Why did congress hold a hearing on UFOs this week? Former military officers testify

This year, unidentified flying objects, or unidentified aerial phenomenon, made a transition from conspiracy theory to the halls of Congress.

In January, The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified version of the government's updated report on UFOs.

In June, Dr. Steven Greer, one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of UFOs/UAPs, held a three-hour press conference, calling for Congress to investigate what he described as black budget military operations dealing with UFOs that most of the American government is unaware of. Soon after, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation that would require the Pentagon to release any information it has gathered about unidentified flying objects.

This week, three whistleblowers appeared before Congress to corroborate claims of federal government coverups when it comes to recovered UFO and UAP vehicles, aircraft and the pilots that manned them. House Representative for Florida's First District Matt Gaetz is not on the subcommittee that questioned the whistleblowers, but was allowed to question the witnesses as a guest, due to strange experiences of his own.

During the hearing, Gaetz told the subcommittee and the witnesses that several months ago, his office received a disclosure of a UAP encounter off the coast of Florida from Eglin Air Force Base in Okaloosa County. For those who follow UFO sightings, it's probably unsurprising to hear of yet another encounter coming from Florida, which ranks nationally for UFO and UAP sightings.

He asked the committee to subpoena the radar data and images from the incident, which he was initially denied access to after meeting with one of the pilots who encountered the extraterrestrial aircraft.

“It was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that if you have UAP experience, the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone,” Gaetz said in the hearing.

What was Dr. Steven Greer’s June press conference on UFOs about?

According to Greer, illegal operations in recovering and reverse-engineering unidentified aircraft have been carried out by a group of military personnel and government officials for decades, unbeknownst to the White House and Congress.

Greer reported accounts from over 700 high-level government and corporate whistleblowers willing to testify regarding the UFO/extraterrestrial issue and has been gathering evidence for decades on what he called an illegal secret government. He provided United States and world maps littered with red pinpoints that represented bases for these alleged illegal operations.

At the June press conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., Greer called for government action – like hearings and issuing of subpoenas – to get to the bottom of the UFO/UAP issue.

“We’re talking about projects where presidents, CIA directors, secretaries of defense and members of the congress, who have a need-to-know, have been either blatantly gaslit or denied access,” Greer said in June.

“That is the foundation of everything that we’ve done: That these projects are illegal, unconstitutional and have to be reigned in. Not doing so is a threat to national security.”

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Why did Congress have a hearing on UFOs this week?

This month, three former military members, all of whom previously spoke publicly about their firsthand knowledge of reported encounters with otherworldly flying objects, parroted Greer’s June call for Congress’ attention on the topic.

In a hearing on July 26, the three whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee of their understanding on how the federal government has mishandled reports of unidentified flying object encounters reported by pilots.

Who are the UFO whistleblowers that testified in congress Wednesday?

• Ryan Graves: Graves is a former U.S. Navy pilot who testified about encountering UAPs during training missions. Graves is now the executive director of an airspace safety advocacy organization, Americans for Safe Aerospace.

• David Fravor: Fravor, a former commander in the U.S. Navy, was with Navy pilots who spotted the mysterious Tic Tac-shaped aircraft that was caught on video in 2004 during a flight near the coast of Southern California. Fravor is a former commanding officer of the Navy's Black Aces Squadron.

• David Grusch: Grusch is a former Air Force and intelligence official who was a member of a Pentagon task force that investigated UAPs and UFOs. In a June interview with NewsNation, Grusch accused the government of a cover-up he uncovered as a member of the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.

What happened during Wednesday’s UFO hearing?

There were more than two hours of testimonies from the three whistleblowers during Wednesday’s hearing. Following his interview last month with NewsNation, Grusch’s testimony was the most highly anticipated of the three.

During Wednesday’s hearing, he restated his claims from his June interview, telling Congress that it’s likely the U.S. has been aware of “nonhuman” activity as far back as the 1930s. He accused the Pentagon of covering up an alleged secretive "crash retrieval" program for vehicles and aircraft that seem to be of nonhuman origin.

He accused the Pentagon of covering up more than just aircraft, though. Grusch claimed that in some cases, bodies of the pilots of these craft were also recovered, referring to the pilots as nonhuman "biologics."

Graves also testified on his own experiences several encounters with otherworldly aircraft during his time as a Navy pilot. He described multiple aircraft he’d seen over the years, none of which had wings, all of which displayed seemingly impossible flight capabilities.

'Long overdue': Witnesses call for increased military transparency on UFOs during hearing

Is Florida a hotspot for UFO sightings?

Based on UFO sightings recorded all the way back to 1974 and data from the National UFO Reporting Center Database, a poll conducted by MyVision.org last year ranks Florida second nationwide in UFO sightings, behind the U.S.’s number one hotspot: California.

Lianna Norman covers trending news in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at lnorman@pbpost.com. You can follow her reporting on social media @LiannaNorman on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: UFO hearing this week included whistleblowers. Key takeaways