Comments from Senator Gillibrand on HOC hearing and AARO

[MonkeeSage]

In an interview published today in City & State, Sen. Gillibrand remarks on the HOC hearing and AARO.

Article:

What were your biggest takeaways from the recent testimony about alleged secret government programs involving UFOs?

They are very serious allegations. The hearing had two sets of testimony. The first was from pilots who saw an object flying in the sky that looked like a Tic Tac that had very strange patterns and abilities. Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed, which is how I got involved in the issue. We want our pilots and our service members to come forward when they see things that they cannot identify, which is why I created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office to review all of these unidentified aerial phenomena in a scientific and thorough way.

So far, they are looking at about 600 (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) reports and data sets and they've only finished about half of them. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence made a report on what AARO accomplished in January. There they assessed the first 366 unidentified aerial phenomena, about 26 were basically drone-like systems, 163 were balloon or balloon like-entities, six were birds or debris, but they couldn't identify 171. We realized for AARO to really work better we are going to need a lot more sensors around military bases, nuclear sites, on our aircrafts. That is going to be one of my to-dos for the new Congress. Some of the unidentified aerial phenomena is going to be Chinese, some is going to be Russian, some is going to be Iranian and some may be others. But we need to know what we can know and at least identify the knowable so our pilots are safer, so that we know what else is in the sky. We were not tracking these spy balloons when the AARO office was created. That's a problem. We need to know when our adversaries are spying on us. We need domain awareness, and we need air superiority. If our adversaries have technology that we don't have, we need to know about it.

The second testimony was about a service member whose job was to investigate all UAP programs and co-locate them and write an assessment. Through that effort, this whistleblower met several people who said they had worked on alien-related programs where they either had crash material or that crash material resulted in dead aliens. I have no ability to verify that testimony because we've not been told of any such programs. We've asked for all information related to all programs and have not been given that detail. One of three things are true: Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that were alien-related which weren't, or they are making it up, or these programs do exist and the Department of Defense is not either read in on it, or the need to know is so small that the people that have been testifying in front of us don't know about it, or they are just misrepresenting the facts.

I intend to get to the bottom of it. I think these service members – certainly the whistleblowers that I've met – are very thoughtful, serious people. So I really want to investigate it to its fullest. An arrow stands for (All-domain) Anomaly Resolution Office.

I understand you helped secure full funding for AARO this year, but do you feel like the U.S. is doing enough to research and review unidentified anomalous phenomena incidents?

I think this AARO office is excellent and built to do this job. If there are special access programs – they are called SAP programs – that Congress was not read in on, we put an amendment in the defense bill to say they can't be funded. We do not want to be misled. We do not want to be led astray. We want to get to the bottom of this and this office is perfectly positioned to do that work.

Source: https://www.cityandstateny.com/personality/2023/08/kirsten-gillibrand-wants-know-truth-about-aliens/389198/

In particular I am curious about this portion:

I have no ability to verify that testimony because we've not been told of any such programs. We've asked for all information related to all programs and have not been given that detail. One of three things are true: Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that were alien-related which weren't, or they are making it up, or these programs do exist and the Department of Defense is not either read in on it, or the need to know is so small that the people that have been testifying in front of us don't know about it, or they are just misrepresenting the facts.

Sen. Gillibrand is on the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence. The reporting I have seen indicates that Grusch testified before the SSCI in a closed TS/SCI hearing for over 8 hours with his lawyer, a court reporter, and 2 committee lawyers in December 2022. Other whistleblowers also have done the same according to Corbell and Knapp and Coulthart. My understanding is that Gillibrand would have access to all of this testimony as a member of the committee.

So how is it possible that she has asked for the details about the alleged programs but has not received them? Am I misunderstanding? Did Grusch not actually provide the details in his testimony at the closed hearing?

 

[deirdre]

Did Grusch not actually provide the details in his testimony at the closed hearing?

she can't verify his testimony she said.

The first was from pilots who saw an object flying in the sky that looked like a Tic Tac that had very strange patterns and abilities. Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed,

Fravor had his career derailed? (i forget the other guys name)

 

[Duke]

Fravor had his career derailed? (i forget the other guys name)

No, in fact he said just the opposite.

Jamie Raskin: mister Frever, what what about you? What has your experience been since you've come forward with your perspective on this?


David Fravor: Actually, I've been treated very well. And the six people that were involved myself included, all of them have or will be retiring from the military as o five zero sixes, And all my friends that are very senior, three and four stars, I've talked to them. They they believe they they understand there's a problem, but now I've I was actually treated really well.

https://picdataset.com/ai-news/full...ng-on-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena/?amp=1

 

[MonkeeSage]

she can't verify his testimony she said.

She is initially talking about his "recent testimony" (at the HOC hearing) as mentioned in the question. I don't understand her stated reasons for being unable to verify that HOC testimony in light of other reported testimony to SSCI she seems to be referencing later ("the people that have been testifying in front of us").

 

[Ann K]

Some of the unidentified aerial phenomena is going to be Chinese, some is going to be Russian, some is going to be Iranian and some may be others.

(from Gillebrand's statement.)
That sounds like an unsupportable statement in the first place, because that's not what unidentified means. (Edit to add: nor does unidentified mean "mysterious" or "sinister" in any way.) I'd have been asking her what percent of the identified objects have already been shown to be Chinese, Russian, or Iranian, because that statement would seem to be thrown in there to scare people and/or raise money for the project. And if those sightings have not been identified yet, there's probably a reason (*cough* LIZ *cough*) that makes it much less likely that further study of a fuzzy pixel will identify them in the future.

 

[JMartJr]

Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed, which is how I got involved in the issue.

Gillibrand Statement.

I am finding it hard to come up with a charitable explanation for this statement, given Cmdr. Fravor's statement of the opposite being the case. Perhaps she's conflating Grusch's claimed retaliation with Fravor's experience? But if it's how she got involved inthe issue, I'd expect her to understand what she's claiming better than this.

 

[Narfi]

Sen. Gillibrand is on the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence. The reporting I have seen indicates that Grusch testified before the SSCI in a closed TS/SCI hearing for over 8 hours with his lawyer, a court reporter, and 2 committee lawyers in December 2022. Other whistleblowers also have done the same according to Corbell and Knapp and Coulthart. My understanding is that Gillibrand would have access to all of this testimony as a member of the committee.

https://www.askapol.com/p/exclusivemarco-rubio-you-have-to?sd=pf#details

In this short interview with Matt Laslo Senator Rubio, who is also on the SSCI, says

"...our job on the committee is the whistleblower aspect of it, the retribution part of it. The other part of it, to be clear, he's [Grusch] not claiming to have first hand knowledge of it..."

So I don't think Grusch's SSCI testimony relates to the alien coverup, but maybe his House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence testimony did? Hopefully someone who understands American Government better than me can make some sense of it.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed, which is how I got involved in the issue.

Gillibrand Statement.

I am finding it hard to come up with a charitable explanation for this statement, given Cmdr. Fravor's statement of the opposite being the case. Perhaps she's conflating Grusch's claimed retaliation with Fravor's experience? But if it's how she got involved inthe issue, I'd expect her to understand what she's claiming better than this.

Fravor testified and Dietrich wasn't there (she went on to a good career). Graves testified and he didn't see any Tic Tacs. He saw a dark gray or black cube within a clear sphere.

The first was from pilots who saw an object flying in the sky that looked like a Tic Tac that had very strange patterns and abilities. Those pilots were retaliated against, and their careers were derailed,

This was Grusch who filed a complaint:

The second testimony was about a service member whose job was to investigate all UAP programs and co-locate them and write an assessment. Through that effort, this whistleblower met several people who said they had worked on alien-related programs where they either had crash material or that crash material resulted in dead aliens.

Grusch wasn't a pilot.

The former intelligence officer also told the panel that he and several other colleagues have been the targets of "administrative terrorism," and that he has at times feared for his life since coming forward.

"It was very brutal and very unfortunate. Some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally," he said, adding that there is currently an open investigation into the matter.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps

I can't make sense of it either.

 

[Mick West]

Article:

Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that were alien-related which weren't

Source: https://www.cityandstateny.com/personality/2023/08/kirsten-gillibrand-wants-know-truth-about-aliens/389198/

I think that should be "Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that they thought were alien-related which weren't".

I've emailed Donaldson to check.

 

[Eburacum]

Graves testified and he didn't see any Tic Tacs. He saw a dark gray or black cube within a clear sphere.

Did he? Or did he just report someone else seeing this thing?
According to this article by Graves, it was the 'flight leader' who made this report. Does Graves habitually refer to himself in the third person?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/28/ufo-uap-navy-intelligence-00084537

I almost hit one of those damn things!" the flight leader, still shaken by the incident, told us shortly after in the pilots' ready room. We all knew exactly what he meant. "Those damn things" had been plaguing us for the previous eight months.

Graves may well be reporting these testimonies accurately, but he never seems to talk about his own sightings, if any.

 

[MonkeeSage]

I think that should be "Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that they thought were alien-related which weren't".

I've emailed Donaldson to check.

This is probably also a transcription error "An arrow stands for (All-domain) Anomaly Resolution Office."

 

[DavidB66]

Graves testified and he didn't see any Tic Tacs. He saw a dark gray or black cube within a clear sphere.

It's very difficult to keep track of these things, but I'm almost certain that Graves has denied personally seeing anything anomalous. (Eburacum also questions this point at #10 above.) People may get a contrary impression because Graves sometimes seems very confident about what the anomalous phenomena he hasn't personally seen can't be. For example, he has somewhere said that the 'cube in a sphere' objects can't be radar reflectors.

 

[NorCal Dave]

That sounds like an unsupportable statement in the first place, because that's not what unidentified means. (Edit to add: nor does unidentified mean "mysterious" or "sinister" in any way.) I'd have been asking her what percent of the identified objects have already been shown to be Chinese, Russian, or Iranian, because that statement would seem to be thrown in there to scare people and/or raise money for the project.

Agreed. The old "foreign adversary" Straw Man raises his head again. To be sure, it appears that there have been some drone swarms around Navy craft, but they are drones, not UAPs and certainly not UAPs as most people think of them.

And I don't think she's talking about drones or balloons here or she could have clarified. It seems to be the usual insinuation that there are UAPs that deify physics, out class our aircraft and might be Russian, Chinese or even Iranian(?!).

Everything from AASWAP/AATIP to Project Stargate were at least partially justified by a giant sense of FOMO. The "______________" (insert foreign adversary here) might have ESP or anti-gravity drives or captured alien spacecraft they're reverse engineering. We have to keep up. Even if we don't know what we're keeping up with.

The Russians, in all most 2 years, have not been able to establish air superiority over their half-pint neighbor Ukraine. Their most high-tech military equipment relies on western tech, not their own. They can build jets and they can hack computers, but I think if Putin had a collection of anti-gravity physics defying aircraft, he would have used them to defeat Ukraine and scare the hell out of NATO.

The Chinese are beholding to whatever Xi says. The country has never been a hotbed of technology break throughs. Their J20 is better than the Russians though:

By 2019, aviation researchers believed that the progress of J-20 signified that China had surpassed Russia in the application of contemporary aviation technologies such as composite materials, advanced avionics, and long-range weapons systems.[224][225] According to Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute, the J-20 is one of the examples of how China has transitioned from the dependency of Russian technology to developing indigenous sensors and weapons that are superior to those of Russia; and how China is beginning to build a clear lead over Russia in most aspects of combat aircraft development in the 2020s.[226] The J-20 also symbolizes that the Western Bloc is losing the monopoly on stealth fighter technologies.[227]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20

But do they have physics defying aircraft?

I don't know where she got the Iranians from. Under savvier sanctions, they barely manage to keep their '70s era F4s, F5s, F14s and assorted Soviet and Chinese aircraft flying. But they may have managed a radical TicTak craft that defies physics?

Yes, each country needs to be vigilant in what other countries are doing, but I think it is a straw man when used with UAPs. We all know what they mean when they say UAP. Grusch has confirmed it, it means alien. Just come out and say it.

 

[jarlrmai]

At this point there are so many people, accounts, videos, retcons, things that were never mentioned until debunks pointed them out and a continual retelling game of telephone with conflation of stories, who took what video, who saw what when, who is just retelling someone else story etc etc ad infinitum.

It's almost impossible for anyone to have a clear idea of all these interleaving narratives, who said what and whether they changed their mind or clarified it or countered it or gave it new context in an interview on a podcast/news show/senate hearing/SCIF/Conversation in the gents between Burchett and Graves.

I'm sure 90% of people think Fravor took the video called Gimbal and it shows the Tic Tac etc, and no-one in the NHI Lobby seems to be keen to keep score and correct mistakes, instead they just let Grusch retell every UFO story since WW2 and add it all to the melting pot.

It's no wonder people just starting to "take this seriously" are confused/making mistakes and there's also no-one in any position of prominence who has any view of the skeptical side of things, no-one saying maybe look into these Skinwalker Ranch UFO/Paranormal enthusiasts given the keys to the Pentagon years ago by Reid/Bigelow.

And the idea that this even happened almost seems crazier than the idea that the US Military has captured alien technology.

 

[lockedupsafe]

It's very difficult to keep track of these things, but I'm almost certain that Graves has denied personally seeing anything anomalous. (Eburacum also questions this point at #10 above.) People may get a contrary impression because Graves sometimes seems very confident about what the anomalous phenomena he hasn't personally seen can't be. For example, he has somewhere said that the 'cube in a sphere' objects can't be radar reflectors.

On this:

Graves has testified to seeing anomalous RADAR returns on newly-installed RADAR systems on his squadron's F/A-18s. That could very well just be down to poorly-tested/calibrated equipment. He said during the hearing that he never made a visual confirmation of whatever objects may have been causing these RADAR returns, but others in his squadron / based on his carrier did.

They claimed to have seen "dark cubes inside transparent spheres," which really sounds like a RADAR-reflecting balloon, and he's acknowledged that similarity in a recent interview. I will say, though, that the reason two jets almost collided with one of these things (it passed between their wingtips as they flew in formation) was because neither jet picked it up on RADAR, suggesting it's a RADAR reflector that doesn't reflect anything. This could be equipment malfunction, but it's weird it happened to both jets.

In fairness, Graves' testimony has always been the most prosaic, and in his defence I don't think he's ever made strong allusions to any exotic origin of these objects - he's been quite consistent in the interviews I've seen him give that he is coming at this exclusively from an air safety perspective: he claims that these objects were so prolific in active airspace that they were routinely discussed as a point of caution in pre-flight briefings. His big push has been to get a better, more robust system for reporting anomalous objects in the air that covers all branches of military aviation and civilian aviation, and I think that's sensible regardless of the origin of these things.

(My first thought when I heard his description was of RADAR reflectors, but a 15-foot RADAR reflector must have a signature like a jumbo jet or bigger, so how it wasn't showing up on RADAR is beyond me - in the story Graves has told, neither jet had noted that their RADAR systems were non-functional or switched off.)

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Did he? Or did he just report someone else seeing this thing?
According to this article by Graves, it was the 'flight leader' who made this report. Does Graves habitually refer to himself in the third person?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/28/ufo-uap-navy-intelligence-00084537

Graves may well be reporting these testimonies accurately, but he never seems to talk about his own sightings, if any.

I thought so too. Looks like the NPR story got it wrong. This is from his opening statement at the hearing:

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 invasive action. They terminated the mission immediately and returned to base. Our squadrons submitted a safety report, but there was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ryan-HOC-Testimony.pdf

 

[Duke]

I don't know where she got the Iranians from. Under savvier sanctions, they barely manage to keep their '70s era F4s, F5s, F14s and assorted Soviet and Chinese aircraft flying. But they may have managed a radical TicTak craft that defies physics?

Yes, each country needs to be vigilant in what other countries are doing, but I think it is a straw man when used with UAPs. We all know what they mean when they say UAP. Grusch has confirmed it, it means alien. Just come out and say it.

Yeah, the Iranians have rolled at least three "indigenous" advanced fighter jets over the last couple decades that all turned out to be upgraded, US produced F-5s.

Iran unveiled the fighter jet at a defense show in Tehran on Tuesday, calling the Kowsar a "fourth-generation" fighter, with "advanced avionics" and multi-purpose radar, the Iranian news agency Tasnim said, adding that it was "100-percent indigenously made."

But analysts quickly noted similarities between the plane and the F-5 fighter jet, made by Northrop-Grumman in the 1950s.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-mocks-irans-indigenous-fighter-jet-as-copy-of-obsolete-f-5/

They also claimed to have developed a 5th generation, stealth fighter jet that turned out to be a sham.

The jet initially greeted with skepticism, became a laughing stock among the military enthusiasts, who dismissed it as a crude mock-up and a stunt designed to impress the domestic audience.

The military aviation experts after taking a cursory look at the images and videos released by Iran showing the fighter jet said it was simply impossible for this 'prototype' to even fly.

https://www.eurasiantimes.com/qaher...-looks-to-challenge-us-f-35-f-22-raptors/?amp

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

It's very difficult to keep track of these things, but I'm almost certain that Graves has denied personally seeing anything anomalous. (Eburacum also questions this point at #10 above.) People may get a contrary impression because Graves sometimes seems very confident about what the anomalous phenomena he hasn't personally seen can't be. For example, he has somewhere said that the 'cube in a sphere' objects can't be radar reflectors.

This was the source:

Graves recounted an incident with a flying object off the coast of Virginia Beach in 2014. While flying an F-18, he said, he came upon an aircraft that looked like a "dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere" that he estimated to be five to 15 feet in diameter and unlike any aircraft he has ever seen. Grave claimed the UAP could remain stationary despite hurricane-force winds.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps

It's incorrect. Shame on NPR.

 

[FatPhil]

And the idea that this even happened almost seems crazier than the idea that the US Military has captured alien technology.

Indeed, but there's a supposed Einstein quote (now better supposed to be a misattribution, not that it matters, as Alexandre Dumas Jr. said basically the same thing nearly a century earlier) that seems to explains it all.

The noughties brought us security theatre, the twenties is bringing us intelligence theatre. Something must be done! This is something, therefore we must do it.

 

[Mendel]

We realized for AARO to really work better we are going to need a lot more sensors around military bases, nuclear sites, on our aircrafts.

More money for the military-industrial complex, but won't fix the LIZ problem. (See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ufo-acronyms-what-is-the-liz.11742/ )

If our adversaries have technology that we don't have, we need to know about it.

There's no evidence for that. The implication that some adversary can successfully develop and test military technology without the US IC finding out about it is an insult to them.

One of three things are true: Either it doesn't exist and they worked on programs that were alien-related which weren't, or they are making it up, or these programs do exist and the Department of Defense is not either read in on it, or the need to know is so small that the people that have been testifying in front of us don't know about it, or they are just misrepresenting the facts.

This feels like the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch.

So how is it possible that she has asked for the details about the alleged programs but has not received them? Am I misunderstanding? Did Grusch not actually provide the details in his testimony at the closed hearing?

That's a good question.

One of three things are true: Either it doesn't exist and Grusch worked on programs that were alien-related which weren't, or Grusch is making it up, or these programs do exist and the Grusch is not either read in on it, or the need to know is so small that Grusch doesn't know about it, or Grusch is just misrepresenting the facts.

 

[Mendel]

My first thought when I heard his description was of RADAR reflectors, but a 15-foot RADAR reflector must have a signature like a jumbo jet or bigger, so how it wasn't showing up on RADAR is beyond me

Maybe someone was testing radar-absorbent paint under real-world conditions?

Graves claimed the UAP could remain stationary despite hurricane-force winds.

Tethered balloons exist. Aviators can easily overlook the tethers.

The military aviation experts after taking a cursory look at the images and videos released by Iran showing the fighter jet said it was simply impossible for this 'prototype' to even fly.

Well, clearly this means that Iran has access to breakthrough technology! Or their propaganda is lying. Take your pick.