What just happened? The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday held a public hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena and their implications on national security, public safety, and government transparency. UAP, formerly unidentified aerial phenomena, is the latest acronym for what was known for decades as UFOs.
The hearing featured testimony from three key witnesses. David Fravor is a former fighter pilot and was commander of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group in November 2004 when he and three others were instructed to halt their training exercise to go investigate unusual radar tracks that had been observed for weeks.
According to Fravor and another pilot, Alex Dietrich, they witnessed a cylindrical object with no visible means of propulsion pulling off maneuvers that are physically impossible based on our current understanding of physics. Fravor went in for a closer look and engaged with the object in a spiral game of cat and mouse before the white object shot off at an incredible speed.
Ryan Graves, the executive director for Americans for Safe Aerospace, is a former Navy fighter pilot that claims he encountered UAP on a regular basis during training missions. In one instance, a UAP described as a dark cube within a clear sphere, reportedly came within 50 feet of a jet. According to Graves, UAP represent major safety risks to pilots.
David Grusch is a former US intelligence official that recently came out as a whistleblower. Among Grusch's many claims is that the US government has a multi-decade history with UFOs, has operated a crash retrieval program, has attempted to reverse engineer alien technology, and even is in possession of alien bodies.
Those hoping for a smoking gun during today's hearing regarding the existence of non-human intelligence or insight into a long-rumored cover-up were sorely disappointed. It was clear that some members had no interest in being there, but others asked very pertinent questions which put some interesting nuggets on the table.
Grusch said at one point that the US government has been involved with the phenomena since at least the 1930s. When probed for additional information regarding the names, special access programs, facilities where craft might be stored, who authorized such programs, how much money was involved, or if there has been a public disinformation campaign conducted by the government regarding the issue, Grusch in each instance said he can't comment publicly and that everything he knows has already been shared in a confidential setting.
Grusch later said he had knowledge that multiple colleagues have been physically injured, both by encounters with UAPs and by others in the government. When asked about the Phoenix Lights case from 1997, Grusch said he only knows what's in the public domain and that it was outside of his scope.
The former intelligence official said he has spent some 11 hours sharing everything he knows with committees in closed-door sessions.
Another interesting moment occurred when Representative Gaetz spoke about a recent visit to Eglin Air Force Base to investigate a UAP incident. Gaetz and company were initially prohibited from meeting with the flight crew and seeing evidence from the encounter. After pulling some strings, they were eventually shown an image captured by one of the pilots.
Gaetz said the image was of something that "I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries." According to Gaetz, the pilot reported seeing a series of four craft in a diamond formation and that as he approached, his radar system went down and his FLIR system malfunctioned. The photo was captured "manually," Gaetz added.
Image credit: Michael Herren, Albert Antony