Official hearing transcript PDF (mirror)

28
our government possess or do not possess information that is of
critical value to the American people.
We owe it to the citizens of this Nation to make sure that our
government is transparent and accountable. We must make sure
that our government provides answers and Congress must do its
duty to solicit those answers.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Yes. Mr. Frost?
Mr. FROST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In 2022, NASA announced that it was commissioning an inde-
pendent study team to examine UAPs. The NASA team is com-
prised of scientists across different fields as well as former astro-
nauts and pilots.
In May, the independent study team held its first public meeting,
which included the perspectives from NASA senior leaders as well
as perspectives from the Department of Defense and intelligence
agencies. The NASA study team is also expected to release its first
report pretty soon and I think it is safe to say that we all eagerly
await its results.
Mr. Graves, how might NASA’s research influence the commer-
cial industry regarding safety and UAP?
Mr. GRAVES. I think NASA has a big role to play as far as com-
mercial aviation safety and it is one of their original charges as an
organization.
One of the recommendations that have been put forward is to
utilize their existing Aviation Safety Reporting System to serve as
a short-term fill and trusted platform for pilots that want to report
on UAP. It also has built-in analytics capability and is funded by
Congress.
Mr. FROST. Gotcha. And also, Mr. Graves, are there any other in-
dustries that may be influenced by the NASA research on UAPs
and, if so, how so?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, I think there is a large swath of commercial
capabilities that could be brought to bear on this topic from space-
based or ground-based sensor systems that are available open
source or through commercial marketplaces, and I think NASA’s
work, as they work to identify and highlight specific parameters
that can be found, we can take that information and promulgate
this through the public sector so that we can have more open con-
versation about what we are seeing.
Mr. FROST. You know, in 2020 the Department of Defense re-
leased several videos of UAPs including Mr. Fravor’s experience,
U.S. Navy pilots that recorded footage. In 2021, the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary report on
UAP events.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that NASA would begin
to investigate these events. In fact, I sit on the Science, Space and
Technology Committee and when we were doing a hearing with the
NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, I asked, you know, why NASA
needed to be fully funded.
And there were many great reasons, but one of them was actu-
ally—had to do with UAPs. He actually mentioned, you know, is
there life out there? I do not know. And so, either way these ac-