Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In l'année d'avant, NASA announced that it was commissioning an independent study team to examine UAPs. The NASA team is comprised of scientists across different fields, as well as former astronauts and pilots. In May, the independent study team held that its first public meeting, which included the perspectives from NASA senior leaders, as well as perspectives from the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies. The NASA study team is also expected to release its first report pretty soon, and I think it's safe to say that we all eagerly await its results. Mr. Graves, how might NASA's research influence the commercial industry regarding safety in UAP?
I think NASA has a big role to play as far as commercial aviation safety, and it's one of their original charges as an organization. One of the recommendations that have been put forward is to utilize their existing aviation Safety Reporting System to serve as a short term fill and trusted platform for pilots that want to report on UAP. It also has built in analytics capability and is funded by Congress.
Gotcha. And also, Mr. Graves, are there any other industries that may be influenced by the NASA research on the UAPs? And if so, how so?
Well, I think there is a large swath of commercial capabilities that could be brought to bear on this topic from space based or ground based sensor systems that are available, open source or through commercial marketplaces. And I think NASA's work as they work to identify and highlight specific parameters that can be found. We can take that information and promulgate this through the public sector so that we can have a more open conversation about what we're seeing.
In 2020, the Department of Defense released several videos of UAPs, including Mr. Frayer's experience us. Navy pilots that recorded footage. In l'année suivante, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary report on UAP events. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that NASA would begin to investigate these events. In fact, I sit on Science, Space and Technology Committee, and when we were doing a hearing with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, I asked why NASA needed to be fully funded. And there were many great reasons, but one of them actually had to do with UAPs. He actually know, is there life out there, I don't know. And so either way, these actions ultimately led NASA to assemble the independent study team that I mentioned earlier. Also, in 2021, Harvard University stood up the Galileo Project to research and examine the origins of UAP. So it seems like both from NASA and in the higher education community, because of the work that y'all have done and people standing know, I think we're seeing some of that stigma slowly going away. Mr. Frayor, do you believe that military pilots feeling empowered to share their UAP experiences has directly impacted the scientific community's research goals?
On this topic, I would say yes. I would say that starting in 2017, when it actually came out, it took that stigma away. I've talked to multiple senators who said, prior to that, if you'd have mentioned UAP, you'd have been laughed off the hill. And now we're sitting here today for a public testimony on what's actually going on. I'm hoping that this curve will be more of an exponential and we'll get more and more transparent to the level that we can.
Yeah, I mean, it's important. I couldn't imagine I'm not a pilot, but I used to fly gliders in civil air patrol.
pilot?
Yeah, yeah. And so either way, I couldn't imagine being in the glider and seeing something and then not feeling like I had the agency to talk about it. Mr. Graves, can you discuss the importance of seeking scientists to sit on your advisory board?
Absolutely. I think ultimately, this is going to be a scientific problem. And not only that, it's also an engineering problem. I've been working with American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics to help them stand up a UAP integration Committee to help integrate their engineering prowess into this problem. And so, yes, very much. I think this is an engineering and scientific problem as much as a national security problem.
And how might Congress help to facilitate partnerships between the scientific community and the UAP focused groups within government?
Well, I think one of the things they can do is to have these types of hearings to communicate to the public that this is a topic of interest. I think that there is a pseudo market, if you will, of interested capabilities and talent that want to approach this topic. And we're seeing that start to grow now. So I think continued conversation reduction of stigma is going to allow that to flourish and allow answers to help generate themselves.
100%. Well, thank you all for being here, and thank you for your work. I think it's important that we keep our top scientific minds focused on this issue and look for ways to increase collaboration. Thank you so much. I yield back.