Lawmakers, Witnesses Accuse Pentagon of Cover-up, Call for Transparency at UAP Hearing

Both lawmakers and witnesses accused the Pentagon of a “cover-up” Wednesday and called for centralized reporting and transparency for military and commercial pilots during the United States House of Representatives subcommittee on national security’s hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.

Editor’s note (7/27/2023): SpaceRef Editor Keith Cowing was on Alhurra TV with Lincoln Bloomfield, Former National Security Advisor to the Vice President talking about the hearing on UAPs in Congress. [Audio]

The hearing involved a number of witnesses testifying on the subject of UAPs, with some going as far as claiming that there exists tangible evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft reaching Earth, though no such evidence was presented. Meanwhile, much of the hearing focused on how to better report and disclose alleged sightings or phenomena moving forward.

Rep Robert Garcia (D-CA) said an outcome of the hearing should be developing a system for reporting UAP.

“I think you need to develop something that allows you a central point to collect the data in order to investigate,” retired Navy Commander and pilot David Fravor told the committee.

During his testimony, witness and former fighter pilot Ryan Graves of Americans for Safe Airspace called for more transparency and better reporting tools that are as sensor-centric and as objective and reliable as possible. Graves said not only photography should be added to such a reporting tool but also radar and other sensor data.

“As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported,” Graves said during his opening statements. “These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine. Military aircrew and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.

“The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security,” he continued. “It silences commercial pilots who fear professional repercussions, discourages witnesses. It is only compounded by recent government claims questioning the credibility of eyewitness testimony.”

All three witnesses — Graves, David Grusch, a former national reconnaissance officer representative for the UAP Task Force at the Pentagon, and Fravor said UAPs “potentially” pose national security risks. When asked by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) if UAPs were collecting reconnaissance information, probing US nuclear capabilities and testing for vulnerabilities, all three agreed.

Among the surprising claims during the two-hour session were made by witness Grusch, a former intelligence official and whistleblower. Although he repeatedly told the hearing members, he could brief them in a private, secure setting, he said the US possesses “intact bodies and spacecraft,” and, when asked, later claimed that these bodies were “nonhuman.”

He added that he knows “the exact locations of where this technology is, and those locations were provided to the inspector general and some to the intelligence committees.”

But he said he had not personally seen the bodies. He alleged he faced retaliation for his claims the Pentagon has a secret plan to retrieve and reverse engineer UFOs.

“It was a very illuminating hearing,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) said. “Obviously, I think several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this.”

“I think we are going to want to look into what we can do to make more of this information public,” he Grothman. “I think there’s certainly a time period after which it should always be made public and people have been concerned about these issues.”

The most riveting testimony came from former Navy pilot Fravor. He told committee members about his brief and life-changing encounter in 2004. He said he was part of a squadron of F-18s flying off the coast of San Diego during a training flight on a sunny day. He said his squad saw a UAP drop from 80,000 feet, nearly twice the ceiling altitude of their F-18 fighter jets, down to the surface of the ocean, where another craft seemed to be churning the ocean. Then it (the UAP) raced off past the group at high speed.

“It was amazing to see. I told my buddy I wanted to fly it,” Fravor said. “I’m not like a UFO fanatic, that’s not me, but I will tell you we saw with four sets of eyes over a five-minute period, still, there’s nothing we have, nothing close to it,” he added. “It’s just incredible technology.”

Graves, also a fighter pilot, recounted his own experience when a UAP split his squadron during a training mission near Virginia Beach. “The object was dark gray or black inside a clear sphere, 15-feet in diameter, and came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft,” he said.

He said the story is more common than we expect. “The mission commander ended the flight, and the squadron submitted a safety report, but things ended there. More than 30 witnesses had told his group about similar sightings,” he added. “Often they are veterans with decades of flying experience.”