July 26, 2023
The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security.
Former United States Navy Pilot Ryan Graves testifying in a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs – the government term for UFOs) on Wednesday.
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) = The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) defines UAP as “Observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena …”
- What To Know: In a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, three witnesses testified for roughly two and a half hours on UAPs, pressing for more transparency from the U.S. government regarding the existence of and investigation into UAPs.
- The witnesses included Graves, a former Navy pilot who described his and other pilots’ reported encounters with UAPs (Graves recently founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, a nonprofit “dedicated to aerospace safety and national security with a focus on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena“), fmr. intelligence official David Grusch, who said that during his 14 years of service, he learned of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program,” and retired Navy Commander David Fravor, who witnessed “a large object captured in the now-famous ‘Tic Tac’ video during a flight off the coast of California in 2004” (CBS News). The Pentagon has denied Grusch’s claims, which he also made to NewsNation in June.
Bottom Line: The witnesses said they believe UAPs could pose a national security risk, and called for further transparency from the U.S. government regarding UAPs as well as centralized reporting systems for commercial and military pilots. Graves testified: “I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents. If UAP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety.”
What’s Next: Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said, “I hope this is the beginning of many more hearings,” and the Committee Chairman, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) said, “Several of us are going to look forward to getting some more answers in a confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this.”
Something To Consider: In April, a Pentagon official confirmed that the U.S. government was investigating more than 650 potential UAP sightings.
Watch the full hearing HERE
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by Jenna Lee,
