UFOs came to Washington today.
UFOs — or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), as they’re now called — have received increasing attention from the U.S. government in recent years due to high-profile testimony from credible witnesses. To shed light on what some consider to be the pressing threat to national security posed by UAP, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security on the Border and Foreign Affairs held a hearing in Washington Wednesday (July 26) titled “ Unidentified anomalous phenomena’. : Implications for national security, public safety and government transparency.”
Three key witnesses testified at the hearing: Ryan Graves and David Fravor, two former U.S. Navy pilots who reported highly publicized encounters with unknown objects in military training airspace; and David Grusch, a decorated U.S. military veteran and Pentagon intelligence officer.
In his opening address, Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) stated that “we must demand transparency from the Department of Defense,” adding that “Congress recognizes that the subject of UAPs is multifaceted and requires a careful, data-driven approach.” Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) went even further: “We need to tell the people at the Pentagon that they work for us, that the government doesn’t work for them. And that’s exactly the point. This is a problem. of government transparency. We cannot trust a government that does not trust its people.”
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In the opening address, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) reiterated this further, stating that “the American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplained phenomena.” Moskowitz added that any disclosure of classified information must be done carefully, pointing out that the existence of stealth helicopter technology was not publicly known before it was used in the 2011 raid on a complex that housed Osama bin Laden. “But we cannot allow this to be used as a shield to keep the American people completely in the dark about fundamental truths,” Moskowitz added.
In the testimony that followed the opening statements, Grusch claimed he was told of the existence of a “multi-decade UAP crash recovery and reverse engineering program” and was denied access to it, prompting him to file the whistleblower complaint. to serve. Grusch, who served on the Pentagon’s short-lived UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021, told the committee his whistleblower complaint is based on “information I have received from individuals with a long track record of legitimacy and service to of this country, many of whom have also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and secret oral testimony against myself and many of my various colleagues.”
Moskowitz asked Grusch if the former intelligence community official had any knowledge of “programs in the advanced tech space that have not been approved,” to which Grusch replied that these programs do indeed exist and are beyond Congressional oversight. When asked if he was aware of footage of craft crash sites of unknown origin, Grusch said he cannot discuss the answer in an open, unclassified environment.
Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) pressed Grusch over his claims that the US government possesses “non-human spacecraft” and asked whether previous statements by Sean Kirkpatrick, chief of the United States’ All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office Pentagon, or AARO was right when he stated that the US government had no evidence of non-human intelligence. “It’s not right,” Grusch replied.
Burchett asked Grusch if there was “ever an active U.S. government disinformation campaign to deny the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena.” Grusch confirmed that such a campaign did indeed take place, but said he cannot add anything beyond what he has already stated publicly.
Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO) also addressed Grusch on some of these statements. “You said the US has intact spacecraft. You said the government has alien bodies or alien species. Did you see the spacecraft? […] Have you seen any of the bodies?” Burlison asked.
“That’s not something I witnessed myself,” Grusch replied. But he answered a subsequent question by stating definitively that, when it comes to retrieving UAP crashes, “biologics came with some of these recoveries.” Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) pressed Grusch if he meant human or non-human. “Non-human, and that was the estimation of people with direct knowledge of the program I was talking to,” Grusch replied.
Grusch added in response to a later question from Burchett that he is aware of “reverse engineering programs for non-terrestrial craft.”
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In his testimony, Graves told the committee that UAP is seriously underreported in US airspace. “These sightings are not rare or isolated, they are routine,” Graves said. “Military aircrew and commercial pilots – trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification – regularly witness these phenomena.” Graves described how naval aviators operating on the U.S. East Coast witnessed objects appearing to stand still in the face of hurricane-force winds before suddenly accelerating to supersonic speeds.
Despite the extraordinary nature of these sightings and their proximity to U.S. military airspace, Graves said he and his colleagues, not to mention other pilots who have had similar encounters, have historically been hesitant to report them. “The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and endangers national security,” Graves told the committee. “It silences commercial pilots who fear professional repercussions and discourages witnesses. It is only exacerbated by recent government claims that question the credibility of eyewitness testimony.”
Referring to NASA’s recent UAP study group, Graves stated that the agency “has a huge role to play in the field of commercial aviation safety and that it is one of their original duties as an organization,” since NASA is already a Aviation safety reporting system.
During Fravor’s testimony, the former F/A-18 pilot told the committee that he is concerned about the lack of government oversight when it comes to “processing or working on vessels that are believed to be of no come to this world.”
“I would say that the Tic Tac object we used in 2004 was far superior to anything we had at the time, have today or [are] who want to develop in the next ten years,” said Fravor. “If we actually have programs that have this technology, it would be nice to get oversight from the people who have been chosen by the citizens of this great country to represent what matters. the best for the United States and the best for the citizens.”
In response to a question about whether or not UAP poses a potential threat to U.S. national security, Fravor said a definitive “yes,” adding that “the technology we were dealing with was far superior to anything we had.” Fravor called it a “mockery” that the US military and/or US government does not have a centralized repository for reports on UAP.
Grusch was also asked about a possible “interdimensional potential” for the UFO phenomenon. Grusch stated that he is familiar with concepts of “multidimensionality” and the “holographic principle,” ideas of how beings “can be projected from higher-dimensional space to lower-dimensional space,” but added that these are only theoretical.
During questioning, all three witnesses testified that it is possible that UAP is interested in America’s nuclear capabilities, testing for vulnerabilities in US air defense systems, or conducting reconnaissance in US airspace.
In closing remarks, representatives underlined that, at its core, this issue is less about tracking down evidence of alleged alien craft and more about demanding accountability and transparency from the US government.
Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA) reiterated the need to use science to find answers to the UAP conundrum. “I also really believe in following facts and doing your homework and making sure we follow the science as we try to get as much information as possible,” Garcia added. “Transparency is a cornerstone of government. We live in a vast galaxy. There are many unanswered questions.”
