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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…
16
Mr. GRUSCH. I think one of it is acknowledging a vulnerability
both from a collection and I will just say, you know, a counter-
measure perspective. So, it is a nut we have not cracked for many
years.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Even, say, 20 years back. Is there any reason
why when you go back that far things should not be made public?
Mr. GRUSCH. Unless it shows a specific national security vulner-
ability as it relates to a weakness in a particular defense system.
Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Mr. Fravor, the Tic Tac incident that you
were engaged occurred in 2004. What kind of reporting took place
after that incident?
Commander FRAVOR. None. We had a standard debrief where the
backseaters went down to our carrier intel center and briefed
would have happened and that was it. No one else talked to us and
I was in the top 20 in the battle group. No one came. That captain
was aware. The admiral was aware. Nothing was done.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Did your commanding officers provide any sort
of justification?
Commander FRAVOR. No, because I was the commanding officer
of the squadron. So, no.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Was this incident the only UAP event that you
encountered while you were a pilot?
Commander FRAVOR. Yes, it was.
Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. This is for any one of you. Based on—based
off of each of your experiences and observations do you believe
UAPs pose a potential threat to our national security?
Commander FRAVOR. Yes, and here is why. The technology that
we faced was far superior than anything that we had, and you
could put that anywhere.
If you had one, you captured one, you reverse engineered it, you
got it to work, you are talking something that can go into space,
go someplace, drop down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it
wants, and leave and there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing.
Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Each of you?
Mr. GRAVES. I would also like to add from a commercial aviation
and military aviation perspective, we deal with uncertainty in our
operating space as a matter of our professional actions.
Identifying friend from foe is very important to us, and so when
we have unidentified targets, and we continue to ignore those due
to a stigma or fear of what it could be that is an opening that our
adversaries can take advantage of.
Mr. GROTHMAN. What steps should be taken to better understand
and respond to UAP encounters in the interest of national security?
Mr. GRAVES. There needs to be a location where this information
is centralized for processing and there needs to be a two-way com-
munication loop so the operators on the front end have a feedback
and can get best practices on how to process information, what to
do, and to ensure that their reporting is being listened to. Right
now, there is not a lot of back and forth.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Grusch, in your complaint to the intelligence
community Inspector General, you claim that you believe informa-
tion is being hidden. What kind of information do you think was
hidden and do you think it should remain hidden?

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.