ARIZONA, USA — The House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security heard from three military veterans Wednesday who said unidentified flying objects are underreported and urged more transparency from the federal government.
The committee heard testimony from two pilots who said they'd witnessed what is now called "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" or UAPs.
“I’m not a UFO fanatic; it’s not me," former Navy Commander David Fravor said. "But I’m telling you what we saw with four sets of eyes over a five-minute period. We have nothing close to it.”
Fravor was one of the witnesses to the so-called "Tic-Tac Video" showing a rectangular object from the camera of a fighter jet.
“The [air traffic] controller said these objects had been coming down from 80,000 feet, hanging around a few hours and then going back up.," Fravor testified. "For those who don’t realize, 80,000 feet is space.”
The committee also heard from David Grusch, a former intelligence analyst with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program," Grusch said.
He claimed he reported it to his superiors and was retaliated against. He's currently claiming whistleblower status.
He also testified that "non-human biologics" were found with the crashed UAPs, but never specified what that meant.
Watching the hearing closely from his home in Tucson was a man who knows more about government UFO investigations than almost anyone.
Nick Pope ran the UK Ministry of Defence's UFO investigation during the early 1990s.
"When somebody on the floor of Congress uses the phrase 'non-human intelligence,' you do a double take," Pope said.
The official UK government line was that UFOs posed no national security threat. Pope spent four years investigating sightings.
“I never got my hands on a smoking gun," he said. "David Grusch testified to Congress that smoking gun exists."
Arizona Representative Andy Biggs, who sits on the subcommittee, asked Grusch about the famous Phoenix Lights sighting in 1997.
“The explanation was military training from Luke [Air Force Base] and the Barry Goldwater Training range," Biggs said. "Do you know anything different than the official explanation of those lights?"
Grusch replied he did not but could point committee members to places where those files if they existed, might be.
The subcommittee members said they wanted more transparency from the US military, citing occasions when they asked for intelligence. They said they were cleared to see but were denied.
More questions were raised over pilot and aircraft safety, as former pilot Ryan Graves told the committee pilots now plan for UAP sightings as part of their pre-flight safety briefing.
"UAPs are in our airspace, but they are underreported," Graves said. "These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine."
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.