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Official hearing transcript PDF

U.S. House of Representatives · 54 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is the official transcript of a July 26, 2023 hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability's Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. The hearing was titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency." Ryan Graves, David Grusch and retired Commander David Fravor testified. Members pressed for transparency and whistleblower protections, and Graves described a near miss involving a dark cube inside a clear sphere.

  • 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…
13
STATEMENT OF DAVID FRAVOR (RET.)
FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER
UNITED STATES NAVY
Commander FRAVOR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Congressmen and Congresswomen.
I want to first thank you for the invitation to speak to the Com-
mittee on the UAP topic. This has been in the news for the past
6 years and seems to be continuing to gain momentum.
As you know, my name is David Fravor. I am a retired Com-
mander in the United States Navy. In 2004, I was a commanding
officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the world-famous Black Aces.
We were tasked to Carrier Airwing 11 stationed on board the USS
Nimitz and had begun a 2-month workup cycle off the coast of Cali-
fornia.
On this day we were scheduled for a 2 V 2 air to air training
with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off,
Nimitz, my wingman, was joining up. We were told that the train-
ing was going to be suspended and we are going to proceed with
real-world tasking.
As we proceeded to the west, the air controller was counting
down the range to an object that we were going to, and we were
unaware of what we were going to see when we arrived. There the
controller told us that these objects had been observed for over 2
weeks coming down from over 80,000 feet, rapidly descending to
20,000 feet, hanging out for hours and then going straight back up.
For those that do not realize, above 80,000 feet is space.
We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000 feet and the
controller called merge plot, which means that our radar blip was
now in the same resolution cell as the contact. As we looked
around, we noticed that we saw some whitewater off our right side.
It is important to note that the weather on this day was as close
to perfect as you could ask for off the coast of San Diego. Clear
skies, light winds, calm seas, no whitecaps from waves. So, the
whitewater stood out in a large blue ocean.
All four of us, because we were an F–18F so we had pilots and
WSO in the backseat, looked down and saw a white Tic Tac object
with a longitudinal axis pointing north south and moving very
abruptly over the water like a ping pong ball.
There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any sign of visible control
surfaces like wings. As we started clockwise toward the object my
WSO and I decided to go down and take a closer look with the
other aircraft staying in high cover to observe both us and the Tic
Tac.
We proceeded around the circle about 90 degrees from the start
of our descent and the object suddenly shifted its longitudinal axis,
aligned it with my aircraft, and began to climb. We continued down
another 270 degrees, nose low, where the Tic Tac would have been.
Our altitude at this point was about 15,000 feet and a Tic Tac
was about 12,000. As we pulled nose onto the object within about
a half mile of it, it rapidly accelerated in front of us and dis-
appeared. Our wingman, roughly 8,000 feet above us, lost contact
also.
We immediately turned back to see where the whitewater was at,
and it was gone also. So, as we started to turn back toward the

Cases discussed

About this file

Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. 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.