House Oversight UAP Hearing: July 2023 Testimony Record

CONGRESS-HEARING-118-HOGR source map

Record ID

CONGRESS-HEARING-118-HOGR

Hearing Date

July 26, 2023

Committee

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (Subcommittee on National Security)

Sworn Witnesses

David Grusch (former NRO/NGA intelligence official), Cmdr. David Fravor (USN Ret.), Ryan Graves (former USN F/A-18 pilot)

Hearing Title

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency

The historic sworn testimony before the House Oversight Committee

This hearing marks the institutional turning point where bipartisan members of Congress demanded declassification, leading directly to the UAP Disclosure Act amendments and executive PURSUE directives.

Incident summary

Over four hours of sworn testimony, witnesses detailed visual and sensor encounters with craft exhibiting extraordinary performance characteristics, severe retaliation against whistleblowers, and administrative compartmentalization preventing congressional oversight committees from inspecting alleged special access programs.

What the sworn witness testimony stated

• Conducted on July 26, 2023 by the House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs.
• First congressional hearing in over 50 years featuring sworn testimony from military aviators and a former senior intelligence official alleging covert programs.
• Cmdr. David Fravor delivered sworn firsthand testimony detailing his visual intercept of the 2004 Nimitz Tic-Tac craft.
• Ryan Graves testified that commercial and military aviators encounter dark cubes inside clear spheres on a near-daily basis off the US Atlantic coast.
• David Grusch testified under oath that the US government maintains multi-decade crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs involving non-human craft.

Firsthand pilot testimony versus intelligence whistleblower claims

• Differentiate between firsthand operational testimony (Fravor and Graves observing physical craft) and intelligence community whistleblower testimony (Grusch relaying classified depositions).
• Review the committee member questions from Reps. Grothman, Luna, Burchett, Moskowitz, and Raskin regarding specific facility locations.
• Note Grusch's offer to provide specific program names, contractor locations, and cooperative witnesses inside a secure SCIF environment.

What the official congressional record establishes

The official record shows decorated military pilots and a former senior intelligence officer testified under oath that anomalous craft operate regularly in defense airspace and alleged covert recovery programs exist.

How the 2023 hearing catalyzed legislative disclosure mandates

• Trace the direct legislative line from this hearing to the PURSUE declassification directives issued in 2026.
• Examine the formal Department of Defense statements responding to Grusch's sworn claims.
• Assess how the firsthand sensor descriptions provided by Fravor and Graves align with the released FLIR1 and GIMBAL videos.

Firsthand versus secondhand evidence standards

The hearing demonstrated the sharp distinction required in UAP legal and analytical evaluation: firsthand eyewitness sensor correlation versus classified documentary intelligence.

• Cmdr. Fravor was the pilot in command who physically engaged the Tic-Tac object for several minutes.
• Ryan Graves spoke as an active fighter pilot whose squadron members encountered unidentified objects tracking radar targets daily.
• David Grusch testified as an official investigator who interviewed over 40 high-level defense officials under official authority.

Sworn statements versus unclassified physical evidence

Sworn verbal testimony alone does not provide unclassified physical documentation or definitive empirical proof without declassified sensor logs and physical hardware.

Questions and SCIF access barriers highlighted in testimony

Did subsequent closed-door congressional SCIF briefings verify any of the specific program names or contractor locations provided by the witnesses?

Tags

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• House Oversight July 26, 2023 UAP Hearing Record - Official House Oversight Committee hearing transcript and sworn witness statements by Grusch, Fravor, and Graves.
• ODNI 2021 Preliminary Assessment on UAP - Foundational June 25, 2021 Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessment on 144 military UAP incidents.
• AARO Historical Record Report Volume 1 - Official All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office report reviewing USG involvement with UAP from 1945 to 2023.