As bipartisan support for greater transparency regarding the unusual encounters reported by hundreds of pilots grows, House members are hosting a hearing on Wednesday to put pressure on the executive branch to provide more information about UAP, also known as UFOs.
There are three witnesses testifying before the national security subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee who have firsthand knowledge of how the government has handled UAP reports. In the player up top, you may watch the hearing in real time.
Also Read: Congressional UFO hearings: Where to watch live?
Ryan Graves, David Fravor, who captured the now-famous “Tic Tac” footage of an object off the coast of California in 2004 while flying, and David Grusch, a former combat officer and part of a previous Pentagon task group that looked at UAP, are the three witnesses.
Who is Ryan Graves?
Ryan Graves is a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions.
Graves and Fravor were interviewed for a “60 Minutes” report two years ago about the rise in UAP reports.
The witnesses discussed their histories and prior encounters with UAP in their opening statements. All three claimed that the reporting mechanisms in place are insufficient to fully understand the phenomenon and that there is still a stigma attached to pilots and government representatives who advocate for greater transparency on these encounters.
When his crew started noticing unidentified flying objects in 2014, Graves was an F-18 pilot stationed in Virginia Beach. He claimed that an object between two F-18s, measuring between 5 and 15 feet in diameter, flew between them during a training flight over the Atlantic, some 10 miles off the coast, and came within 50 feet of the aircraft. He claimed that at the time, neither an acknowledgment of the incidence nor a method of reporting the contact existed.
“If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change,” Graves said. “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. The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue.”
