Former US Navy lieutenant, Ryan Graves describes how his testimony regarding UAPs is just the 'tip of the iceberg'

Ryan Graves said that his determination to know more about the subject urged him to co-found ‘Americans for Safe Aerospace’, the fastest-growing UAP non-profit in the world.

Ryan Graves, a former lieutenant US Navy, F/A-18F pilot and the co-founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace is one of the two Navy pilots who testified under oath to the Congress last month about the threat that unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) pose to the security of the United States.

As Graves shared his story with Newsweek, he recalled that nine years ago his F/A-18's squadron had tracked a UAP as they were operating off the Virginia Beach coast. The UAP had no lifting surfaces, “could remain motionless in Category-4 hurricane winds, accelerate to supersonic, and operate all day, outlasting our fighter jets by 10 hours or more.”

The UAP reportedly also caused a mid-air collision with the squadron jets, raising security threats.

He added that the same UAP are being seen even today and there is still no information about what they are. Accusing the government of having “no idea” of the scope that the problem of UAP has, Graves said that this was because most such encounters end up unreported.

He said that his determination to know more about the subject urged him to co-found ‘Americans for Safe Aerospace’, the fastest-growing UAP non-profit in the world.

As he testified to the Congress, he added that over 30 UAP witnesses have reached out to his organisation mainly because there is no official system to record the pilots’ reports on UAP.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not have a direct process for the commercial pilots to report unidentified objects. They have to go through civilian organisations without any official follow-up. He pointed out that the lack of interest the FAA shows and the fear of administrative punishment often discourages commercial pilots from reporting such incidents.

Elaborating on the type of witnesses he usually encountered, Ryan Graves said he has often spoken to commercial flyers of major airlines with decades of experience.

“Pilots are reporting UAP at altitudes that appear to be above them at 40,000 feet, potentially in low earth orbit or in the grey zone below the Karman line, making inexplicable maneuvers, like right hand turns and retrograde orbits, or j-hooks.” he added.

Shedding light on the huge amount of investment that goes into the training of commercial pilots, Graves questioned the government for “turning its back” on the UAP reports even though they come from credible eyewitnesses.

“If commercial pilots are routinely observing new foreign drones north of Hawaii, why wouldn't we want to track those reports? Why would the FAA not want to assess potential safety of flight implications? Why does our government want to leave open a domain awareness gap that could pose a flight risk and national security risk?”

Saying that these sightings are not rare anymore, Ryan Graves added that it was high time to start paying attention to the reports of sightings of unidentified objects.