Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our witnesses for coming here today. I do concur with the ranking member, as well as several other members here on this committee, that this is a committee for whistleblowers and for the protection of whistleblowers as well. So we understand what you're putting on the table here and what you're putting on the line here. And we thank you for that. Mr. Grusch, you sat on the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon task force created in the 2020 NDAA, correct?
Yes.
There have been some things that have been mentioned here during this hearing that I wanted to pick up on. Mr. Graves, you mentioned specifically during the answer to one of your questions you named Boeing contractors being engaged in an incident regarding this red cube about a football field wide. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about the interaction or Mr. Grusch, either of you, the interactions between defense contractor companies and any UAP related programs or activities.
So I'll just say that the information about the contractor himself were provided by a witness, and I have no particular detail in that relationship.
Understand... Mr. Gresh?
The kind of general, unclassed wave tops. Certainly the contractors are the metal benders, so to speak. They're the ones actually doing specific performance on government contracts.
Are they required to issue any disclosure regarding UAP sightings, or do they engage in any reporting around this?
In terms of the contractors? Not that I'm aware of, they do not.
Okay. Now, when it comes to notification that you had mentioned about IRAP programs, we have seen defense contractors abuse their contracts before through this committee. I have seen it personally, and I have also seen the notification requirements to Congress abused. I am wondering, one of the loopholes that we see in the law is that there is, at least from my vantage point, is that depending on what we're seeing, is that there are no actual definitions or requirements for notification. Are there... What methods of notification did you observe? Like when they say they notified Congress, how did they do that? Do you have insight into that?
For certain Irat activities? I can only think of ones conventional in nature. Sometimes they flow through certain, I'll just say SAP programs that have cognizant authority over the Air Force or something. And those are congressionally reported compartments, but I read is literally internal to the contractor. So as long as it's money, either profits, private investment, et cetera, they can do whatever they want.
To put a finer point on it, when there is a requirement for any agency or company or any agency to notify Congress, do they contact the chairman of a committee? Do they get them on the phone? Specifically? Is this through an email to, hypothetically, a dead email box?
A lot of it comes through what they call the PPR periodic program review process. If it's a SAP or Controlled Access Program Equity. And then those go to the specific committees, whether it be the SAS task. Hise.
thank you. I apologize. My time is limited. Mr. Graves, one of your main concerns, that the FAA currently does not have an official process to receive reports of UAP from pilots or others, correct? Correct. And in your experience, what data should the Aero program prioritize for potential collection? We have location, date, time. But are there other specific characteristics that should be included in these reports?
Certainly. I think that there's two categories that would be important. One would be kinematics and understanding the specifics of how the vehicle or objects are moving. And the second would be a more zoomed out approach of being able to look at origin and destination after before the incident, as well as getting a better contextual understanding of how these objects are interacting with each other.
Thank you. Now, because I only have a minute left, I apologize, we only have five minutes today. But for the record, if you were me, where would you look? Titles. Programs, departments, regions. If you could just name anything and I put that as an open question to the three of you.
I'd be happy to give you that. In a closed environment, I can tell you specifically.
Thank you. Commander Fravor?
I would say, and I've told people that you have to know where to look. They're not going to divulge it to you because of classification levels. But if you know where to look and who to talk to, which is exactly what Mr. Grusch can point you, then you have them.
Okay. Mr. Graves?
I was an operator, so I was depending on folks like Mr. Grusch to do that homework.
Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back to the chair.