Lawmakers call for centralized reporting, more investigation on UFOs

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NewsNation) — Lawmakers conducting hearings into UFO sightings promised to continue to look into how the government handles such information, but little new information was revealed by witnesses.

Ultimately, lawmakers pledged to continue efforts to investigate allegations the government was concealing evidence of non-human craft and operating without Congressional oversight as well as working to create more ways for service members and civilians to report suspicious sightings.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee heard from three witnesses Wednesday morning after a whistleblower filed a complaint claiming the U.S. has been concealing evidence of non-human aircraft. The hearings were a rare show of bipartisanship, as members of both parties pressed for answers on the issue.

Much of what was revealed in the hearings had been shared before, including claims from whistleblower David Grusch that the government was operating a secret UFO crash retrieval program and was are of the existence of what he called “non-human” entities.

Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, first brought his claims in a complaint to Congress and detailed his accusations exclusively to NewsNation last month.

During the hearing, Grusch claimed people had been harmed in government coverups of UFO technology.

“Do you have any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover or conceal these extraterrestrial technology?” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., asked Grusch

“Yes, personally,” replied Grusch.

When Burchett followed up the question with another about whether Grusch believed people had been “murdered,” the witness was more evasive and said he wanted “to be careful” with that question and that he had “directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.”

When pressed on specific details or asked to provide proof for some of the more shocking claims, Grusch declined to answer a number of questions in an open setting, though he committed to giving more detail in closed-door briefings. That included providing more proof for his claims the government had retrieved materials from crashes and had been aware of the existence of non-human intelligent life since the 1930s.

Several lawmakers indicated they had attempted to arrange for a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, which is used for briefings on top-secret information but had been denied.

Grusch was joined by former Navy pilot Ryan Graves who told NewsNation he has first-hand accounts of UFOs and former U.S. Navy commander David Fravor, one of the pilots who flew close to the viral video of a Tic Tac-shaped craft.

Fravor testified that reporting on the viral Tic-Tac incident was just a standard debrief but “no one else talked to (him)” about the incident.

Graves indicated UAP sightings were more frequent than publicly acknowledged, noting that discussions on them had become a nearly-routine part of briefings for military pilots. Still, he said many military and civilian pilots feared coming forward with their experiences due to fears of career reprisal.

Those that did come forward, Graves stated, often faced administrative harassment and consequences for speaking out.

All three witnesses agreed that the incidents they were aware of included objects that could maneuver in a way current technology would be unable to achieve. They also agreed that such objects, regardless of origin, could potentially pose a significant national security threat.

When questioned, the men all agreed that it was possible the encounters represented efforts to conduct surveillance on U.S. military capabilities and vulnerabilities, including the country’s nuclear capacity. Grusch also indicated an additional national security threat, that of confusion surrounding a UFO-related incident leading to an escalating conflict between the U.S. and terrestrial adversaries.

A small group of Republicans says the Pentagon and Air Force recently blocked lawmakers from seeing images and information about UFOs as well as from reading testimony about seeing possible alien aircraft from witnesses, two of whom spoke with NewsNation directly.

Some lawmakers were paying more attention to the proceedings than others. The Hill reports House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently brushed off a question about Grusch’s claims.

“I will continue to see, but I think if we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us, because they probably want to request more money,” McCarthy told The Hill. “I’m very supportive of letting the American public see whatever we have.”

California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar also rebuffed concerns about UAPs and their origins, The Hill reported.

“There are so many things that we get an opportunity to dig into and talk about here. It’s really the reason why people run for Congress, is to help their constituents and to weigh in on serious things. And this is just not in my top 20 that constituents in my district are asking me about or talking about,” Aguilar told The Hill.

Meanwhile, others are interested in the questions that might be raised by what the witnesses will have to say.

“My primary interest in this topic is if there are … object(s) operating over restricted air space, it’s not ours and we don’t know whose it is, that’s a problem that we need to get to the bottom of,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

NewsNation livestreamed the hearing and you can watch it in the player above.