Documents / Hearing transcript

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency (hearing transcript)

U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability · 2023-07-26 · 54 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 6 …Congress should work to ensure that knowledge is not driven by fear. Today, we are not…
  • p. 8 …We need to tell the folks at the Pentagon they work for us, daggum it. We…
  • p. 9 …In being an active-duty service member working on an airfield, I have had conversations with…
  • p. 11 …I am proud to say that this hearing builds upon bipartisan work by Members of the…
  • p. 12 …I want to thank, obviously, committee staff and their staff work- ing on this on a…
  • p. 13 …And, finally, retired Navy Commander David Fravor, squadron leader who worked as a naval aviator for…
  • p. 18 …They work with Leslie Keane, who is present today, Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper to publish…
  • p. 20 …If you had one, you captured one, you reverse engineered it, you got it to work…
  • p. 21 …And so can you just briefly—you mentioned that you are working with 30 pilots right…
  • p. 22 …be an outcome that this Committee can work on. Is there anything else just for the…
  • p. 23 19 particularly by the 30 folks that you are working with, are essen- tially outside the…
  • p. 27 …To your knowledge, are NHIs working with adversarial foreign governments in either technology exchange programs or…
  • p. 29 …Grusch, as a result of your previous govern- ment work, have you met with people with…
  • p. 32 …marketplaces, and I think NASA’s work, as they work to identify and highlight specific parameters…
  • p. 33 …I have been working with the American Institute of Aero- nautics and Astronautics to help them…
  • p. 35 …hammered, but seems like it does not work the other way, right. Mr. BURCHETT. If you…
  • p. 40 …a theo- retical framework at least to work off to kind of espouse crashes. Regardless of…
  • p. 41 …did not have a FLIR system that worked. Here is what he said. They were out…
  • p. 45 …Got a Master’s from Univer- sity of Houston and I have worked in the private…
  • p. 48 …Do you have any personal knowledge of someone who has possibly been injured working on legacy…
  • p. 50 …we had at the entrance to our working area. One of these objects was completely stationary…
  • p. 51 47 exact entrance to our working areas, not only geographically but also altitude. So, it was…
  • p. 52 …I do want to thank the Committee staff on both sides for the amount of work…
  • p. 53 …the broader issue as it relates to working with our Republican counterparts on this Committee. I…
  • p. 54 …I need to compliment the folks in my office that did a lot of the work…
23
when you threaten that flow—career path—a lot of people back off.
But I am here to represent those people. So——
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Fravor, what about you? What has your experi-
ence been since you have come forward with your perspective on
this?
Commander FRAVOR. Actually, I have been treated very well and
the six people that were involved, myself included, all of them have
or will be retiring from the military as 05s, 06s, and all my friends
that are very senior, three and four stars, I have talked to them.
They believe. They understand there is a problem. But no, I was
actually treated really well.
Mr. RASKIN. And what is your general interpretation of these
phenomena or what is your current thinking of trying to make
sense of them?
Commander FRAVOR. Well, I will say, you know, I am not like
a UFO fanatic. It is not me. But I will tell you that what we saw
with four sets of eyes over a 5-minute period still—there is noth-
ing—we have nothing close to it. It was amazing to see. I told my
buddy, I wanted to fly it. But that is—just an incredible technology.
Mr. RASKIN. All right. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I
yield back to you.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks. On to Ms. Luna.
Ms. LUNA. Mr. Grusch, in speaking to you yesterday, I just want-
ed to followup on Representative Raskin’s questions. In the last
couple of years, have you had incidences that have caused you to
be in fear for your life for addressing these issues?
Mr. GRUSCH. Yes, personally. Yes.
Ms. LUNA. I just want everyone to note that he is coming forward
in fear of his life to put in perspective if they were really not scared
about this information coming out why would someone be intimi-
dated like that.
To your knowledge, are NHIs working with adversarial foreign
governments in either technology exchange programs or back engi-
neering programs?
Mr. GRUSCH. I do not have data on that. I am not sure.
Ms. LUNA. Have you heard or you had people come forward to
present that evidence?
Mr. GRUSCH. Not that particular evidence that you just espoused.
Ms. LUNA. OK. On the 19th of April, Dr. Kirkpatrick, head of
AARO, had said that he did not find any evidence of UAPs. You
also stated that you had—in your interview that you briefed him
on information that you were uncovering but that he did not fol-
lowup with you. Were the items that you divulged to him pertinent
to national security?
Mr. GRUSCH. Yes. Him and I had a classified conversation in
April 2022 before he took over AARO in July 2022 and I provided
him some concerns I had.
Ms. LUNA. Do you know why he might not have followed up with
you?
Mr. GRUSCH. Unfortunately, I cannot read his mind. I wish he
did. I was happy to give sage counsel to him on where to look when
he took the helm of AARO.

Cases discussed

About this file

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.