A former military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower told House lawmakers that Congress is being kept in the dark about unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAP or UFOs, alleging at a hearing that executive branch agencies have withheld information about the mysterious objects for years.
David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, appeared before the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee alongside two former fighter pilots who had firsthand experience with UAP.
Grusch served as a representative on two Pentagon task forces investigating UAP until earlier this year. He told lawmakers that he was informed of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” during the course of his work examining classified programs.
He said he was denied access to those programs when he requested it, and accused the military of misappropriating funds to shield these operations from congressional oversight. He later said he had interviewed officials who had direct knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origins, and that so-called “biologics” were recovered from some craft.
In addition to Grusch, the panel heard testimony from Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions, and Navy pilot David Fravor, who spotted a large object captured in the now-famous “Tic Tac” during a flight off the coast of California in 2004.
All three witnesses said current reporting systems are inadequate to investigate UAP encounters, and said a stigma still exists for pilots and officials who press for more transparency about their experiences.
All three witnesses concur with the Rep. Andy Ogles that UAPs or UFOs
- Are probing our capabilities and nukes
- Are testing for vulnerabilities in our systems
- Potentially represent an existential threat
- Cannot be defended against
Fravor recounted his 2004 encounter with an object off the California coast. He told the subcommittee that he and another pilot spotted the smooth, seamless oval-shaped object hovering over the water before it rapidly climbed about 12,000 feet in the air. It then accelerated and disappeared. It was detected roughly 60 miles away less than a minute later. Fravor returned to an aircraft carrier and mentioned the object to other pilots who were getting ready to take off, and they managed to get it on video.
“I think what we experienced was, like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years,” Fravor said.
Wednesday’s hearing took place amid a growing willingness by lawmakers to demand the military and intelligence agencies release more about what they know regarding the mysterious incidents, with many members of Congress citing the potential national security threat posed by unknown objects in or near U.S. airspace.
A bipartisan group of senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduce an amendment to the annual defense spending bill currently making its way through Congress. The measure, modeled off legislation aimed at revealing government records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, would require executive branch agencies to hand over UAP records to a review board with “the presumption of immediate disclosure.” Agencies would have to justify requests to keep records classified.
A different House panel heard testimony from Pentagon officials at the first open hearing about the issue in more than 50 years last summer.
At Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers of both parties expressed anger about their inability to get information about UAP from the military and intelligence agencies, describing a system of over classification that shields reports of incident from public view.
“We should have disclosure today. We should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida.
“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,” said GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman, the subcommittee’s chairman.
