Official hearing transcript PDF

38
And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond forma-
tion for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have
observed in the U.S. Congress.
One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and
sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb, again, like
I said, not of any human capability that I am—that I am aware
of.
And when he approached he said that his radar went down. He
said that his FLIR system malfunctioned and that he had to manu-
ally take this image from one of the lenses and it was not auto-
mated in collection as you would typically see in a test mission.
So, I guess I will start with Commander Fravor. How should we
think about the fact that this craft that was approached by our
pilot had the capability of disarming a number of the sensor and
collection systems on that craft?
Commander FRAVOR. I think this goes to that national security
side. You can go back through history of things showing up in cer-
tain areas and disabling our capabilities, which is disheartening,
and for us, I mean, like I said, it completely disabled the radar on
the aircraft when they tried to do it and the only way we could see
it is passively, which is how he got that image.
So, I think that is a concern on what are these doing, not only
how do they operate but their capabilities inside to do things like
this.
Mr. GAETZ. And how should we think about four craft moving in
a very clear formation equidistant from one another in a diamond?
In all of the phenomenon, perhaps, Mr. Graves, that you have ana-
lyzed have we ever seen multiple craft in a single formation?
Mr. GRAVES. I have one particular case and that was during the
Gimbal incident. The recording on the AT FLIR system shows a
single object that rotates.
You hear the pilots refer to a fleet of objects that is not visible
on the FLIR system and that was something that I witnessed dur-
ing the debrief as part of the radar data on the situational aware-
ness page.
I would like to add, however, Congressman, there is a small bit
of anger, I would say, I would feel if those pilots are still facing
that difficulty in reporting this topic and they do not have the tools
to be able to mitigate this issue. It just goes to show how serious
this is and why this is such an important issue for our pilots and
for our Nation.
Mr. GAETZ. It was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that
if you have a UAP experience the best thing you can do for your
career is forget it and not tell anyone because any type of report-
ing, either above the surface or below the surface, does have a per-
ceived consequence to these people and that is a culture we must
change if we want to get to the truth.
Mr. Chairman, I would observe that perhaps as we move forward
from this hearing there are some obvious next steps. Every person
watching this knows that we need to meet with Mr. Grusch in a
secure compartmentalized facility so that we can get fulsome an-
swers that do not put him in jeopardy and that give us the infor-
mation we need.