UFO Whistleblower: What I Told Congress Was the “Tip of the Iceberg”

Huge if true.

Catch and Release

In a new editorial, one of Congress' recent UFO whistleblowers revealed a glaring hole in the government's plan to track and study what it refers to as "unidentified aerial phenomena" or UAPs.

Whistleblower Ryan Graves wrote for Newsweek that during his tenure as a Naval pilot, he and his team regularly encountered aircraft off the coast of Virginia Beach that "had no visible propulsion... but could remain motionless in Category-4 hurricane winds, accelerate to supersonic, and operate all day, outlasting our fighter jets."

These sorts of encounters with UAPs happen all the time, noted Graves — who co-founded and now acts as executive director of a group called Americans for Safe Aerospace — but because they often happen outside of the military's purview, the Pentagon doesn't seem to care much.

"Today, these same UAP are still being seen; we still don't know what they are; and our government has no idea of the scope of the problem," the whistleblower wrote. "That's because pilots, both commercial and military, are encountering UAP, and the majority of these cases are going unreported."

Prior to his late July testimony, Graves claimed that Americans for Safe Aerospace had been in contact with more than 30 people who'd witnessed UAPs. Since his headline-grabbing appearance before the House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, he said that even more people had come forward with their stories.

Most of those witnesses, the ex-pilot added, fly commercial airliners for a living, and the most recent of those reports was issued just last week.

Circling Back

In spite of recent years' joint Pentagon and Congress efforts to bring UAPs into the daylight, there still isn't a streamlined reporting protocol, claimed Graves, noting that the Federal Aviation Administration simply directs commercial pilots to report incidents to non-governmental groups without any "official follow up or analysis."

In short: there are, as the whistleblower claims, tons more of these sightings than the government lets on — and the government has already let on a lot. And while the veracity of these claims has been called into question even by true believers, the lack of reporting structure outside the confines of the US military is, to say the least, troubling. If Graves is to be believed, the oversight creates a massive hole in the government's understanding of these strange and increasingly-mainstreamed sightings.

"Commercial pilots are highly trained observers of our skies," the whistleblower wrote. "Why then is our government turning its back on the UAP reports from credible eyewitnesses who are responsible for the safety of millions and are motivated to protect our national security?"

More on UFO rhetoric: Annoyed William Shatner Weighs in on Claims of Government Harboring UFOs