Hearing / briefing · 26 July 2023 · U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. (House side)

UAP: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency

"UAP: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency", held on 26 July 2023 by the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, was the first hearing to hear UAP whistleblower and pilot testimony under oath.

The witnesses were Cmdr. David Fravor, who described the 2004 Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter; Ryan Graves, who described regular encounters by his F/A-18 squadron off Virginia Beach and called UAP a national-security and aviation-safety problem; and David Grusch, who testified that he had been told of "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program" and said he could give details only in a secure setting. Members including Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna and Jared Moskowitz pressed for more disclosure.

The witnesses' written statements are filed here.

Sources: House Oversight hearing (2023) · witness statements

Facts and claims

Key moments: House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video

  1. 16:14 Robert Garcia: Ranking Member Garcia notes that AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick testified his office has found no evidence of extraterrestrial activity, and that NASA has said the same.
  2. 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.”
  3. 25:49 Ryan Graves: Graves: “Since 2021 all UAP videos are classified as secret or above.”
  4. 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.
  5. 29:36 David Grusch: Grusch says he became a whistleblower through a PPD-19 urgent-concern filing with the Intelligence Community Inspector General in May 2022.
  6. 31:12 David Grusch: Grusch: a member of the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021 in his NRO reserve role, he was asked by its director to identify every special and controlled access program the task force needed.
  7. 32:06 David Grusch: Grusch: informed in the course of his official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program, to which he was denied access.
  8. 34:29 David Fravor: Fravor describes looking down from his F/A-18 at the small white “Tic Tac” object in 2004.
  9. 35:52 David Fravor: Fravor: the radar tape of the object jamming the APG-73 radar was never released, and “the incident was never investigated”; none of his crew was questioned.
  10. 36:06 David Fravor: Fravor: no one contacted him until 2009, when Jay Stratton of the Pentagon's AATIP program, led by Lue Elizondo, asked to investigate.
  11. 49:27 David Grusch: Asked whether the government possesses UAP, Grusch answers “Absolutely, based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over 4 years,” and says he gave the exact locations to the Inspector General.
  12. 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.
  13. 53:13 David Grusch: Asked whether he has personal knowledge of people harmed or injured in efforts to conceal the technology, Grusch answers “yes”; on murders, he says he directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.
  14. 54:34 David Fravor: Fravor says the crew launched after his flight saw significant jamming of its APG-73 radar, which split the lock, so the video was taken on the passive targeting pod.
  15. 59:07 David Grusch: Grusch says colleagues were “brutally administratively attacked” for pursuing the issue: “I call it administrative terrorism.”
  16. 1:00:53 David Grusch: Asked whether in the last couple of years he has had incidents that caused him to fear for his life for addressing this, Grusch answers “yes personally”.
  17. 1:01:49 David Grusch: Asked by Rep. Luna, Grusch says he had a classified conversation with Sean Kirkpatrick in April 2022, before Kirkpatrick took over AARO, and gave him his concerns; asked why Kirkpatrick never followed up, he says he cannot read his mind.
  18. 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.
  19. 1:08:48 David Grusch: Asked whether contractors overcharge the government to fund programs, Grusch answers “Correct, through something called IR&D.”
  20. 1:11:52 David Grusch: Asked whether Kirkpatrick's “no credible evidence” statement is correct, Grusch says “It is not accurate,” adding that some of the roughly 30 people who went to AARO were also people he interviewed.
  21. 1:19:34 David Grusch: Grusch: “I like to use the term nonhuman. I do not like to denote origin,” and dates the government's awareness to “previously 1930's.”
  22. 1:20:06 Tim Burchett: Burchett asks Grusch which facilities hold recovered material, remarking that Congress keeps talking about going to Area 51 but “there's nothing there anymore”; Grusch says he can't say publicly but gave the information to the intelligence committees and the Inspector General.
  23. 1:21:42 David Grusch: Grusch tells Gaetz “It is a misnomer that there is anything actually above top secret,” citing Executive Order 13526.
  24. 1:35:30 David Grusch: Grusch tells Burlison that colleagues were physically injured both by UAP and by people within the government; asked if he has seen the bodies: “That is something I have not witnessed myself.”
  25. 1:39:57 Matt Gaetz: Gaetz describes an Eglin AFB disclosure he sought a briefing on with Reps. Burchett and Luna: four craft in diamond formation on radar over the Gulf, and an orb whose approach knocked out the pilot's radar and FLIR. AARO's resolution of an apparently matching case (26 January 2023: four radar objects in formation, radar failure, still images only) found it very likely a balloon.
  26. 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.
  27. 1:49:13 David Grusch: Asked whether the U.S. has the bodies of the pilots, Grusch: “biologics came with some of these recoveries”, and they were nonhuman — “the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.”
  28. 1:54:59 David Fravor: Fravor: “probably the most credible UFO sighting in history,” with “four sets of human eyeballs” plus the sensors: “It is not a joke.”
  29. 1:57:28 David Grusch: Asked whether UAP show interest in nuclear technology, Graves and Fravor say yes and Grusch calls it a fair assessment; Grusch won't confirm or deny Department of Energy involvement in public.
  30. 1:59:04 David Grusch: Grusch says he has personal knowledge of people injured working on legacy UAP reverse-engineering.

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