At the link here you can read a full transcript of last week's US Congress hearing on UFOs, which occurred on July 26, 2023. The transcript often uses the term UAP. Some government committee or group is currently using the term UAP, previously defined as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and then later more broadly defined as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
Before examining this testimony, I should discuss how there's a lot of difference between the evidence value of first-hand witness testimony, explicit second-hand testimony from a named source, and second-hand testimony from an unnamed source. If a person named Bill says that he directly saw something, that has a certain value as evidence, assuming the person is a reliable source. If a person named Bill merely describes evidence from a named source (received either by directly listening to that source or by reading something the source wrote that is not available to us), that has a lesser value as evidence. For one thing, there is always the possibility that Bill is not correctly describing what the source said. Perhaps Bill is exaggerating what the source said, or not quite accurately quoting it. Plus there is the fact that in order for us to believe the story we now have to assume the trustworthiness or accuracy of two different people: both Bill and the source he quotes (who might be untrustworthy). A situation that tends to be weaker evidence than both of these cases is a case in which Bill tells some account he got from an unnamed source. That type of account in general tends to have much less value as evidence, because of several reasons: (1) we have no way of judging the reliability of the original source, because Bill has not named such a source; (2) we have no way of knowing whether the unnamed source actually saw something with his own eyes, or whether the unnamed source was merely passing on something he heard from some other source.
Let's give some examples, using a quality-of-evidence number in which 10 is the best evidence and 0 is the worst evidence:
- Bill says he saw John Jolter kill Mr. Smith -- evidence value of 9 (assuming Bill is trustworthy and has no motive to lie on this matter).
- Bill says he heard Dave say that he saw John Jolter kill Mr. Smith -- evidence value of 7 (assuming Bill is trustworthy and has no motive to lie on this matter). The evidence value is reduced, because Bill may be misstating what he heard from Dave and either Dave or Bill may be lying or exaggerating.
- Bill says he heard a source he will not name say he saw that John killed Mr. Smith -- evidence value of 4 (assuming Bill is trustworthy and has no motive to lie on this matter). The evidence value is reduced, because Bill may be misstating what he heard from this source, and we have no way of judging how reliable this source is, because Bill will not name his source.
- Bill says he heard a source he will not name say that he heard Mr. Smith died from an accident -- evidence value of 2 (assuming Bill is trustworthy and has no motive to lie on this matter). The evidence value here is very low, because we have no idea of how long the chain of testimony is. Did Bill's source directly see Mr. Smith die from an accident, or did that source merely hear from someone else that Mr. Smith died from an accident? It could be that Bill has merely heard a rumor that has been passed around between several different persons, and does not correspond to the truth.
Below are some of the most interesting quotes from the July 26, 2023 testimony to the US Congress:
Ryan Graves: "During a training mission in morning area whiskey seventy two, ten miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, two F18 super hornets were split by UAP. The object described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere came within fifty feet of the lead aircraft and was estimated to be five to fifteen feet in diameter. The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned base."
The report refers to something occurring in 2014. We may presume that by "split by UAP" Graves meant some type of unidentified object coming between the two jet fighters (the F18 super hornets), or existing between their flight path The description of the object as a "dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere" is startling. We would not expect a drone or aerial vehicle to have such a shape, although conceivably some kind of balloon might look such a way. Graves mentions he was involved with the fighter pilots reporting this event, but does not name the specific persons who reported it. Much later in the testimony, when asked by Jamie Raskin to discuss "what is the most vivid concrete sighting with the naked eye," Graves repeats the account above, again mentioning a sighting within fifty feet, but making it clear some other unnamed person (a pilot) reported this to him. So we have the drawback that this is second-hand evidence, since Graves does not claim to be one of those two pilots.
Ryan Graves: "Pilots are reporting UAP [unidentified anomalous phenomena] at altitudes that appear above them at forty thousand feet, potentially in low earth orbit or in the gray zone below the Carmen line. Making inexplicable maneuvers like right hand turns and retrograde orbits or j hooks. Sometimes these reports are reoccurring. With numerous recent sightings north of Hawaii and in the North Atlantic."
That is a very interesting claim, but the problem is that it is second-hand. Who were the pilots who reported such things? We do not know. Did Graves directly receive such reports from these pilots, or was it some deal where Graves heard from someone else that someone else had seen such things? We do not know.
David Fravor: "They’re, the controller told us that these objects, had been observed for over two weeks coming down from over eighty thousand feet. Rapidly descending to twenty thousand feet, hanging out for hours and then going straight back up for those that don’t realize above eighty thousand feet is space."
That is a very interesting report of mysterious things rapidly coming down from more than ten miles high in the sky to an altitude of only about four miles high in the sky. But the report is second hand. We don't know who this controller is, and whether he directly saw such things or was told such things by other people. Fravor then describes seeing some mysterious "Tic Tac" object flying over the water. It's a rather technical account that the average person may find hard to follow, so I won't quote it. But apparently it's quite a juicy case of a speeding anomaly.
David Fravor: "We have nothing that can stop in mid air and go the other direction nor do we have anything that can like in our situation, come down from space, hang out for three hours, and go back up."
Here Fravor reports on some hard-to-explain behavior he previously said that some controller had reported, but we still have not heard any first-hand testimony of someone seeing such a thing or detecting it.
Robert Garcia: "Mr. Grusch, finally, do you believe that our government is in possession of UAPs?"
David Grusch: "Absolutely based on interviewing, over forty witnesses over four years."
Robert Garcia: "And and where?"
David Grusch: "I know the exact locations, and and those locations were provided to the inspector general and some of which to the intelligence committees, I actually had the people with the firsthand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the inspector general."
Unfortunately, this testimony has very little value as evidence. It merely means that David Grusch has come to believe that the US government has something like vehicles or wreckage it can't explain, based on things he has heard from over forty people. But we have no specifics about who these people are and what they saw, and we don't know what fraction of them made such a claim to Grusch. We have no idea how long the chain of testimony is here. The people Grusch has talked to could merely be passing on groundless rumors. It means little that Grusch has come to believe such a thing. People come to hold false beliefs for any of a thousand and one reasons. The fact that Grusch claims to know "the exact locations" also means little. Grusch may merely have heard rumors about spooky things stored at particular military sites, and may have come to believe such rumors. That does not mean that such rumors are true. Here we should remember Donald Rumsfeld's famous quote in which he said he knew where the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were. Such weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq.
We should not forget here that authorities believe all kinds of silly things that are untrue and unreasonable. I could easily insert here a thousand words listing all of the untrue and unreasonable beliefs held by US professors on many different topics. In academia you have thousands of professors believing things that are not merely unproven, but which also are very improbable or impossible because of various reasons and evidence such professors have failed to study or consider.
Ryan Graves: "Some of the behaviors that we saw in a working area, we would see these objects, being at zero point zero mach. That’s zero air speed. Over certain pieces of the ground. So what that means, just like a river, if you throw a bobber in, it’s gonna float downstream. These objects were staying completely stationary and category for hurricane winds. These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds, one point one, one point two mach. And they would do so in very erratic and behavior is that we don’t I don’t have an explanation for."
The transcript reads "category for hurricane winds," and we can presume he means "Category 4 hurricane winds." Unfortunately, the claim is preceded by "we saw" rather than "I saw." We don't know here whether Graves is passing on stories he heard from other people, which may have been mere rumors. Could a pilot have seen some kind of UFO staying motionless in the sky during a Category 4 hurricane? I doubt that, because military jets would not have been flying during such a hurricane.
Jamie Raskin: "Are there common characteristics to the UAPs that have been excited by different pilots, and can you describe what the convergence of descriptions is?"
Ryan Graves: "Certainly. We were primarily seeing dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere?"
Jamie Raskin: "I’m sorry. Dark gray or black cubes?"
Ryan Graves: Yes. Inside of a clear sphere where the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of that sphere. And that was primarily what was being reported when we were able to gain a visual tally of these objects. And that occurred over almost eight years. And as far as I know, it still occurred."
Here we have some intriguing testimony of pilots seeing gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere. Unfortunately Graves uses the term "we were primarily seeing" and "what was being reported" which does not clearly qualify as eyewitness testimony. Graves does not tell us that he himself saw such a thing. He mentions "over almost eight years," but fails to mention how many sightings like the one he describes occurred.
As a photographer of mysterious orbs, I am quite interested in this testimony, and I would like to get more details and specifics. Could there be any natural explanation for a cube seen inside a clear sphere? We can imagine a balloon device that might look in such a way, possibly a balloon with some type of electronic device inside it. What Graves should supply is specifics, telling us exactly how many of these anomalies were reported, the estimated size, the dates the reports occurred, exactly who reported seeing these anomalies, and so forth. In the sketchy form quoted above, the testimony does not have much value. But much more specific testimony on the same sightings might have lots of value.
Ryan Graves: "In the two thousand and three time frame, a large group of Boeing contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vanderburg Air four space when they observed a very large hundred yard sided, red square, approach the base from the ocean and hover at low altitude over one of the launch facilities. This object remained for about forty five seconds or so before darting off over the mountains. There was a similar event within twenty four hours later in the evening. This was a morning event. I believe eight forty five in the morning. Later in the evening post sunset, there were reports of other sightings on base including some aggressive behaviors, these objects were approaching some of the security guards at rapid speeds, before darting off And this is information that was received through one of the, witnesses that have approached me at Americans for Safe Aerospace."
Anna Paulina Luna: "Was this documented in any official form, whether it was police blotter?"
Ryan Graves: "Yes. They had official documentation and records from the event that they witnessed, held over the years."
Here we have what sounds like an extremely sensational anomaly: a report of a year 2003 sighting of a giant square-shaped UFO or UAP hovering for 45 seconds over a major US military base, supposedly seen by a "large group of Boeing contractors." Unfortunately, the testimony is not first hand testimony. Graves did not see such a thing himself, and he has not given us the name of any person who saw such a thing. The story could simply be a rumor. Maybe there was no such group of contractors seeing such a thing, and someone started a rumor that such a sighting had occurred. Who made this estimate that something a hundred meters in size was being seen? Was it a single person, or each of the people who saw such a thing? We don't know. A single person could have misjudged the size of something that was much smaller. The claim that there was "official documentation and records from the event that they witnessed" does not add very much value as evidence, because no specifics have been given about what is in such documentation, and the documentation has not been provided. Investigators should probe carefully into this report, and try to obtain specific eyewitness testimony of the people who saw this event.
Ryan Graves: "The objects that we were seeing, they were spherical, and they were observed up to Mach two, which is a very in, non aerodynamic shape."
Spherical objects moving at a speed up to Mach Two (twice the speed of sound) would be a very big deal, since we know of no earthly technology that would allow spherical objects to move that fast. But the testimony here leaves room for doubt. How was that speed estimate obtained? And how do we know that the objects supposedly moving that fast were spherical-shaped? It would seem that visually identifying some object as spherical and clocking an object's speed are two different processes. So it would take a very tight coordination between such processes for you to say that a spherical object accelerated to nearly Mach Two. We don't know whether so tight a coordination occurred. Who made these speed estimates? Maybe they are just wild guesses. And we don't know whether Graves is passing on some story or legend of spherical objects accelerating so quickly, a story that may be a mere rumor. Rather than vague phrases such as "they were observed up to Mach Two," we need specific details about who made an observation, when he made the observation, and what type of technique he used to make a speed estimate.
Jared Moskowitz: "What about what they look like? How close did you get? Did you see a seam or a rivet or a section. And what I mean is, obviously, the jets you’re flying have all those things. Did these objects have those?"
David Fravor: "Wanna go ride?"
Ryan Graves: "I didn’t have I didn’t have the detail to be able to tell that."
David Fravor: "So we got within a half mile at Tic Tac, which people say that’s pretty far, but it’s in airplanes that’s actually relatively close. No. It was perfectly white, smooth, no windows. Although when we did take the original ... video that is out there, when you put it on a big screen, it actually had two little objects came out of the bottom of it. But other than that, no no windows, no seams, no nothing."
The Tic Tac UFO is an interesting anomaly. But Fravor's testimony is not all that compelling. He reports no one saw any features on the object shaped like a Tic Tac, but since the object was half a mile away, that does not mean the object was featureless.
Jared Moskowitz: "Mister Grusch, as a result of your previous government work, have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself of non human origin craft?"
David Grusch: "Yes. I personally interviewed those individuals."
This means little, because the phrase "direct knowledge" is vague. The "yes" Grusch gives could refer to people who have merely heard rumors, or people who saw strange things in the sky that they presumed were "non human origin craft." The answer Grusch gives is not as compelling as someone saying, "I talked to people who claimed that they had seen captured UFOs." And if he had said that, there would be many questions still to be asked, such as how reliable are these people, how long was the gap between the story and the reported observation, what caused them to think they had seen "non human origin craft" and so forth.
Tim Burchett: "Can you give me the names and titles of the people with direct firsthand knowledge, and access to some of this crash retrieval some of these crash retrieval programs and maybe which facilities, military bases that would the recovered material would be in. I know a lot of Congress talked about we’re gonna go to area fifty one and, you know, and there’s nothing there anymore anyway. It’s just you know, and we move like a glacier as soon as we announce it. I’m sure the moving vans would pull up, but please."
David Grusch: "I can’t discuss it publicly, but I did provide that information both to the Intel committees in the inspector general."
Burchett should be congratulated for asking the right type of question. David Grusch so far has provided no specifics to back up his claim of recovered UFO vehicles or crash wreckage from UFOs. It seems every time he is asked for specifics, he appeals to secrecy, saying he can't give details in public, or claims that he has given the details before (referring to some secret testimony that no journalist can verify). Therefore, Grusch's public testimony thus far has very little value as evidence. So far, there's no reason why we should believe in crashed UFOs or UAP based on anything Grusch has publicly said. He could be merely passing on rumors that slowly grew after events such as the Roswell incident.
Eric Burlison: "The concept that an alien species that’s technologically advanced enough to travel billions in the light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive Earth or crashes is is something that I find a little bit far fetched. And with that being said, you have mentioned that there’s interdimensional potential could you expand on that?"
David Grusch: "Oh, yeah. To answer your first question, and, you know, I’m here as a fact, witness, an expert, but I I will give you a, a theoretical framework, at least, to work off to kind of spouse, crashes, regardless of, you know, your level of sentience, right? You know, planes crash, cars crash, N number of sorties, what, however, high, a small percentage are going to end in, you know, mission failure, if you will, as we say, in the in the air force. And then in terms of, multi dimensionality, that kind of thing. The the framework that I’m familiar with, for example, is something called the holographic principle, both it’s it derives itself from general relativity and, quantum mechanics. And that is if you wanna imagine, a three d objects such as yourself casting a shadow onto a two d surface. That’s the holographic principle. So you can be projected, quasi projected from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional. It’s a scientific trope that you can actually cross literally as far as I understand, but there’s probably guys with PhDs that we could probably argue that."
The point that Burlison has made is a very good one, one that I previously made in my June post "Reasons for Doubting Claims the US Got Technology From Crashed ET UFOs." Given the incredible difficulties of traveling between inhabited solar systems, it makes no sense to believe that some civilization capable of traveling such distances would be so incompetent as to produce spacecraft that might crash on Earth once they had got here. Grusch's response is very weak. "Planes crash, cars crash" is a principle involving the state of current human technology, not some principle that we can apply to some godlike beings capable of traveling between inhabited solar systems. We can reasonably presume that within a few centuries we will have advanced our technology so that planes never crash and cars never crash.
Matt Gaetz: "And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the United States Congress. One of the pilots goes to check out that Diamond formation and sees a large floating I can only describe as an orb, again, like I said, not of any human capability that I’m that I’m 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 manually take this image from one of the lenses, and it was not automatic automated."
As someone who has had very great success in photographing mysterious orbs, including more than 800 mysterious striped orbs, I find this account interesting. But by itself this quote has not much value as evidence, for it is not a first-hand account, and we are given neither the name of the person who saw this, nor a copy of the image. Journalists should ask Matt Gaetz if he can provide more specific information on this incident, such as the name of someone who reported seeing it.
Nancy Mace: "Okay. And I can’t ask when do you think this occurred? If you believe we have crashed craft stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?"
David Grusch: "As I’ve stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, Biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah."
Nancy Mace: "Were they, I guess, human or non human biologics?"
David Grusch: "Non human, and that was the assessment of people, with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program."
Some people are trying to make this exchange seem like a big deal, but from an evidence standpoint, it hardly amounts to a hill of beans. Without giving any public details, Grusch has somehow got the idea that some sort of spooky craft have crashed, and claims he was told that there were "biologics" recovered that were "non-human." That means very little, given that non-human biological life is all over the place on planet Earth.
The hearing provided little in the way of Grade A top-notch evidence such as someone telling us exactly what he saw, or someone reading an account written by someone just after he saw something strange. But the hearing did give some intriguing "leads" that should be carefully investigated further. Journalists should ask the figures quoted above for more specifics on the interesting tales and claims they have made. Such people should be asked repeatedly questions like these:
- Can you give me the name of a person who saw what you describe, so I can interview him?
- Do you have any photographs or videos or documents that can corroborate these accounts?
- Could it be that the story you just told me is one that arose as a mere rumor, after passing around through many different hands?
- If you cannot provide the name of a person who saw what you describe, can you at least give me some testimony that person wrote down very soon after seeing what he saw?
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