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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…
30
Burchett and Ms. Luna for leading this hearing. And with that, I
yield my 5 minutes to Mr. Burchett.
Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to direct
this, I believe, to Mr. Grusch. But if any of you all feel like you
need to jump in just jump right in. We are good.
Has the U.S. Government become aware of actual evidence of ex-
traterrestrial or otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence and, if
so, when do you think this first occurred?
Mr. GRUSCH. I like to use the term nonhuman. I do not like to
denote origin. Keeps the aperture open both scientifically. Cer-
tainly, like I have discussed publicly, previously 1930’s.
Mr. BURCHETT. OK. Can you give me the names and titles of the
people with direct firsthand knowledge and access to some of this
crash retrieval—some of these crash retrieval programs and maybe
which facilities, military bases, that would—the recovered material
would be in?
And I know a lot of Congress talked about we are going to go to
Area 51 and, you know, there is nothing there anymore anyway.
It is just—you know, and we move like a glacier, as soon as we an-
nounce it, I am sure the moving vans have pulled up. But please?
Mr. GRUSCH. I cannot discuss that publicly, but I did provide
that information both to the intel committees and the Inspector
General.
Mr. BURCHETT. And we could get that in the SCIF if we were al-
lowed to get in a SCIF with you? Would that be probably what you
would think?
Mr. GRUSCH. Sure, if you had the appropriate accesses. Yes.
Mr. BURCHETT. What Special Access Programs cover this infor-
mation and how is it possible that they have evaded oversight for
so long?
Mr. GRUSCH. I do know the names. Once again, I cannot discuss
that publicly in how they have evaded oversight. In a closed set-
ting, I can tell you the specific tradecraft used.
Mr. BURCHETT. All right. When do you think those programs
began and who authorized them?
Mr. GRUSCH. I do know a lot of that information, but that is
something I can discuss publicly because of sensitivities.
Mr. BURCHETT. All right. If any of you all want to jump in on
any of this, you are more than welcome to.
What level of security clearance is required to fully access these
programs?
Mr. GRUSCH. Well, anybody who has——
Mr. BURCHETT. And I say that because myself, Representative
Gaetz and Representative Luna were basically turned away at one
point at Eglin. So, please go right ahead.
Mr. GRUSCH. Certainly, a difference between Member access and,
say, somebody like me, but anybody who has a, you know, TS/SCI
clearance and meets the eligibility criteria. The access adjudicative
authority should be able to grant you access.
Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Burchett, if you will yield.
So, just to be—put a fine point on that there is nothing that you
are aware of that is above Special Access Program classification?

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.