Pilot witness in Washington, DC

STATEMENT OF DAVID FRAVOR (RET.) FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER UNITED STATES NAVY Commander FRAVOR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressmen and Congresswomen. I want to first thank you for the invitation to speak to the Committee on the UAP topic. This has been in the news for the past 6 years and seems to be continuing to gain momentum. As you know, my name is David Fravor. I am 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 tasked to Carrier Airwing 11 stationed on board the USS Nimitz and had begun a 2-month workup cycle off the coast of California. On this day we were scheduled for a 2 V 2 air to air training with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off, Nimitz, my wingman, was joining up. We were told that the training was going to be suspended and we are 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. There the controller told us that these objects had been observed for over 2 weeks coming down from over 80,000 feet, rapidly descending to 20,000 feet, hanging out for hours and then going straight back up. For those that do not realize, above 80,000 feet is space. We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000 feet and the 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 is 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 whitecaps from waves. So, the whitewater stood out in a large blue ocean. All four of us, because we were an F–18F so we had pilots and WSO in the backseat, looked down and saw a 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 toward the object my WSO 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 would have been. Our altitude at this point was about 15,000 feet and a 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 wingman, roughly 8,000 feet above us, lost contact also. We immediately turned back to see where the whitewater was at, and it was gone also. So, as we started to turn back toward the 14 east, the controller came up and said, ‘‘sir, you are not going to believe this, but that thing is at your CAP point roughly 60 miles away in less than a minute.’’ You can calculate the speed. We returned to Nimitz. We were taking off our gear. We were talking to one of my crews, who was getting ready to launch. We mentioned it to him, and they went out and luckily got the video that you see, that 90-second video. What you do not see is the radar tape that was never released, and we do not know where it is at, of the act of jamming that the object put on an APG–73 radar, and I can get into modes later if you are interested. What is shocking to us is that the incident was never investigated. None of my crew were ever questioned. The tapes were never taken and after a couple days it turned into a great story with friends. It was not until 2009, until Jay Stratton had contacted me to investigate. Unbeknownst to all, he was part of the ATIP program in the Pentagon led by Lue Elizondo. There was an unofficial official report that came out that is now on the internet. Years later, I was contacted by the other pilot, Alex Dietrich, and asked if I would been contacted and I said no, but I am willing to talk. I was contacted by Mr. Elizondo, and we talked for a short period of time. He said we would be in contact. A few weeks after that I was made aware that Lue had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLonge, Chris Mellon, Steve Justice and others to form To the Stars Academy, an organization that pressed the issue with leading industry experts and U.S. Government officials. They work with Leslie Keane, who is present today, Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper to publish the articles in the 2017 New York Times and it removed the stigma on the topic of UFOs, which is why we are here today. Those articles opened 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 are they from, the technology they possess, how do they operate. It also led to the Whistleblower Protection Act in 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 is no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated with our government processing or working on craft believed not from this world. This issue is not a full public disclosure that can undermine national security, but it 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 waived 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 testimoneys 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. 15 If we in fact have programs that possess this technology, it 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.