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. 5 …Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any time. Additionally, without objection, the following…
  • p. 7 …I would say that is the biggest understatement of the decade. He also goes on to…
  • p. 8 …And I yield back the remainder of my time, I think—is it to Rep- resentative…
  • p. 9 …Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are, many times, service members and have…
  • p. 10 …Now, some of the earliest reporting on this issue was a groundbreaking 2017 New York Times…
  • p. 12 …I want to yield the two and a half minutes, the remainder of my time, to…
  • p. 13 …I believe more information is known about the 171 instances. It is time for Congress to…
  • p. 15 11 was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings…
  • p. 16 …At the time, due to my extensive executive level intelligence sup- port duties I was cleared…
  • p. 18 …the articles in the 2017 New York Times and it removed the stigma on the topic…
  • p. 19 …for the United States and best for the citizens. I thank you for your time. Thank…
  • p. 21 …Now, that was our personal firsthand experience at the time. Since then, as I have engaged…
  • p. 25 …Like many others in 2017, I saw the New York Times article come out as well…
  • p. 28 …They had official documentation and records from the event that the witness held over the years…
  • p. 29 25 provide precise kinematics on the object as well as the fleet of ob- jects that…
  • p. 31 …I will yield the balance of my time back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GROTHMAN. Ms…
  • p. 37 …I just—my time is limited. Mr. Graves, one of your main concerns that the FAA…
  • p. 39 …I know for a fact the video or the pic- tures that came out in the…
  • p. 46 …our speed in no time at all. Mr. LANGWORTHY. Now, if the fastest plane on Earth…
  • p. 48 …Chairman, with that, I will yield the remainder of my time to my fellow colleague from…
  • p. 50 …Chairman, I yield the remain- der of my time. Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. We will go to…
  • p. 51 …credibility to the New York Times article. And so after about six times I said OK…
  • p. 53 49 I also want to note for our witnesses and for the public that I am…
  • p. 54 …I need to compliment the folks in my office that did a lot of the work…
5
As Representative Burchett just referenced on the FAA bills that
just went through, you can tell that that is exactly happening.
Considering the thousands of testimoneys and videos taken on
people’s phones and eyewitnesses’ accounts made by credible wit-
nesses such as doctors, pilots, scientists, and active-duty service
members, it is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans into
thinking that this is not happening or that the potential of intel-
ligent life forms exist other than humans.
Even more alarming is the fact that these eyewitnesses are,
many times, service members and have no assurance that their
lives will not be negatively impacted or even harmed by their expe-
riences.
In being an active-duty service member working on an airfield,
I have had conversations with many pilots where they were in fear
of coming forward for retribution and/or being taken off flight sta-
tus.
How do we know this? Because the government has said nothing
to assure us otherwise. They have also done nothing to calm the
concerns of over 20 percent of Americans who have reported to
have seen UFOs or UAPs. We are simply told not to question the
government and that the government has it under control.
Today is the first hearing of its kind where we will attempt to
get down to the bottom of what is actually happening with UAPs.
But we will hear from people who have had personal sightings
rather than Pentagon bureaucrats who have always been sent to
stonewall our investigations.
Just so that the press knows, and the people know, we were even
denied access to a classified briefing in a SCIF prior to this hearing
due to the amount of hoops that we had to jump through to grant
temporary clearance to witness Grusch, who has knowledge of clas-
sified information.
It is time to have an open-minded discussion on this topic, to
hear the evidence and understand the magnitude of what this
means not just for our Nation but for humanity.
Thank you, Chairman. I yield back the rest of my time.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you very much. And I would like to thank
you and Mr. Burchett for bringing this topic to my attention.
Now we will recognize National Security Subcommittee Ranking
Member Garcia for 10 minutes.
Mr. GARCIA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank first our witnesses for joining us today. I want to begin by
thanking you all for your service to our country and for sharing
your voices today and your courage to be here as well.
To Mr. Graves, I am particularly grateful to you to spend some
time that we had for you to share with candor some of your experi-
ences. So, I appreciate that as well.
I do want to thank all the Members of our Subcommittee today
and also those that are here and have waived on for their incred-
ible interest in this issue, particularly to Congressman Burchett. I
know that your leadership has brought us to this place today and
I want to thank you for that as well as everyone else that has been
engaged in this work.
I also want to thank the Oversight staff who I know has been
working very hard to ensure that today’s hearing is serious, that

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.