Reflections on the third - and best - Congressional hearing looking into UAP

Tim Burchett should be given credit for the third - and by far the best so far - Congressional hearing looking into UAP that took place a few days ago. If we were American - instead of being British - and we lived in Tennessee, we’d happily vote for Tim to be our Representative. Yes, he gets emotional and spouts crap at times - typical of a believer who’s devoid of sufficient data - but his overall attitude of humanity, disdain for excessive bureaucracy, and keenness for government transparency wins out. In his wonderful Tennessee drawl, and with utter determination, he stated: “We’re gonna uncover the cover-up.” He even slipped into the time-limited proceedings that it was his ninth wedding anniversary on the day of the hearing, and said of his wife “I love her very much”.

Davy Crockett - perhaps the earliest of historical figures from Tennessee, who died defending the Alamo - famously said: “Always be sure you are right, then go ahead.” Today, Tim Burchett undoubtedly embodies this brave ethical stance. He’s a man of the people.

Indeed, it was good to see a bipartisan bunch of Representatives taking the UAP matter seriously - although we would have liked to have seen more exactness of thinking skills. Unfortunately, for example, they trotted out the careless “UAPs” term. As we have argued before, the newly-preferred terminology of Unidentified Aerial [or Anomalous] Phenomena (UAP) already encompasses the plural; it is therefore inaccurate to say “UAPs”. As it has quickly slipped into common usage, this is a clear indication of sloppy thinking and susceptibility to the herd mentality.

The questioning of the three witnesses could and should have been better, much more probing. Representative Eric Burlison, a software engineer and acknowledged sceptic, at least challenged David Grusch’s claims of there being “crashed” craft. Although wrongly stating that other solar systems are “billions of light years away” - whereas the nearest, Alpha Centauri, is “only” 4.25 to 4.35 light years away, albeit billions of miles in distance - he nevertheless asked what many people have thought: on the one hand, any visitors must be sufficiently technologically advanced to travel here - yet we’re asked to believe that they’re also somehow lacking in competence, sometimes failing to survive arrival on Earth. Eric Burlison rightly considers this scenario to be “a little bit far-fetched”, and he asked David Grusch to explain the seeming contradiction. The answer was poor, with mumbled words of whatever the “level of sentience”, there will be a small percentage of craft suffering “mission failure”. A humble response of “We don’t know” would have been more convincing - or, better still, some specifics, rather than the arrogant waffle served up as a supposed “explanation”.

We are not challenging David Grusch’s honesty, because he clearly believes what he is claiming. However, we do have serious reservations - unless or until verifiable facts prove otherwise - about several conclusions he is offering regarding “recovered craft”. For example, he makes reference to an early “crash” from Italy in the 1930s. Yet this 1933 story has long since been dismissed by Italian “ufologists” as nonsense. David Grusch has not seen any actual exotic material himself, and we await to see what comes from his list of cooperative and hostile first-hand witnesses that he has provided to the Inspector General, plus House and Senate Intelligence Committees. [Note: It’s worth adding here that Eric Davies, of the Wilson Memo fame, has previously stated he believes the Aztec crash to be genuine, whereas there’s sufficient evidence that it was a hoax. The “I want to believe” tendency has known pitfalls. We were at Aztec, New Mexico, early one morning late last year, for filming Something DEFINITELY crashed at Roswell.]

Our assessment is that David Grusch’s temperament likely makes him vulnerable to jumping to premature conclusions through mis-linking. For the sake of clarity, it’s not unusual for those who hold positions of high authority to have emotional issues; a previous boss of Lue Elizondo is an obvious example of this limiting factor. It can and does happen to those on both sides of the proverbial fence.

We have previously fully acknowledged that there are, very occasionally, negative health effects on individuals who have come into close proximity with unknown anomalous craft. However, it would be premature (and very likely wrong) to conclude that these unwanted medical consequences are an indication of hostile intent.

Since Wednesday’s hearing, Sean Kirkpatrick, director of AARO, has issued a personal statement challenging some of David Grusch’s testimony to the Congressional hearing. So there might have been inaccuracies. Sean Kirkpatrick is a lifelong career DoD scientist, thought possibly to be in place for purposes of obfuscation - but wouldn’t it be funny if he ends up being the hero in all of this, through rigorously sticking to the need for precise data?!

Dave Fravor was a witness of the highest calibre - intelligent and to the point. That said, we’ve recently suggested he has been guilty of poor judgement with regards to believing Bob Lazar’s story. Dave Fravor has one very specific contribution to make regarding UAP: as a (now retired) Commander and a Top Gun-trained pilot, he was the lead Navy aviator of four who encountered the Tic Tac craft in 2004. This hard-to-dismiss case was covered in our first-ever article, aptly titled “Too real to ignore”. The incident was also included in our “Best cases” film.

Dave Fravor stressed that what he came into contact with was “well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently, or that we’re gonna have in the next 10 - 20 years”.

Ryan Graves likewise was a worthy witness - despite the fact that it was some of his fellow US Navy pilots who were the ones encountering UAP off the East Coast from the summer of 2014 onwards. To his credit, during the hearing, there was no sloppy mention by him of “UAPs”. Now retired from the military, he recently founded Americans for Safe Aerospace - which is “dedicated to aerospace safety and national security with a focus on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”. As such, he was representing military and commercial pilots who have encountered UAP.

Whereas the skies must always be seen as potentially unsafe because of the risk of various unexpected hazards, it must be said that there have been zero instances of accidents involving unknown anomalous craft since they were first officially reported by military pilots towards the end of World War II, when they were then called foo fighters. Assuming UAP/UFOs/foo fighters are real, physical craft or probes of unknown origin, we can conclude that they’re intelligently operated to an extremely high standard. There would appear to be no valid “air safety concern” simply because they do not collide with human aircraft, as demonstrated by at least nine decades of real-world experience. Neither, it must also be said, has there been any indication of hostile intent - other than from ourselves, as we clearly are an aggressive species. Dave Fravor has stated that he never felt threatened by the Tic Tac, despite its superior capabilities.

In the absence of sufficient knowledge, it’s reasonable to argue the case for a potential breach of national security - if only to empower the relevant authorities to investigate UAP. And this possibility was agreed to be a concern during Wednesday’s hearing.

Two new UAP cases were mentioned during the hearing.

Ryan Graves outlined an incident from 2003: “A large group of Boeing contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base [California] when they observed a very large, 100-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 45 seconds or so before darting off over the mountains.” 100 yards is the length of an American football field.

The other incident was described by Representative Matt Gaetz: “Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating that there was a UAP incident that required my attention. I sought a briefing regarding that episode and brought with me Congressman Burchett and Congresswoman Luna.” After facing pushback from a senior military officer, they were finally able to talk to one member of the flight crew who had witnessed four unknown craft in a diamond formation over the Gulf of Mexico. He flew closer to investigate the unknowns and saw a large orb. His radar failed and the FLIR video camera malfunctioned, but he was able to manually photograph the unknown object. Matt Gaetz commented: “The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries.”

Apart from these two cases, no new information came to light. This is, however, an on-going process.

Representative Andy Ogles (also from Tennessee) was the last to question the three witnesses. In concluding, he stated: “There clearly is a threat to the national security of The United States of America. As members of Congress, we have a responsibility to maintain oversight and be aware of these activities - so that, if appropriate, we take action. I would encourage the chairman to demand that we have any and all, but in particular Mr Grusch, talk to us in a SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility]. And if that access is denied, I will personally volunteer to initiate the Holman Rule against any personnel, or any program, or any agency that denies access to Congress.” The Holman Rule can be used by the House of Representatives to reduce the salary of, or fire, specific federal employees, or cut a specific program.

So, Congress is beginning to flex its muscle. If this hearing was anything to go by, it means business. It’s recognising UAP as a real issue and want to find out more. David Grusch’s claims - leads - will presumably be investigated. “I do know the names” of individuals and Special Access Programs, Grusch has said, “but, once again, I can’t discuss that publicly, and how they’ve evaded oversight. In a closed setting, I could tell you the specific tradecraft used.”

Final words here must be to repeat those of Tim Burchett: “We’re gonna uncover the cover-up.”

Written by Iain Scott - with considerable input from Jessica & Becky - 29th July 2023