Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed transcript of a July 26, 2023 hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability's Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, chaired by Rep. Glenn Grothman. Ryan Graves, David Grusch and retired Navy Commander David Fravor testified on unidentified anomalous phenomena. Members pressed for transparency, whistleblower protection and better pilot reporting. Graves described a near mid-air collision with a dark cube inside a clear sphere off the Eastern Seaboard.
“Graves”27 pages
11 was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings. Soon these encounters became so frequent that aircrew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular preflight briefs. Recognizing the need for action and answers, I founded Americans for Safe Aerospace. The organization has since become a haven for UAP witnesses who were previously unspoken due to the absence of a safe intake process. More than thirty witnesses have come forward and almost 5,000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at safeaerospace.org. The majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at major airlines. Often, they are veterans with decades of flying experience. Pilots are reporting UAP at altitudes that appear above them at 40,000 feet, potentially in low Earth orbit or in the gray zone below the common line, making unexplainable maneuvers like right hand turns and retrograde orbits, or J hooks. Sometimes these reports are reoccurring with numerous recent sightings north of Hawaii and in the North Atlantic. Other vet- erans are also coming forward to us regarding UAP encounters in our airspace and oceans. The most compelling involve observations of UAP by multiple witnesses and sensor systems. I believe these accounts are only scratching the surface and more will share their experiences once it is safe to do so. In closing, I recognize the skepticism surrounding this topic. If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our na- tional conversation would change. I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents. If UAP are foreign drones, is an urgent national security prob- lem. 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. Thank you. Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Grusch? STATEMENT OF DAVID GRUSCH FORMER NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICER REPRESENTATIVE UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA TASK FORCE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Mr. GRUSCH. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Members and Congress- men, thank you. I am happy to be here. This is an important issue, and I am grateful for your time. My name is David Charles Grusch. I was an intelligence officer for 14 years both in the U.S. Air Force, both active-duty Air Na- tional Guard and Reserve at the rank of Major and most recently from 2021 to 2025—excuse me, 2023—at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, at the GS–15 civilian level, which is the military equivalent of a full bird colonel. I was my agency’s co-lead in unidentified anomalous phenomena and trans medium object analysis as well as reporting to the UAP Task Force—UAPTF—and eventually, once it was established, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office—AARO.
Hearing transcript, from the hearings collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 54 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.