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.
The witnesses who testified are:
- 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 recorded the now-famous “Tic Tac” video of an unidentified object in 2004 during a flight off the coast of 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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Grusch claims the military operated and covered up a secret program for years
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 “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 shield the shadowy operations from congressional oversight.
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 shaped object recorded in 2004, Fravor described it as “perfectly white, smooth, no windows,” displaying flight capabilities that were unheard of.
According to his observations, the object climbed about 12,000 feet in the air and then accelerated and disappeared. Roughly a minute later, it was detected 60 miles away.
“We have nothing that can stop in midair and go in the other direction,” Fravor said. “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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Grusch worries those who come forward may face serious reprisals
Grusch said that since coming forward, he has been made to fear for his life and has faced professional and personal retaliation as a result of what he deemed “administrative terrorism.”
Citing an ongoing investigation on his behalf, Grusch declined to divulge details, saying only that he has knowledge of active reprisals planned against both himself and other colleagues from “certain senior leadership at previous agencies I was associated with” that have been “very brutal.”
“It actually makes me very upset to see that happen to other coworkers and superiors of mine,” Grusch said.
Grusch is aware of people who have been injured in reverse-engineering research
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
Throughout the hearing, Grusch was careful to describe what he’s seen or been told, including answering the question of whether the U.S. government has directly made contact with 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 suggest 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.