Former Navy pilot Ryan Graves reacted to the historic congressional hearing this week on UFOs, calling it an "inflection point" in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"It does certainly feel like it's an inflection point. We saw a lot of interest from the representatives that attended. The questions were really on point. They were very serious, and I think they were a bit shocked at how big of a national security concern this actually can represent," Graves said Thursday of House members present at the hearing.
"Congress wasn’t fully aware of how big of an aviation safety issue this was," said Graves, who serves as executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace,
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Graves was referring to unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, an acronym that has recently dominated the public imagination. Clips of Graves and two other whistleblowers — David Fravor, former commanding officer in the U.S. Navy, and David Grusch, U.S. Air Force officer and former intelligence official — have gone viral after they gave sworn testimony in front of Congress as to personal experiences with what many Americans would describe as UFOs.
Graves described the seemingly physics-defying nature of UAPs during the hearing. "These objects were staying completely stationary in Category 4 hurricane winds. These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds."
The most common UAPs, he explained, were "dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere."
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The hearing, titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," was held in front of the House’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.
Graves told members of Congress during the hearing that he felt some anger after Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., recounted the stories of pilots at Eglin Air Force Base who were afraid to reveal their personal experiences with UFOs to the public. Graves, who is also the first active duty pilot to speak to Congress about UAP, has designed a "pipeline" service for whistleblowers to come forward about their experiences with aerial phenomena.
"It's just frustrating because that's essentially the worst case scenario for me," Graves said of pilots who felt pressured not to report on UAPs.
Graves emphasized that he's been pushing for pilots to be able to talk about their experiences and "share safety knowledge about this issue" without feeling like "they're doing something wrong. This is their lives on the line," he added. "They're responsible for those aircraft, they signed for them. And if you're a commercial pilot, you're accepting responsibility for potentially hundreds of lives."
"And to think that they have to work in the shadows in order to ensure the safety of their operations — for me, it's just unacceptable," Graves said.
Graves agreed that the "logical next step" was for whistleblowers to meet with members of Congress in a "closed session," responding to Grusch’s suggestion at multiple points during the hearing that he could reveal more about UAPs to Congress in a "SCIF," or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
Graves told Fox News Digital that one of his major takeaways from the hearing was not only "national security" but also "the fact that this is an aviation safety issue." He continued, "I think the representatives were disappointed at how the commercial sector's aviation sector has not responded to this issue. I hope they hear loud and clear that they're serious about this now."
While Graves and his fellow whistleblowers Fravor and Grusch all testified about their personal experiences with UAPs, some claims are getting more attention than others.
Notably, Grusch was asked by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., if he believed that the government had made contact with "intelligent extraterrestrials." He answered that he could not discuss the topic in a "public setting."
Grusch did, however, claim that the government was in possession of biological material, which he called "biologics," from "non-human" species.
Grusch told Congress that he could further discuss evidence of his claims in a SCIF.
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