Document · 26 July 2023
Ryan Graves — written testimony, House Oversight hearing (July 26, 2023)
Former Navy F/A-18 pilot Ryan Graves's written testimony for the House Oversight hearing of 26 July 2023 opens with his conclusion: "advanced UAP are a national security and an aviation safety problem." He makes three points: UAP are routine but grossly under-reported, the stigma silences pilots, and the government knows more than it shares, noting that since 2021 all UAP videos have been classified secret or above.
He describes how, after a radar upgrade in 2014, his squadron VFA-11 began detecting unknown objects off Virginia Beach, confirmed them with infrared sensors, and saw them so often they became part of daily briefs. In the key incident, two jets entering training area W-72 had to take evasive action around "a dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere — motionless against the wind", and the squadron's safety report drew no response. The objects, he writes, could reach Mach 1, hold position against hurricane-force winds and stay aloft all day, with no visible lift, control surfaces or propulsion.
He relays Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet's account of a 2015 "Urgent safety of flight issue" email with the GoFast video that vanished from recipients' systems, and describes his Americans for Safe Aerospace programme, through which more than 30 witnesses, mostly commercial pilots, have come forward.
Sources: Graves's written testimony (2023)
Facts and claims
- documented In 2014, after a radar upgrade, his VFA-11 squadron near Virginia Beach began detecting unknown objects. In one incident two jets 100 feet apart had to take evasive action around “a dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere — motionless against the wind”, and the squadron filed a safety report. Source: doc-graves-statement-2023-07-26.pdf
- documented “Advanced UAP are a national security and an aviation safety problem.” He founded Americans for Safe Aerospace to support aircrew who report sightings. Source: doc-graves-statement-2023-07-26.pdf
Key moments: House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video
- 24:58 Ryan Graves: Graves says he speaks for more than 30 commercial aircrew and military veterans who confided similar encounters, and that sightings are “not rare or isolated. They are routine.”
- 25:49 Ryan Graves: Graves: “Since 2021 all UAP videos are classified as secret or above.”
- 26:33 Ryan Graves: Graves: off Virginia Beach, two F/A-18 Super Hornets were split by a UAP, a dark gray or black cube inside a clear sphere, that came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft; the squadron filed a safety report but got no official acknowledgement.
- 50:26 Ryan Graves: Graves: objects sat at “0.0 Mach” over fixed points while “completely stationary in category four hurricane winds,” then accelerated to 1.1–1.2 Mach.
- 1:02:58 Ryan Graves: Graves relays a witness account: around 2003, Boeing contractors at Vandenberg AFB saw a 100-yard red square hover over a launch facility for about 45 seconds.
- 1:43:20 Ryan Graves: Graves: in the Gimbal incident the pilots refer to a fleet of objects not visible on the FLIR, which he saw on the radar display in the debrief.
Connected files
People
- Ryan Graves (authored by)
Hearings & briefings
Incidents
Mentioned in this file
- House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Organization)
- Tim Gallaudet (Person)
More documents
- David Fravor — written statement, House Oversight hearing (July 26, 2023)
- AARO case resolution: "Go Fast" (2025)
- Hearing transcript: “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth”
- Hearing transcript: UAP — Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency (House Oversight, July 26, 2023)
- David Grusch — written opening statement, House Oversight hearing (July 26, 2023)
- House Oversight Task Force letter requesting UAP videos from the Department of War (31 March 2026)