Why did Congress hold a hearing about UFOs?

Speaking with House lawmakers, a former military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower explained that Congress is being kept in the dark about “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” known as UAP or UFOs, and moreover that executive branch agencies have been withholding information for years.

Who is David Grusch and what did he say to Congress about UFOs?

Having spent 14 years as an intelligence officer between the United States Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, David Grusch can be considered an experienced individual in his field. On Wednesday, Grusch appeared before the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee alongside two former fighter pilots who stated that they had firsthand experience with UAP.

As for Grusch specifically, he served as a representative on two Pentagon task forces investigating UAP until earlier this year. Interestingly, Grusch explained to lawmakers that he had previously been informed about “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” during the period in which he was examining classified programs. Indeed, Grusch went on to disclose that he was denied access to those programs when he requested it, which led him to accuse the military of misappropriating funds in an effort to hide the operations from congressional oversight. Further to that, he also disclosed that he had conducted interviews with various officials who had direct knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origins and that so-called “biologics” were recovered from some of those craft.

How did Congress respond to David Grusch’s statements?

It’s worth noting, that members of both the Republican and Democratic parties questioned how they should move forward following Grusch’s stunning allegations. Indeed, bi-partisanship on the matter is a clear indication of the increased desire of lawmakers to force the executive branch into greater transparency, about the situation. “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,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to Grusch’s comments but the department has denied his assertions in the past.

The UAP/UFO issue isn’t new and that’s part of the problem

In the last few years, we’ve seen an increasing number of video recordings of alleged encounters with UAPs/UFOs, which is to say that the issue has been growing in popularity. In the large majority of recordings, objects of various shapes and sizes can be seen moving through the air at exceptionally high speeds with no visible signs of propulsion. To that end, the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office was established by Congress last year with the idea of investigating these incidents. As of May, it is understood that the office has investigated approximately 800 reports. Where the military itself is concerned, officials have frequently stated that the origins of most videos are questionable, however, many of them remain unexplained. Lawmakers have subsequently stated that the military knows more about the objects seen in footage that they have disclosed.

There were other witnesses alongside David Grusch

Though Grusch was the central witness of the hearing, testimony was also given by Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot who has spoken out about encountering UAP on training missions, as well as David Fravor, who spotted a rather large object that was recorded in the now infamous “Tic Tac” video while flying off the coast of California in 2004. To be clear, all three witnesses stated that the current systems used to investigate UAP encounters are inadequate. Interestingly, they also cited the stigma that is attached to pilots and officials who have pushed for more transparency in the past.

Regarding Graves, he had previously served as an F-18 pilot in Virginia Beach back in 2014, which is when claims that his squadron began to detect unknown objects in the skies around them. Graves described the objects as “dark grey or black cubes...inside of a clear sphere, where the apex or tips of the cubes were touching the inside of that sphere.” He went on to add that a fellow pilot told him that an object which appeared to measure between 5 and 15 feet in diameter flew between two F-18s that were approximately 10 miles from the coast and passed within 50 feet of the aircraft. He also explained that there was never any acknowledgment of the incident, before adding that UAP encounters were “not rare or isolated.” Graves next statement was somewhat more foreboding.

“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.”

Were there any other revelations from the hearing?

Though he declined to answer the majority of questions concerning his knowledge of classified programs, Grusch did state that he was hopeful that his actions would “lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency.” Favor by comparison gave a more visceral account. Speaking about the 2004 encounter off of California’s coast, he explained that he and another pilot saw the smooth, apparently seamless oval-shaped object hovering above the water, at which point it climbed almost instantaneously to an altitude of 12,000 feet, before accelerating and disappearing. Shockingly, it was detected about 60 miles away less than a minute later.

“I think what we experienced was, 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,” Fravor said.

How will Congress move forward?

As mentioned before, there appears to be a willingness on either side of the political divide to get to the bottom of the situation. With many members of Congress now echoing the idea of the potential threat to national security that is posed by the phenomenon, one has to imagine that these are the first steps of what could be an official probe into military and intelligence agencies. Indeed, there is now a bill in process, that was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators that is led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The purpose of it is to amend the annual defense spending bill. Interestingly, the measure is actually built off of legislation that was aimed at revealing government records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, something that would require executive branch agencies to disclose UAP records to a review board with “the presumption of immediate disclosure.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers of both parties expressed anger about their inability to obtain information about UAP from the military and intelligence agencies, describing a system of overclassification that outrightly conceals reports of incidents from public view. “We should have disclosure today. We should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida. “Several of us are going to look forward to getting some answers in a more confidential setting. I assume some legislation will come out of this,” said GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman, the subcommittee’s chairman.