, and then those go to the specific committees, whether it be the SASC, HASC—— Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. OK. Thank you. I apologize. I just—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 pi- lots or others, correct? Mr. GRAVES. Correct. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. And in your experience what data should the AARO program prioritize for potential collection? We have, you know, location, date, time, but are there other specific characteris- tics that should be included in these reports? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. I think that there is two categories that would be important. One would be kinematics and understanding the specifics of how the vehicle or objects are moving, and the sec- ond would be a more zoomed out approach of being able to look at origin and destination after or before the incident as well as getting a better contextual understanding of how these objects are inter- acting with each other. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you. Now, because I only have a minute left—I apologize we only have 5 minutes today. But for the record, if you were me where would you look? Titles, programs, de- partments, regions—if you could just name anything. And I put that as an open question to the three of you. Mr. GRUSCH. I would be happy to give you that in a closed envi- ronment. I can tell you specifically. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you. Commander Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. I would say and I have told people that you have to know where to look. They are 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 where Mr. Grusch can point you then you have them. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. OK. Mr. Graves? Mr. GRAVES. I was an operator, so I was depending on folks like Mr. Grusch to do that homework. Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. OK. Thank you very much. I yield back to the Chair. Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Biggs? Mr. BIGGS. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I thank the wit- nesses for being here today. I am over here. Thank you so much for being here. I want to get into the spe- cifics here and the reason I am going to go this way is because you have talked a bit about what I would call misdirection by official
Page 38
34 U.S. Government with regard to UAPs, right, and so I am going to get to that in a second. But last week White House NSC spokesman, John Kirby, stated that UAPs are having an impact on our training ranges and needs to be treated as a legitimate issue. Do you concur with his state- ments? And that is for each of you. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Mr. GRAVES. Yes. Commander FRAVOR. Yes. Mr. BIGGS. OK. Now, having said that, I am going to take you to specific instances around the Phoenix Valley because that is where I live. In 1997, we had the famous Phoenix Lights case. I do not know if any of you are 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 expla- nation of those lights? Mr. GRUSCH. Only what is in the public vernacular about it. That was outside the scope of my duties. Mr. BIGGS. And if we wanted to—just my question along with my colleague from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, if we wanted to find out more about that where would we go to find the files and where—and who would we address? I know you are going to tell me we need to go to a SCIF so you can tell us in a SCIF. Commander FRAVOR. I could potentially give you a vector on that. That specific case I am not—I mean, I am familiar with it in terms of public, but I can give you a vector in a closed environ- ment. Yes. Mr. BIGGS. That would be good. Thank you. So, if it is true that UAPs are having an impact on training ranges and this Adminis- tration considers it to be a legitimate issue what steps can Con- gress take to address training range impacts? And I say that hav- ing two very large training rages in my state. And so, we will start with Mr. Graves and go on down the panel. Mr. GRAVES. Some of the initial procedures have been imple- mented such as within the United States Navy that have a Range Fouler 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 and reducing the stigma. Mr. BIGGS. OK. Please all of you continue. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. As a recipient of a lot of those training range reports sometimes we only get contextual, kind of oral reporting. It would be nice if they attached all sensor data and there is a system in place that can handle multiple classifications of data, and that is an issue with the F–35, right. That jet was never built to be an ISR platform, and it is a pain in the butt to get that data off. So—— Mr. BIGGS. Great. Thank you. Commander FRAVOR. Yes, I would agree with the previous two, being a user of those training ranges, that the data has to be out
Page 39
35 there. You have to acknowledge that you are 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. Mr. BIGGS. OK. Do you believe that the 2019 classification guide- lines 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, yes. Mr. GRAVES. I will say yes to that. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, I am familiar with the UAP Task Force 2019 Security Classification guide. I think it is fair. I did actually help author that with the Director. Mr. BIGGS. Uh-oh. You got a bias then. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. I will say—I will call it a lazy attitude about declassifying videos. I mean, I have seen some of the videos of, you know, the recent shoot down and I saw no reason that could not have been released as long as they mask, you know, some data. The American people deserve to see that imagery and full motion video. Commander FRAVOR. I would think—well, in my opinion, I will say things are over-classified. I know for a fact the video or the pic- tures that came out in the—I think it was the 2020 report, that had the stuff off the East Coast that were taken with an iPhone off the East Coast. A buddy of mine was one of the senior people there and he said they originally classified it TS/SCI, and my question then was what is TS/SCI about these? They are an iPhone literally off the vacapes. That is not TS/SCI. So, they are over classified, and as soon as they do that they go in a vault and then you all have to look for them. Mr. BIGGS. 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? Mr. GRAVES. I think part of that has been not encouraging re- porting, if the problem is not something that can be measured, if it is not something that is going to be fixed. Mr. BIGGS. OK. Very good. Well, I am out of time and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. Mr. GROTHMAN. First of all, without objection, Representative Nick Langworthy of New York is waived on the Subcommittee for purpose of questioning witnesses at today’s Subcommittee hearing. And then we go to Mr. Burlison. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you guys coming out today testifying. Look, I have been here for 6 months and I am pretty skeptical. I do not trust anything in this town and so—and I think that is because I am from Missouri. You have got to show me, right. With that being said, there has been a lot of things that have been said in the public, Mr. Grusch, and so I want to get down, if we can, to some specifics, right.
Page 40
36 So, at one point you had said that there has been harmful activ- ity or aggressive activity. Has any of the activity been aggressive, been hostile, in your reports? Mr. GRUSCH. I know of multiple colleagues of mine that got phys- ically injured and the activity—— Mr. BURLISON. By UAPs or by people within the Federal Govern- ment? Mr. GRUSCH. Both. Mr. BURLISON. OK. So, there has been activity by alien or nonhuman technology and/or beings that has caused harm to hu- mans? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot get into the specifics in an open environ- ment, but at least the activity that I personally witnessed—and I have to be very careful here because you do not—you know, they tell you never to acknowledge tradecraft, right. So, what I personally witnessed, myself and my wife, was very disturbing. Mr. BURLISON. OK. One of my constituents actually sent this next question and I figured I would ask it since I have the same thought. You have said that U.S. has intact spacecraft. You said that the government has alien bodies or alien species. Have you seen—have you seen the spacecraft? Mr. GRUSCH. I have to be careful to describe what I have seen firsthand and not in this environment. But I could answer that question behind closed doors. Mr. BURLISON. Have you seen any of the bodies? Mr. GRUSCH. That is something I have not witnessed myself. Mr. BURLISON. OK. And so with that being said, you know, the other statement that has been made that was intriguing to me be- cause—and it is 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 that 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 farfetched. And that with that being said, you have mentioned that there is interdimensional potential. Could you expound on that? Mr. GRUSCH. To answer your first question and, you know, I am here as a fact witness and not an expert, but I will give you a theo- retical framework at least to work off to kind of espouse crashes. Regardless of, you know, your level of sentience, right—you know, planes crash, cars crash, and a number of sorties, however high, a small percentage are going to end in, you know, mission failure, if you will, as we say in the Air Force. And then in terms of multidimensionality, that kind of thing, the framework that I am familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle both—it derives itself from general relativity and quantum mechanics and that is if you want to imag- ine a 3D object such as yourself casting a shadow onto a 2D surface that is the holographic principle. So, you can be projected—quasi projected from higher dimen- sional space to lower dimensional. It is a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally, as far as I understand, but there is
Page 41
37 probably guys with Ph.Ds. that we could probably argue about that. Mr. BURLISON. But you have not seen any documentation that that is what is occurring? It is a theory? Mr. GRUSCH. Only theoretical framework discussion. Mr. BURLISON. OK. OK. Occam’s Razor is that this—these air- crafts have they been identified that they are being produced by domestic, you know, military contractors? Is there any evidence that that is what is being recovered? Mr. GRUSCH. Not to my knowledge. Plus, the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs that I previously am waiving off. So—— Mr. BURLISON. So, would it be safe to say that there could be a scenario today where you have an aircraft that crashes because it has been involved in one program from one Federal agency and the—but the agency that retrieves it is not aware of that program and to them it appears alien in origin? Mr. GRUSCH. I mean, that is a hypothetical situation. I am not aware of any historical situation that would match that that you described. Mr. BURLISON. You are not aware—it has not happened that you are aware of? Mr. GRUSCH. That I am aware of. Mr. BURLISON. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Gaetz? Mr. GAETZ. Several months ago my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating that there was a UAP incident that required my attention. I sought a briefing re- garding 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—as well as to meet with the flight crew. We were not af- forded access to all of the flight crew and initially we were not af- forded 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 am somewhat informed on the matter having served on the Armed Services Committee for 7 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 had taken I asked why the video was not engaged— why we did not have a FLIR system that worked. Here is what he said. They were out on a test mission that day over the Gulf of Mexico and when you are on a test mission you are supposed to have clear airspace. Not supposed to be anything that shows up.
Page 42
38 And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond forma- tion for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the U.S. 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 am—that I am 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 manu- ally take this image from one of the lenses and it was not auto- mated in collection as you would typically see in a test mission. So, I guess I will start with Commander Fravor. How should we think about the fact that this craft that was approached by our pilot had the capability of disarming a number of the sensor and collection systems on that craft? Commander FRAVOR. I think this goes to that national security side. You can go back through history of things showing up in cer- tain 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 they tried to do it and the only way we could see it is passively, which is how he got that image. So, I think that is a concern on what are these doing, not only how do they operate but their capabilities inside to do things like this. Mr. GAETZ. And how should we think about four craft moving in a very clear formation equidistant from one another in a diamond? In all of the phenomenon, perhaps, Mr. Graves, that you have ana- lyzed have we ever seen multiple craft in a single formation? Mr. GRAVES. I have one particular case and that was during the Gimbal incident. The recording on the AT FLIR system shows a single object that rotates. You hear the pilots refer to a fleet of objects that is not visible on the FLIR system and that was something that I witnessed dur- ing the debrief as part of the radar data on the situational aware- ness page. I would like to add, however, Congressman, there is a small bit of anger, I would say, I would feel if those pilots are still facing that difficulty in reporting this topic and they do not 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. Mr. GAETZ. It was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that if you have a UAP experience the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone because any type of report- ing, either above the surface or below the surface, does have a per- ceived 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. Grusch in a secure compartmentalized facility so that we can get fulsome an- swers that do not put him in jeopardy and that give us the infor- mation we need.
Page 43
39 Second, I would suggest that the radar images that were col- lected of this formation of craft out of Eglin 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 are 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. Mr. GROTHMAN. Ms. Mace? Ms. MACE. 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 a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of my home state of South Carolina. Since the Roswell inci- dent in 1947, many American have wondered about the dangers of unknown objects crisscrossing our 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 I will—if we can just be quick on these first two. I am going to ask each of you the same question and then I will 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. Mr. GRAVES. No. Commander FRAVOR. No. Mr. GRUSCH. I have actually never seen anything personally, be- lieve it or not. Ms. MACE. All right. And then do you believe there is an active disinformation campaign within our government to deny the exist- ence of UAPs? Yes or no. Mr. GRAVES. I do not have an answer to that. Mr. GRUSCH. As previously stated publicly, yes. Commander FRAVOR. Previously with, like, Project Bluebook, yes, but currently I do not speak for the U.S. Government. Ms. MACE. OK. Thank you. I have a few questions for Mr. Graves. What percentage of UAP sightings, in your belief, go unreported by our pilots? Mr. GRAVES. This is an approximation based off of my personal experience speaking with a number of pilots, but I would estimate we are somewhere near 5 percent reporting, perhaps. Ms. MACE. So, like, 95 percent basically do not report seeing UAPs? Mr. GRAVES. That is just my personal estimate. Ms. MACE. In the incident off Virginia Beach, do you believe the Navy took the danger to your aircraft seriously after it was re- ported? Mr. GRAVES. Absolutely. Ms. MACE. A few questions for Mr. Fravor. As an expert naval aviator have you ever seen an object that looked and moved like the Tic Tac UAP? Commander FRAVOR. No.
Page 44
40 Ms. MACE. Did the Tic Tac UAP move in such a way that defied the laws of physics? Commander FRAVOR. The way we understand them, yes. Ms. MACE. Many dismiss UAP reports as classified weapons test- ing by our own government. But in your experience as a pilot does our government typically test advanced weapons systems right next to multimillion-dollar jets without informing our pilots? Commander FRAVOR. No. We have test ranges for that. Ms. MACE. It took over 15 years for your encounter with the Tic Tac to be declassified. Do you feel there was a good reason to pre- vent lawmakers from having access to this footage? Commander FRAVOR. No. I just think it was ignored when it hap- pened, and it just sat somewhere in a file. Never got reported. Ms. MACE. In a drawer. It happens a lot up here. Shocker. Mr. Grusch, a couple of questions for you too, sir, this morning. What percentage of UAPs do you feel are adequately investigated by the U.S. Government, of the 5 percent that are reported? Mr. GRUSCH. 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. Ms. MACE. Do you believe that officials at the highest levels of our national security apparatus have unlawfully withheld informa- tion from Congress and subverted our oversight authority? Mr. GRUSCH. There are certain elected leaders that had more in- formation that—I am not sure what they have shared with certain Gang of 8 members or et cetera. But, certainly, I would not be sur- prised. Ms. MACE. OK. You say that the government is in possession of potentially nonhuman spacecraft. Based on your experience and ex- tensive conversations with experts do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials? Mr. GRUSCH. It is something I cannot discuss in a public setting. Ms. MACE. OK. And I cannot ask when you think this occurred. If you believe we have crashed craft, as stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? Mr. GRUSCH. As I have stated publicly already in my News Na- tion interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yes. Ms. MACE. Were they, I guess, human or nonhuman biologics? Mr. GRUSCH. Nonhuman, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are cur- rently still on the program. Ms. MACE. And was this documentary evidence, this video, photos, eyewitness? Like, how would that be determined? Mr. GRUSCH. The specific documentation I would have to talk to you in a SCIF about. Ms. MACE. Got you. OK. So—and you may or may not be able to answer my last question, and maybe we get into a SCIF 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 cannot name names, but what agencies or or- ganizations, contractors, et cetera, do we need to call in to get these
Page 45
41 questions answered whether it is about funding, what programs are happening, and what is out there? Mr. GRUSCH. I can give you a specific cooperative and hostile wit- ness list of specific individuals that were in those. Ms. MACE. And how soon can we get that list? Mr. GRUSCH. I am happy to provide that to you after the hearing. Ms. MACE. Super. Thank you. And I yield back. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Now we have Mr. Langworthy. OK. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Thank you very much. I would like to thank all of the witnesses for being here today to discuss this very unique topic and I would like to jump right into my questions, if you do not mind. Commander Fravor, can you briefly describe your background? Commander FRAVOR. Yes. I was an enlisted Marine, Naval Acad- emy graduate, Navy, flew for 18 years. Got a Master’s from Univer- sity of Houston and I have worked in the private sector for the last what now, 19—16 years, 17 years. I do a lot of defense work. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Really gold-plated credentials. Commander Fravor, we have all seen this floating Tic Tac video that you en- gaged with on November 14th, 2004. Can you briefly talk about why you were off the coast of San Diego that day? Commander FRAVOR. Yes. We were at a work up with all the bat- tle groups. So, we integrate the ships with the carrier, the airwing with the carrier, and we start working. So, we were doing an air to air defense to hone not only our skills but those of the USS Princeton when they had been tracking them for 2 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. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Do you remember the weather that day? Was it cloudy or windy or anything out of the ordinary on the Pacific coast? Commander FRAVOR. It was actually—if you are familiar San Diego, it was a perfect day, light winds, no whitecaps, clear skies. Not a cloud. It was—for flying it was the best. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Now, is it true that you saw, in your words, a 40-foot flying Tic Tac shaped object? Commander FRAVOR. That is correct. For some people that can- not—know what a Tic Tac is it is a giant flying propane tank. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Did this object come up on radar or interfere with your radar or the USS Princeton? Commander FRAVOR. The Princeton tracked it. The Nimitz tracked it. The E2 tracked it. We never saw it on our radars. Our fire control radars 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 rapidly switched over to the targeting pod, which you can do in the F–18. Mr. LANGWORTHY. From what you saw that day and what you have seen on video did you see any source of propulsion from the flying object including on any potential thermal scans from your aircraft?
Page 46
42 Commander FRAVOR. No, there is none. There is no IR plume coming out and Chad, who took the video, went through all the EO, which is black and white TV and the I&R modes and there is no visual signs of propulsion. It is just sitting in space at 20,000 feet. Mr. LANGWORTHY. In your career have you ever seen a propul- sion system that creates no thermal exhaust? Commander FRAVOR. No. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Can you describe how the aircraft maneu- vered? Commander FRAVOR. Abruptly, very determinant. It knew ex- actly 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. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Now, if the fastest plane on Earth was trained to do these maneuvers that you saw, would it be capable of doing that? Commander FRAVOR. No, not even close. Mr. LANGWORTHY. And just to confirm, this object had no wings, correct? Commander FRAVOR. No wings. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Now, was the aircraft that you were flying was it armed? Commander FRAVOR. No, and never felt threatened at all. Mr. LANGWORTHY. If the aircraft was armed do you believe that your aircraft or any aircraft in possession of the United States could have shot the Tic Tac down? Commander FRAVOR. I would say no, just on the performance. It would have just left in a split second. Mr. LANGWORTHY. It looks like we have a problem here that needs further investigation. Commander FRAVOR. Yes. Mr. LANGWORTHY. In your belief is this flying Tic Tac—I mean, is this—is it capable of being the product of any other nation on the Earth? Commander FRAVOR. 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 has been some physicists that have done calculations, which is beyond anything that we have. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Well, either the United States has an adver- sary here in this world that we do not 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 have not been asked here today? Commander FRAVOR. No. You know, it has been said it is prob- ably the most credible UFO sighting in history, based on all the sensors that were tracking it and then for us to get visual. And to go against the naysayers that it is something on the screen or whatever, I mean, there is four sets of human eyeballs. We are 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. I would say the world needs to know that. It is not a joke.
Page 47
43 Mr. LANGWORTHY. Thank you very much for your testimony here today, for all of you. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Ogles? Mr. OGLES. 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 of 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 to- ward them and them toward us, you know, we probe their capabili- ties. We look for weaknesses and we collect that data, that recon- naissance, for—in the event we need it in the future. For each of you, yes or no question. Based off of your own experi- ence or the data that you have been privy to is there any indication that these UAPs could be essentially collecting reconnaissance in- formation? Mr. Graves? Mr. GRAVES. Yes. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Grusch? Mr. GRUSCH. Fair assessment. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. It is very possible. Mr. OGLES. Again, in the national security vein, is it possible that these UAPs would be probing our capabilities, yes or no? Mr. Graves? Mr. GRAVES. Yes. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Grusch? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. Definitely. Mr. OGLES. Is it possible that these UAPs are testing for vulnerabilities in our current systems? Mr. GRAVES. Yes. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Commander FRAVOR. Possible. Mr. OGLES. Do you feel, based off of your experience and infor- mation that you have been privy to, that these UAPs provide an existential threat to the national security of the United States? Mr. Graves? Mr. GRAVES. Potentially. Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, sir, potentially. Commander FRAVOR. Same answer, potentially. I would say defi- nitely potentially. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Graves and Fravor, in the event that your en- counters had become hostile would you have—would you have had the capability to defend yourself, your crew, your aircraft? Mr. GRAVES. Absolutely not. Mr. OGLES. Sir? Mr. GRUSCH. No. Mr. OGLES. Based off of the information that you have been privy to is there any indication that these UAPs are interested in our nu- clear technology and capabilities? Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Page 48
44 Mr. GRUSCH. By external observation, sure, that could be a fair assessment. Yes. Commander FRAVOR. Yes. Mr. OGLES. Is there any indication the Department of Energy is involved in UAP data collection and housing? Mr. GRAVES. I do not have an answer. Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot confirm or deny that in a public setting. Mr. OGLES. Could you do it in a secure setting? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Fravor? Commander FRAVOR. No, I do not know. Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, you know, I think I am the last Mem- ber 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 activi- ties so that, if appropriate, we take action. I would encourage the Chairman to demand that we have any and all, but in particular Mr. Grusch, talk to us in a SCIF and if that access is denied I will personally volunteer to initiate the Hol- man 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. Burchett. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Ogles, for the great questions, brother. Mr. Grusch, I might have asked this before but I want to make sure. Do you have any personal knowledge of someone who has possibly been injured working on legacy UAP reverse engineering? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Mr. BURCHETT. OK. How were they injured? Was it —is it something like a radioactive type situation or something we did not understand? I have heard people talk about Havana syndrome type incidences. What was your recollection of that? Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot get into specifics, but you can imagine as- sessing an unknown unknown there is a lot of potentialities you cannot fully prepare for. Mr. BURCHETT. How do you think we ought to handle UAP whis- tleblower complaints like yours in the future? Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. 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 is not a good way for the intelligence community Inspector General to provide that to other committees, and I asked my infor- mation to be sent to the House and Senate Armed Services Com- mittee because there are Title 10 equities at play. But there was no smooth process to do so. Mr. BURCHETT. It is a trashcan. Are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non- terrestrial craft? Mr. GRUSCH. Personally, yes. Mr. BURCHETT. Do you know any that would be willing to testify if there were protections for them?
Page 49
45 Mr. GRUSCH. Certainly, closed door and assurances that breaking their NDA they are not going to get administratively punished for so. Mr. BURCHETT. I yield, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. We are going to do something a little bit out of the ordinary here. We are going to give three people a chance at additional 3 minutes. So, Mr. Burchett, do you want to keep going? Mr. BURCHETT. Why don’t you come back to me, Mr. Chairman? Ms. Luna, if she is on—is she on that list? Ms. LUNA. I am on the special list. Mr. GROTHMAN. Sure. Ms. LUNA. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record an ar- ticle by News Nation and it follows Mr. Grusch’s full interview, for the record. Mr. GROTHMAN. Without objection. Ms. LUNA. Thank you. Mr. Grusch, why is it that you refer to the phenomenon as nonhuman intelligence? Why deviate from the basis of extraterrestrial life? Mr. GRUSCH. I think the phenomenon is a very complex and I like to leave an open mind analytically to specific origin. Ms. LUNA. When you say specific origin are you referring—can you elaborate on that for those that might not—— Mr. GRUSCH. If it is a traditional extraterrestrial origin or some- thing else that we do not quite understand from an either biologi- cal or astrophysics perspective. I just like to keep an open mind on what it could be. Ms. LUNA. OK. And referring to your News Nation interview you had referenced specific treaties between governments. Article Three of the nuclear arms treaty with Russia identifies UAPs. It specifically mentions them. To your knowledge, are their safety measures in place with foreign governments or other superpowers to avoid an escalatory situation in the event that a UAP malevolent event occurs? Mr. GRUSCH. You are referring to actual—a public treaty in the U.N. register—it is funny you mentioned that—the agreement on measures to reduce the risk of outbreak of 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 and the specific red line flash message traffic with the specific codes pursuant to Article Three and Article—also situation two, which is in the pre- viously 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 those 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. Ms. LUNA. Thank you. And then my last question with 51 sec- onds remaining, you mentioned white collar crimes potentially being—taking place in regards to a cover up. Can you please elabo- rate?
Page 50
46 Mr. GRUSCH. I have concerns based on the interviews I conducted under my official duties of potential violations of the Federal Acqui- sition Regulations—the FAR. Ms. LUNA. Thank you very much. Chairman, I yield the remain- der of my time. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. We will go to Mr. Raskin for 3 minutes. Mr. RASKIN. Thanks, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses for their endurance and service today. Mr. Fravor, you have described your episode in detail now and you call it the most credible UFO sighting in history. I wonder was this the first time that you encountered a UFO or a UAP in 2004? Commander FRAVOR. Yes. Mr. RASKIN. And what was your general attitude or perspective on the UFO discussion before that happened? Commander FRAVOR. I never felt that we were alone with all the planets out there. But I was not a UFO person. I was not watching History Channel and Mufon and all that. Mr. RASKIN. And have you had experiences or encounters since that happened? Commander FRAVOR. No. Mr. RASKIN. And so, have you formed any general conclusions about what you think you experienced then? Commander FRAVOR. 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 are going to have in the next 10 to 20 years. Mr. RASKIN. Very good. Mr. Grusch, you have been able to answer in great detail on cer- tain questions and then other things you say you are not able to respond to. Can you just explain where you are drawing the line and what is the basis for that? Mr. GRUSCH. Based on my DODSR security review and what they have determined that is unclassified. Mr. RASKIN. I see. So, you are answering any questions that just call upon your knowledge of unclassified questions but anything that relates to classified matters you are not commenting on in this context? Mr. GRUSCH. In an open session. But happy to participate in a closed session at the right level. Mr. RASKIN. OK. And, Mr. Graves, you said that there are dozens of fellow pilots, military pilots. Are there also commercial pilots who have encountered the same kind of sightings that you de- scribed before? Mr. GRAVES. They are similar. Pilots—commercial pilots have less range and less sensors to be able to reach out and look for ob- jects over wide swaths of airspace. And so pilots are seeing them. Commercial pilots are seeing them and they are typically closer and the range of what they are seeing is pretty large. Mr. RASKIN. What is the most vivid concrete sighting with the naked eye of the objects that you described before, the cube-like ob- jects? Mr. GRAVES. Certainly. I think the most vivid sighting of that would have been a near mid-air that we had at the entrance to our working area. One of these objects was completely stationary at the
Page 51
47 exact entrance to our working areas, not only geographically but also 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. Mr. RASKIN. And you were in one of the aircraft? Mr. GRAVES. I was not. I was there when the pilot landed. He canceled the mission after. 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. Mr. RASKIN. He said he was 50 feet away from it? Mr. GRAVES. Yes, sir. Mr. RASKIN. And his description of the object was consistent with the description you gave us before? Mr. GRAVES. A dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere. Mr. RASKIN. Inside of a clear sphere? Mr. GRAVES. Yes. Mr. RASKIN. And with no self-evident propulsion system? Mr. GRAVES. No wings. No IR energy coming off of the vehicle. Nothing tethering it to the ground, and that was primarily what we were experiencing out there. Mr. RASKIN. I am over time. Thank you very much for your serv- ice and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Very good. Mr. Burchett? Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is for all three of you all—starting with Mr. Graves. Why did you come forward on this issue? Mr. GRAVES. 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. BURCHETT. Mr. Grusch? Mr. GRUSCH. Purely a sense of duty. My first swore an oath when I was a cadet 18 years ago and I still uphold that even out of uniform. Mr. BURCHETT. Commander? Commander FRAVOR. I was pestered by a friend, and I asked why and he said, you are the one person that they cannot discredit, and you will add credibility to the New York Times article. And so after about six times I said OK. [Laughter.] Mr. BURCHETT. This town is not made, unfortunately, by people like you all. We thank you. I do want to also thank the people in the audience and the people that are watching this that cannot be—people all over the world that have kept this issue alive. You have endured criticism and derogatory remarks, and we are trying to get to the bottom of it. So, God bless you all. Thank you all so much. We really appreciate you guys and gals. [Applause.] Mr. BURCHETT. That is why we need term limits. You all keep clapping. Us politicians just keep talking. [Laughter.]
Page 52
48 Mr. BURCHETT. Let me ask you all, how can the public contribute to UAP reporting and what avenues you think are available to the public to report these sightings? Mr. GRAVES. Right now I do not think there is a lot of public op- tions for the everyman to be able to report on this. I think even for professionals that have sensor data that are seeing these on a regular basis they are still hesitant to come forward. And so, for the general public I think encouraging the conversa- tions that we are having today, looking for technology solutions that can be distributed so that objective data can be gathered is the first place to go. Mr. BURCHETT. Mr. Grusch? Mr. GRUSCH. I will just touch on the whistleblower side of it. I do encourage, you know, current and 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. Mr. BURCHETT. Commander? And I guess I should say this for the record. My daddy was United States Marine Corps First Ma- rine Division. So—— Commander FRAVOR. Oorah. Mr. BURCHETT. Yes, sir. He was old school. Him and Chesty Pull- er on Peleliu. So thank you, brother. Commander FRAVOR. Wow. Mr. BURCHETT. I am not—I am not anything like my daddy. He was incredible. I am very mediocre, to say the least. But go ahead. Commander FRAVOR. You seem to be doing fine. Mr. BURCHETT. Yes. Commander FRAVOR. For me, you know, I was an accident inves- tigator. So, the biggest thing that you learn, and I think that wit- nesses need to do is, one, do not try and make the fish bigger than it was. Stick to the facts. Write it down and do not speculate what you think it is because it will sway 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. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, and I want to thank everybody. We made history today. Mr. Chairman, I yield. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you much. Mr. Garcia? Mr. GARCIA. I think—I know now we are 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 of you for being here with us today. I know that it takes a lot—a lot of courage. You are telling really important information to this Committee, and I just want to thank you also for your—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. Grothman, 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 it took to put this hearing in place and certainly to all the Members that have been involved in this issue prior to—prior to the hearing.
Page 53
49 I also want to note for our witnesses and for the public that I am a freshman Member of Congress and I have only been here for 7 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 secu- rity, as it relates to information that we are trying to gather for the American public does bring people together and I think that has been really great to see. I think it is also important to note for the public, we—today in our hearing we had on our side also both our full Ranking Member, which is Mr. Raskin, and our Vice Ranking Member, which is Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, both here at our hearing. I think it shows the importance and seriousness that 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 is really important that we have and continue these discus- sions and these hearings. Clearly, there is a lot of information that we do not know. But it is also very clear that we have to continue our investiga- tion and accountability on asking the right questions and ensuring that they are part of the public record. One thing that was important today is some folks might wonder, you know, why are we asking questions that might already be out there or that have been asked before. It is important that they are asked and put into the public record as it relates to this Com- mittee. And so I want to thank you for, you know, answering some ques- tions 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 is 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 is very important that the media engages, does independent in- vestigation, and reports on not just what happened today but what they see independently as what has happened 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 and a longtime teacher and researcher that I also really believe in following facts and doing your homework and making sure that you follow science as we try to get as much information as possible. So, I want to thank you all for agreeing to do that today. Trans- parency 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? Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. I would like to one more time thank Mr. Burchett and Ms. Luna for bringing this to our attention. It is a topic that has interested me since I was in school. It was a very illuminating hearing.
Page 54
50 Obviously, I think several of us are going to look forward to get- ting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this. Mr. BURCHETT. 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 are very quiet and humble. But without them this thing would not have come off like it did. So, I apologize. Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. I think we are going to want to look into what we can do to make more of this information public. I think there is 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 would 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 forwarded to the witnesses for their re- sponse. If there is no further business, without objection, the Sub- committee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] Æ
Record
- Author / institution
- U.S. Government Publishing Office
- Date
- 2023-07-26
- Source type
- Official hearing transcript
- Used for
- Verbatim witness testimony and questions
- Limitations
- Separate firsthand accounts from secondhand allegations
Link
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/pdf/CHRG-118hhrg53022.pdf