Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressmen, Congresswoman.
I want to first thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee on the UAP topic that has been in the news for the past six years and seems to be continuing to gain momentum.
As you know, my name is David Fravor. I'm a retired commander in the United States Navy. In 2004, I was a commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, the world famous Black Aces.
We were attached to Carrier Wing Eleven, stationed on board the USS Nimitz, and had begun a two month workup cycle off the coast of California.
On this day, we were scheduled for a two V two aired air training with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off NIMITS, my wingman was joining up, we were told that the training was going to be suspended and we were going to proceed with real world tasking. As we proceeded to the west, the air controller was counting down the range to an object that we were going to, and we were unaware of what we were going to see when we arrived. The controller had told us that these objects had been observed for over two weeks, coming down from over 80,000ft, rapidly descending to 20,000ft, hanging out for hours, and then going straight back up. For those who don't realize, above 80,000ft is space. We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000ft in a controller called Merge Plot, which means that our radar blip was now in the same resolution cell as the contact. As we looked around, we noticed that we saw some whitewater off our right side. It's important to note that the weather on this day was as close to perfect as you could ask for off the coast of San Diego: clear skies, light winds, calm seas, no white caps from waves; so the white water stood out in a large blue ocean. All four of us, because we were in F 18 F, so we had pilots and wizzo in the backseat looked down a small, saw white Tic TAC object with a longitudinal axis pointing north south and moving very abruptly over the water like a ping pong ball. There were no rotors, no rotor wash or any sign of visible control surfaces like wings. As we started clockwise towards the object, my Wizzo and I decided to go down and take a closer look with the other aircraft staying in high cover to observe both us and the Tic TAC.
We proceeded around the circle about 90 degrees from the start of our descent, and the object suddenly shifted its longitudinal axis, aligned it with my aircraft and began to climb.
We continued down another 270 degrees, nose low, where the Tic TAC or we considered 270 degrees, and we went nose low to where the Tic TAC would have been. Our altitude at this point was about 15,000ft, and the Tic TAC was about 12,000. As we pulled nose onto the object, within about a half mile of it, it rapidly accelerated in front of us and disappeared. Our wingmen, roughly 8000ft above us, lost contact also. We immediately turned back to see where the whitewater was at, and it was gone also. So as you started to turn back towards the east, the controller came up and said, sir, you're not going to believe this, but that thing is at your cat point, roughly 60 miles away. In less than a minute, you can calculate the speed. We returned to Nimitz, were taking off our gear. We were talking to one of my crews that was getting ready to launch. We mentioned it to them, and they went out and luckily got the video that you see, that 92nd video. What you don't see is the radar tape that was never released, and we don't know where it's at of the active jamming that the object put on an APG 73 radar. And I can get into modes later if you're interested.
What is shocking to us is that the incident was never investigated. None of my crew were ever questioned, tapes were never taken, and after a couple of days, it turned into a great story with friends. It wasn't until 2009 till Jay Stratton had contacted me to investigate unbeknownst all. He was part of the ATIP program and the Pentagon, led by Lou Elizondo. There was an unofficial official report that came out that's now on the Internet. Years later, I was contacted by the other pilot, Alex Dietrich, and asked if I'd been contacted, and I said no, but I'm willing to talk.
I was contacted by Mr. Elizondo, and we talked for a short period of time, and he said we'd be in contact. A few weeks after that, I was made aware that Lou had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLong, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice, and others to form Two the Stars Academy, an organization that pressed the issue with leading industry experts and US Government officials. They worked with Leslie Kean, who was present today, Ralph Bluenthal and Helene Cooper, to publish the articles in The New York Times, 2017 New York Times, and it removed the stigma on the topic of UFOs, which is why we're here today.
Those articles open the door for the government and public that cannot be closed. It has led to an interest from our elected officials who are not focused on little green men, but figuring out where these craft are, where they from, the technology they possess, how do they operate. It also led to the Whistleblower Protection Act and the NDAA. There are multiple witnesses coming forward to say that have firsthand knowledge, and Mr. Grusch just covered that.
What concerns me is that there's no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated with our government processing or working on craft believe not from this world. This issue is not a full public disclosure that could undermine national security, but is about ensuring that our system of checks and balances works across all work done in the government using taxpayer funds.
Relative to government programs, even unacknowledged waive programs have some level of oversight by the appropriate committee members in the House and Senate. And this work that is said to be occurring from whistleblower testimonies should not be exempt.
In closing, I would like to say that the Tic TAC object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything that we had on time, have today or looking to develop in the next 10 years. If we in fact have programs that possess this technology and needs to have oversight from those people that the citizens of this great country elected in office to represent what is best for the United States and best for the citizens.
`I thank you for your time.
Thank you very much.