UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RECORDTESTIMONY RECORD

The 2023 Grusch, Graves and Fravor UAP Hearing

Witnesses: David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Office representative to the UAP Task Force; Ryan Graves, Executive Director, Americans for Safe Aerospace; Cmdr. David Fravor (Ret.), former commanding officer, U.S. Navy

Titled ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency’, the hearing was chaired by Rep. Glenn Grothman. It followed public claims by former intelligence officer David Grusch. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said the panel would hear from people with personal sightings ‘rather than Pentagon bureaucrats’, and that members had been ‘denied access to a classified briefing in a SCIF’ before the hearing.

Ryan Graves, a former F/A-18 pilot, testified that in 2014 his squadron began detecting unknown objects off Virginia Beach, and that during one training mission an object described as ‘a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere’ came within 50 feet of the lead jet. Retired Cmdr. David Fravor described his 2004 Nimitz encounter, saying the ‘Tic Tac’ object was ‘far superior to anything that we had’.

Grusch, who served on the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021, testified that he ‘was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program’ and was denied access to it. He said he was ‘speaking to the facts as I have been told them’ and that he had filed a whistleblower complaint with the intelligence community inspector general in May 2022.

Under questioning, Grusch said people with direct knowledge had told him ‘nonhuman’ biologics were recovered along with some craft, and said he had suffered retaliation. Many of his answers were deferred to a classified setting; he said repeatedly that he could not discuss details in public. Asked whether people had been harmed to conceal the program, he said he had directed people with that knowledge ‘to the appropriate authorities’.

Defense Department spokeswoman Sue Gough said investigators had not found ‘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’. In March 2024, AARO’s historical review reported ‘no empirical evidence’ for such claims. Further House hearings on the subject followed in November 2024 and September 2025.

“The Tic Tac object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or [are] looking to develop in the next 10 years.” — Cmdr. David Fravor