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This is the written testimony that former Navy F/A-18 pilot Ryan Graves gave to the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs at its first public hearing on UAP. Graves says that UAP are routinely seen but underreported, and that stigma and heavy classification hide what the government knows. He describes the encounters his squadron had in Warning Area W-72 off Virginia Beach. He also calls for commercial pilot reporting, empowered investigation and declassification of UAP data.
to our radar system, we began to detect unknown objects in our airspace. Initially dismissed as software glitches, we soon corroborated these radar tracks with infrared sensors, confirming their physical presence. Over time, UAP sightings became an open secret among our aircrew. They were a common occurrence, seen by most of my colleagues on radar and occasionally up close. The sightings were so frequent that they became part of daily briefs. A pivotal incident occurred during an air combat training mission in Warning Area W-72, an exclusive block of airspace ten miles east of Virginia Beach. All traffic into the training area goes through a single GPS point at a set altitude. Just at the moment the two jets crossed the threshold, one of the pilots saw a dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere — motionless against the wind, fixed directly at the entry point. The jets, only 100 feet apart, were forced to take evasive action. They terminated the mission immediately and returned to base. Our squadron submitted a safety report, but there was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings. Advanced UAP defy conventional explanation The UAP we encountered and tracked on multiple sensors behaved in ways that surpassed our understanding and technology. The UAP could accelerate at speeds up to Mach 1, hold their position against hurricane-force winds, and outlast our fighter jets, operating continuously throughout the day. They did not have any visible means of lift, control surfaces or propulsion — nothing that resembled normal aircraft with wings, flaps or engines. I am a formally trained engineer and I have no explanation for this. Recently, I have received confirmation that these encounters were also a shock to the chain of command from one of our advisors at ASA, Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, former head of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Oceanographer of the Navy. While serving as an Admiral with Fleet Forces Command, he received a classified email on SIPRNET in 2015 from his boss, the Operations Commander, to all 1- and 2-star Admiral subordinates. The title of the email was “Urgent safety of flight issue.” He attached the now famous GO-FAST UAP video from a Navy F/A-18, asking if anyone knew their origin, and expressed safety of flight concerns about multiple near mid-air collisions with UAP in the early warning area off Virginia Beach where my encounters occurred, noting they might shut down the exercise for safety reasons. Admiral Gallaudet reviewed it with his deputy. The next day, the email was removed from his system and that of his deputy, and despite meeting with this group routinely in person, no one ever discussed it. He presumes the email was removed in connection with a classified special access program. He couldn’t believe there was no discussion of an urgent safety of flight issue. He has stated publicly that after seeing the report, he didn’t believe these UAP represent any known human technology.
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