OAN’s Roy Francis
1:06 PM – Wednesday, July 26, 2023
A House Oversight subcommittee held a hearing on unexplained aerial phenomenon, (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs, saying that the reported sightings are a national security issue and that the government has not been forthcoming with information regarding the reported encounters.
David Grusch, a former military intelligence officer who faced retaliation for becoming a whistleblower, said that Congress is being kept “in the dark” about UAPs. He alleged that executive branch agencies have been withholding information about the mysterious object for years.
Grusch, who had served for 14 years as an intelligence officer with the Air Force and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, said that he was informed of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program.”
“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” he said.
When Gusch requested access to the program, he said that he was denied. He went on to accuse the military of misappropriating funds in order to cover up those programs from Congress. He also said that he has personally interviewed officials with direct knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origin.
Member of the committee emphasized the purpose of the hearing which was to “uncover the cover-up.”
“We’re going to uncover the cover-up, and I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings and many more people coming forward about this,” Representative Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said.
The Pentagon has officially denied all claims by Grusch. Defense Department spokeswoman Sue Gough said that they have not discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”
Along with Grusch, Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has said he has encountered UAPs while on training missions also testified before Congress.
Graves first began detecting unknown objects when he was stationed in Virginia Beach in 2014. He described the unknown objects as “dark grey of black cubes … inside of a clear sphere, where the apex or tips of the cubes were touching the inside of that sphere.”
A fellow pilot had also told Graves of his own incident when flying about 10 miles of the coast of Virginia. The pilot said that an object had appeared flying between two F-18s, coming within 50 feet of the aircraft. The pilot described the object as being between five and 15 feet in diameter, and said that there was no acknowledgment of the incident and that there had been no way of reporting it at the time.
“If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change,” Graves said. “I urge us to put aside stigma and address the security and safety issue this topic represents. If UAP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem. If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety. The American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies. It is long overdue.”
David Fravor, the retired Navy commander who had shot the “Tic Tac” video of a large object during a flight off the coast of California in 2004 was brought to testify before Congress as well.
Fravor recounted his experience with the object on the coast of California in 2004. He testified to the committee that he had spotted the “smooth, seamless oval-shaped” object hovering above the water before quickly rising to over 12,000 feet in the air. The object then accelerated and disappeared, it was then spotted less than a minute later around 60 miles away.
He said that what he experienced was “well beyond the material science and capabilities” that we have or going to have in the foreseeable future.
“I think what we experienced was,” Fravor said. “Like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years.”
The Congressional hearing took place as the demand by lawmakers is on the rise for military and intelligence agencies to release more information regarding the incidents. Multiple members of Congress stated that the release of such information is an issue of national security posed by the objects in or near U.S. airspace.
Lawmakers, from both parties, have repeatedly expressed frustration about the inability to view information regarding UAPs from the military and intelligence agencies. Representative Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said that the “time has come” to have disclosure.
“We should have disclosure today,” he said. “We should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come.”
An amendment to the annual defense spending bill is currently making its way through Congress which would require such agencies to release any information regarding UAPs. The amendment is modeled after the legislation which was aimed to reveal government records in regards to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting,” Representative Glenn Grotham (R-Wis.), the committee’s chairman said. “I assume some legislation will come out of this.”
Pentagon officials said that they have not “seen anything” which points towards any of the objects being of alien origin.
“We have not seen anything, and we’re still very early on, that would lead us to believe that any of the objects that we have seen are of alien origin,” Ronald Moultrie, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, said. “Any unauthorized system in our airspace we deem as a threat to safety.”
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