Witnesses call for increased military transparency on UFOs during hearing: 'Long overdue'
The notion that the U.S. government not only has knowledge of extraterrestrials but has directly encountered them, long confined to the realm of conspiracy theory, is now a matter of congressional public record.
Three former military members, all of whom have previously spoken publicly about their firsthand knowledge of reported encounters with strange and mysterious flying objects, appeared Wednesday before Congress for a hearing on the national security threats such phenomena could pose. Their testimony before the U.S. House came at a time of mounting bipartisan pressure on the executive branch of government and the military to release more information about so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena, more commonly referred to as unidentified flying objects.
Across more than two hours of testimony, the three witnesses also provided accounts before the House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee of their understanding for how the federal government has handled or suppressed reports of strange encounters documented by pilots.
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Who testified?
Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions. Graves is now the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, an airspace safety advocacy organization.
Rt. Commander David Fravor, who was among Navy pilots who spotted the now-famous a Tic Tac-shaped object that was captured in 2004 on video during a flight off the coast of Southern California. Fravor is a former commanding officer of the Navy's Black Aces Squadron.
David Grusch, a former Air Force and intelligence official who was a member of a previous Pentagon task force that investigated UAP. Grusch is a whistleblower who in a June interview with NewsNation accused the government of a cover-up he became aware of as a member of the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.
For years, reports and videos have surfaced documenting sightings of craft moving in ways beyond the capabilities of any known human technology. On Wednesday, the witnesses went so far to suggest that the phenomena observed could be indicative of technology so advanced that it would take decades for humanity to equal it.
"The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies," Graves said in prepared remarks during the hearing. "It is long overdue."
Here are some of the key takeaways from the hearing.
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Secret military program? Grusch claims the Pentagon has retrieved spacecraft and nonhuman "biologics"
Grusch's testimony was highly anticipated following the explosive interview he did in June with NewsNation in which he accused the Pentagon of a plot to cover up an alleged secretive "crash retrieval" program for vehicles of nonhuman origin.
In the interview, Grusch claimed that he became aware of the Pentagon's program that oversaw the collection of up to a dozen alien spacecraft, and in some cases, the bodies themselves of the otherworldly pilots.
Those claims resurfaced during Wednesday's hearing, with Grusch saying that the U.S. likely has been aware of what he characterized as “nonhuman” activity since the 1930s. Grusch, who referred to these pilots as nonhuman "biologics," said his apparent knowledge is based on conversations and interviews he's had with 40 people, many of whom he said are still working in the program.
He said he was denied access to those programs, and accused the military of misappropriating funds to keep Congress in the dark about what it was doing.
Witnesses describe flying objects performing unexplainable maneuvers
In one stunning account, Graves described airborne pilots witnessing dark gray or black cubes inside of clear spheres.
Graves was an F-18 pilot stationed in Virginia Beach in 2014 when his squadron reported encountering the mysterious, eerie objects that had no wings, gave off no infrared radiation, and had no obvious means of self-propulsion, Graves testified. The accounts were reported for a period of eight years, and "as far as I know, still (are) occurring," he said.
Graves also described a 2003 sighting at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in which Boeing contractors observed a football field-size red square approach the launch facilities base from the ocean and hover at a low altitude before darting over the mountains after about 45 seconds.
In testifying about the famous Tic-Tac video that Fravor was an eye witness to in 2004 while flying near the coast in an F/A-18F Super Hornet, the retired commander described the oval object as "perfectly white, smooth, no windows," and displaying flight capabilities that were unheard of.
According to his observations, the object hovered above the sea before climbing about 12,000 feet in the air, where it accelerated and disappeared. A minute later, it was detected roughly 60 miles away.
"We have nothing that can stop in midair and go in the other direction," Fravor testified. "Nor do we have anything that can ... come down from space, hang out for three hours and then go back up."
Asked whether he believed the military would have been capable of shooting the object down if it proved to be a threat, Fravor said "it would have just left in a split second."
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Those who come forward may face serious reprisals
Since becoming a whistleblower, Grusch testified that he has faced personal and professional retaliation, some of which has caused him to fear for his life.
Citing an ongoing investigation on his behalf, Grusch declined to divulge details of what he deemed "administrative terrorism" that has been "very brutal" against both himself and former colleagues.
"It actually makes me very upset to see that happen to other coworkers and superiors of mine," Grusch said.
Attempts to reverse-engineer alien spacecraft have led to injuries, Grusch testifies
During the hearing, Grusch testified that he has knowledge of people who were injured attempting to reverse-engineer recovered spacecraft.
"I know of multiple colleagues of mine that got physically injured," Grusch said.
"By UAPs or by people within the federal government?" asked Rep. Eric Burlison.
"Both," Grusch answered.
Though he was intentionally cryptic, Grusch said what he and his wife personally witnessed "was very disturbing."
Witnesses could share more behind closed doors
The hearing was filled with dramatic revelations, but just as intriguing as the information that was revealed is the information that was withheld.
Throughout the hearing, Grusch in particular was forthcoming with some of the details he provided, but in some cases opted to be vague about what he's seen or been told. That included his decision to decline answering the question of whether the U.S. government has directly made contact with living alien intelligence.
Prompted for how he drew the line for what he'd divulge, Grusch answered that it depended on whether the information being sought was classified or unclassified.
However, he repeatedly said he'd be willing to elaborate on the answers to several questions behind closed doors. Toward the end of the hearing, members of the House committee expressed an interest in meeting with Grusch, Fravor and Graves in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
Why did this hearing occur now?
Long a taboo, stigmatized topic, UFOs and aliens have increasingly become a subject of mainstream discussion.
As interest in extraterrestrials becomes more widespread, many in the public and in positions of authority seek an answer to one central question: Has the U.S. military or government made contact with either crafts or creatures not of this world?
In 2017, the New York Times released a report detailing evidence of a secret Pentagon program that tracked and studied UAP reports. Funded at the request of late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the program known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program operated for years in the shadows before the Times' report.
In 2020, the Pentagon itself released three grainy videos of those UAPs.
This year, NASA hosted a public hearing about UAP weeks before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation that would require the Pentagon to release any information it has gathered about the objects. First introduced in July, the legislation would also require that the defense department release information it had about nonhuman intelligences to an established review board, which would have the authority to declassify the information.
During NASA's hearing in May, experts in astrophysics and other disciplines expounded upon sightings of UAP, which the experts said is their responsibility to investigate as a matter of air space safety. However, many NASA experts said they did not believe there was evidence to conclusively confirm that UAP are extraterrestrial in origin.
“I want to emphasize this loud and proud," NASA’s Dan Evans said after the hearing, "there is absolutely no convincing evidence for extraterrestrial life associated with” unidentified objects.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @EricLagatta.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UFO hearing summary: Claims of 'biologics' and calls for transparency
