On Capitol Hill today, a bipartisan call
for more government transparency on UFOs
or as the military calls them,
unidentified aerial phenomena. UAPs.
Three retired
military veterans testified
before a House subcommittee.
One was asked about alien bodies.
Two others talked about seeing Europe's.
In a moment,
I'll talk with the retired
Navy pilot who saw with her own eyes
what one UAP was capable
of off the coast of San Diego years ago.
First, more on today's
testimony from CNN's Oren Liebermann
in
There's a whole fleet available to come
and say
the videos
of mysterious airborne objects
have captured the public's attention.
Going against the wind,
the wind,
the Hudson pointing out west Helsinki
and perhaps its imagination.
There lies a pressing demand
for government transparency
and accountability
that cannot be overlooked.
As Wednesday's hearing focused
on the threat they may pose
and whether the government
has been too secretive
about what it knows.
If you appear foreign drones
is an urgent national security problem,
If it is, something else
is an issue for science.
In either case, unidentified
objects are concerned for flight safety.
David Gruss,
a former military intel officer, claimed
the U.S.
had alien bodies and spacecraft,
a statement
for which he admitted
he has second hand info and no proof.
You've said the U.S.
has intact space spacecraft.
You said that the government has alien
bodies.
I have to be careful
to describe what I've seen firsthand
and not in this environment.
Have you seen any of the bodies?
That's something I've not
witnessed myself.
The House
Oversight hearing
was a rare moment of bipartisanship
in a sharply divided Congress.
We're not bringing little green men
or flying saucers into the hearing.
We're just going to get to the facts.
We should encourage more reporting,
not less on UAPS.
The more we understand,
the safer we will be.
One of the witnesses was former
Navy pilot
Ryan Graves,
who now runs Americans for Safe Aerospace
a group that encourages
pilots to report incidents of UFOs
officially known as UAP.
Unidentified aerial phenomena.
The vast majority of sightings,
he says, are never reported.
This is an approximation
based off of my personal experience,
speaking with a number of pilots,
but I would estimate
we're somewhere near 5% reporting
perhaps the three witnesses
all retired
military veterans warn
the threat these objects pose is real.
Based off of your own experience
or the data that you've been privy to,
is there any indication that these UAPs
could be essentially
collecting reconnaissance information?
Mr. Graves.
Yes.
Mr. Fair assessment?
Mr. Fravor. Very possible.
David Fravor, a retired U.S.
Navy commander,
picked up this
on his aircraft sensors in 2004,
a reading
he claimed was something
far superior to anything the U.S. had.
You're talking some thinking
go into space,
go someplace,
drop down in a matter of seconds.
Do whatever it wants and leave.
And there's nothing we can do about it.
In April,
the head of the Pentagon's office
looking into these incidents,
told lawmakers
there were about 650
potential cases of UAPs.
About half of which,
he said, may be of interesting value.
The White House said Wednesday
it's still working
on figuring out those answers.
If your question is
do we think we need to be transparent
with the American people?
Of course we need to be as transparent
as we can be.
But the truth is, Jeremy,
we don't have hard and fast answers
on these things.
We are trying to get smarter on it.
Oren Liebermann, CNN, at the Pentagon.
More now on that strange sighting.
24 you just saw an orange report
one that resembled the Tic TAC.
Here again is that moment.
My next guest, along with the retired
Navy commander, David Fravor,
who testified today
witnessed this UAP
off the coast of San Diego.
During a routine training exercise.
Joining me with more is retired
Navy Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich,
Commander, thanks for being here.
You watched the hearing today.
You listened to the testimony.
What did you think?
What stood out to you
Well,
I was very proud of my colleagues,
the three witnesses,
Brian Graves,
David Gruss
and Commander David Fravor,
who was my skipper
at the time of our
UAP encounter back in 2004.
And I thought all three of them
did a great job of
maintaining their bearing, articulating
their experience and their expertize
and their recommendations
for the representatives
of Congress
to follow through, to investigate
both what has already happened
and to pave the way for a process
and the system to
collect in future encounters,
the information, the data,
analyze it in a systematic way and
make sense of it.
David Fravor was your commanding officer.
You you mentioned him on that day
back in 2004
when you saw the UAP,
which you refer to as the Tic TAC.
And we're showing that video now.
Commander Fravor
described the encounter again
today in the hearing.
What else do you personally
remember from from that encounter?
What stands out to you
all these years later?
So I thought Commander
Fravor did an excellent job
of recounting
a lot of the technical details.
The scenario that we were
in, that we were
in this
training exercises
off the coast of California,
we were a large carrier strike group,
the special group
of ships and squadrons of aircraft.
That is why
it was such a big deal that we had this
unidentified
aircraft or something in our airspace
operating
so close to a military exercise.
And the only thing that I would add to
the story that he that he tells is
what happened
in the moments and hours
and days afterwards,
which was disappointing
and it was underwhelming
in terms of the debrief that we received.
And so, again,
you know, I would advocate for
a process in place so that
when operators,
whether they're military pilots or
civilian commercial pilots or
anybody else who sees something
to have a way to report it
and to have a channel
through which it is collected
and analyzed in a systematic way.
And in the 18 years
since has anyone,
you know, in a position of
or anyone from the military,
anyone in a legitimate position
to investigate, been able
to give you any explanation
that makes sense about what you saw?
Oh, no explanations.
But I will say that
it took several years before
I was called into the Pentagon
to provide a thorough debrief.
And at that point, I was asked some very
good technical questions.
I mean, the thing that years ago
really got my attention and interest
was that a number of these videos
that have caught the public's
attention were not shot by civilians.
They were captured by military personnel
like this incident from 20, 15
off the Atlantic Coast.
11 years after your encounter,
I just want to show this
good
project that
happened shooting
Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
And
I mean, as somebody
who has encountered something,
when you see a video like that, what
what goes through your mind?
Well, I'm laughing
because I recognize their excitement.
That's exactly what we sounded like.
I can imagine.
I mean,
yeah, I mean, it's what is right.
And, you know, a lot of F-bombs and
you again, it's unexpected.
You know,
I'm confident that there are
other videos like this.
And if they're not recorded,
you know, certainly
other experiences like this
where people just know
what was that, you know?
And. Yeah.
Commander Alex Dietrich, really
appreciate your time. Thank you.
Thank you.