It's just

one of those things like, you know, whether I've ever, you know, still to this day, whether I know what something is exactly or not, I've got an eye for quality.

You know, I mean, there's a lot of things I don't know anything about, but I can be in an antique mall and... know in san telmo argentina or down here in memphis and and um i can tell when something's uh quality and that's kind of how it was with the duck calls and um you know and i just but i knew what these calls were because of the you know the book duck calls of illinois that come out from um you know and the author of that book was my earliest mentor robert christensen from chicago But anyways, you know, so, you know, I ended up buying all these calls and it was like $2,500.

Unfortunately, I had a credit card, you know, connected to my eBay account.

You know, and that was one of those things like, you know, I didn't really have the money to buy them.

But, you know, funny enough, I have the bad habit of buying things first and worrying about how to pay for them second.

Yeah.

right

It's just

one of those things like, you know, whether I've ever, you know, still to this day, whether I know what something is exactly or not, I've got an eye for quality.

You know, I mean, there's a lot of things I don't know anything about, but I can be in an antique mall and... know in san telmo argentina or down here in memphis and and um i can tell when something's uh quality and that's kind of how it was with the duck calls and um you know and i just but i knew what these calls were because of the you know the book duck calls of illinois that come out from um you know and the author of that book was my earliest mentor robert christensen from chicago But anyways, you know, so, you know, I ended up buying all these calls and it was like $2,500.

Unfortunately, I had a credit card, you know, connected to my eBay account.

You know, and that was one of those things like, you know, I didn't really have the money to buy them.

But, you know, funny enough, I have the bad habit of buying things first and worrying about how to pay for them second.

Yeah.

right

What do you think we're looking at here?

Yeah.

Hey, Peter.

Thanks for having me on.

Good morning.

Well, you know, this is a case that actually came to Americans for Safe Aerospace, my nonprofit, first.

We assessed the information.

And do you think the public is ever going to be satisfied with just images and videos of UAP? Or do they need to see like a walking, talking alien from another planet to put the pieces together?

We want disclosure, we want to have transparency here, but yet on the other hand, there's a back channel signal that says, yeah, not really.

Yeah, I agree with you.

And I think that we in here are multiple factions perhaps, right? And just to maybe lay some of the space down before we get into the aerospace medical examiner piece of it, I think there's a conversation about what perhaps the government has understood about this conversation or what research they have done perhaps many decades.

And that's that disclosure conversation that you hear about.

What is the government going to tell us about this? The other side of that is really discovery.

What are people seeing on the outside? What can we learn ourselves on the outside without waiting for the government's permission? And frankly, I think that process has been stifled over the decades through a lot of the stigma, whether self-induced or whether a reaction to the common media that we have in in our culture, where this is a fantasy, it's a joke.

And when you walk into an aerospace medical examiner as a pilot, to suddenly say that you saw something that doesn't exist puts you in a very tenuous position.

What is the most profound observation that you have made as a pilot that you have seen? What was the most significant experience that you've had personally?

That we don't have technology to do, correct?

Not that I'm aware of, no. Um, uh, you know, and I, I can say that with the confidence of someone that has worked in advanced research and development when I got out of the Navy, uh, and winning and executing proposals for DARPA Strategic Capabilities Office, Air Force Research Labs, uh, for the past six or seven years, as well as Office of Naval Research as, uh, an autonomy subject matter expert.

Um, so I'm, I'm pretty well read into where we're going with autonomy capabilities and whatnot, and, um, things are advancing rapidly.

Um, things that I don't think were achievable in certain, certain corner cases, maybe in 2012, 2013, 2014, I think are likely achievable, uh, today, uh, with energy density increases, uh, and increased performance of, of, uh, small form factor drones as far as duration, uh, things of that nation, uh, or that, that, those types of capabilities.

There's also, I mean, the US has been working on this for a bit, so has China, but, um- Multi mo- or multi-domain drones, right? So launching a, uh, object from a submarine, goes onto the surface, floats, and then takes off from there, right? That's not this true trans-medium capability we talk about.

We talk about UAP where they seem to be able to traverse water, air, and space, uh, seamlessly.

Uh, but you know, th- that's kinda where things are at now.

How do you piece apart what's true and what's not anymore?

Yeah, but like you're busy trying not to freak the fuck out about things in the sky that we can't explain that also can't be really detected reliably.

Now, we weren't expecting anything back from the safety report, but you know, it was passed up the chain, and I think everyone had this general expectation that perhaps it was China or someone else that was, uh, doing something, right, either confusing us to think it was doing something that was superior or truly was doing something superior, but either way they were there.

Um, and that because it was passed up the chain, you know, perhaps counterintelligence would get involved or Coast Guard or whoever it is, 'cause it's not our responsibility to hunt those types of things down.

We're there-- We're an expeditionary.

Our combat is out somewhere else.

That's the Air Force and National Guard, Air National Guard.

So, so that was kind of the expectation, but that never happened, and it kept coming.

A- without kind of revealing anything that you don't wanna reveal, was there anything about the work that you were doing as a pilot, the work that you were doing in terms of preparation for war, that someone might be interested in for any particular reason?

What do you think we're looking at here?

Yeah.

Hey, Peter.

Thanks for having me on.

Good morning.

Uh, well, you know, this is a case that actually came to Americans for Safe Aerospace, my nonprofit, first.

Uh, we assessed the information.

And, uh, do you think the public is ever gonna be satisfied with just images and videos of UAP? Or do they need to see, like, a walking, talking alien from another planet to put the pieces together?

Here's former flight pilot Ryan Graves again testifying before lawmakers in 2023.

In 2014, I was an F-18 Foxtrot pilot in the Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 11, the Red Rippers, and I was stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach.

After upgrades were made to our jet's radar systems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our airspace.

At first, we assumed they were radar errors, but soon we began to correlate the radar tracks with multiple onboard sensors, including infrared systems, eventually through visual ID.

During a training mission in warning area Whiskey 72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, two F-18 Super Hornets were split by a UAP.

The object, described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere, came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft and was estimated to be 5 to 15 feet in diameter.

The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned to base.

Mr. Graves, again, I'd like to know, um, how do you know that these were not our aircraft?

How big of a safety threat to pilots do these UAPs pose?

Well, the reality of the situation is that pilots are reporting these every day to the tune of, uh, three to four, almost five reports on average per day where they are observing a UAP, an object that is unattributed, uh, and often performing capabilities that exceed the state of the art, uh, per day over the continental United States.

So this is something that pilots are regularly dealing with.

Now, do I think and do the pilots think that one of these is necessarily going to, you know, take a sharp turn and, and collide with an airline? No, I don't think that's very likely, but having this gap in pilot situational awareness can lead to undesired outcomes such as an inadvertent stick input that could perhaps cause midair or someone in the back to get hurt.

Ultimately, whenever we have a gap in our communication of safety, uh, errors are going to slip in, whether they be a true UAP, whether it be a commercial drone that happens to slip in or an adversary that is operating that we're ignoring.

So regardless of what you think this ultimately ends up being, it's still worth paying attention to.

what they are releasing and what it is, or do you think they don't know?

I think there's a spectrum in the quality of the information that they have from very hard to break out, uh, very hard to tell, and is going to lack information that we just don't have to be able to finally piece that together.

How big of a safety threat to pilots do these UAPs pose?

Well, the reality of the situation is that pilots are reporting these every day to the tune of, uh, three to four, almost five reports on average per day where they are observing a UAP, an object that is unattributed, uh, and often performing capabilities that exceed the state of the art, uh, per day over the continental United States.

So this is something that pilots are regularly dealing with.

Now, do I think and do the pilots think that one of these is necessarily going to, you know, take a sharp turn and, and collide with an airline? No, I don't think that's very likely.

But having this gap in pilot situational awareness can lead to undesired outcomes, such as an inadvertent stick input that could perhaps cause midair or someone in the back to get hurt.

Ultimately, whenever we have a gap in our communication of safety, uh, errors are going to slip in, whether they be a true UAP, whether it be a commercial drone that happens to slip in, or an adversary that is operating that we're ignoring.

So regardless of what you think this ultimately ends up being, it's still worth paying attention to.

In fact, with some of them they're saying, "We just have no idea what this is." Do you think that that tracks with everything that's coming out? Do you think that they actually know what they are releasing and what it is, or do you think they don't know?

Right

... something weird's happening, right? So we had just come back from, uh, a combat deployment in 2012, and when we did so, we started to upgrade our radar systems to a much more capable system, uh, called the APG-79.

And when we did that, um, you know, it took about eight months for every jet to get updated, so it was a little bit of a process.

But you'd fly a jet perhaps with an older radar in the morning and perhaps a new one in the evening.

Uh, and you would notice when you're flying with this, this new radar that we're seeing many more objects, uh, out in front of us in our working areas than we'd be seeing, uh, with the older radar.

Even perhaps our wingmen would have an older radar, and they wouldn't see them.

Uh, and so first it was just like, "Oh, hey, what, what is this?" Um, you know, new radar, new software, weird issue.

Um, so my first question is, uh, what is the most recent case that you've seen that's been the most compelling, where we have the most evidence from it, whether it's footage, radar?