Ryan Graves

Ryan Graves is a former US Navy lieutenant and F-18 pilot with approximately a decade of military service, including two operational deployments in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve.¹ In 2014 he was serving as an F-18 Foxtrot pilot in Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 11 (the Red Rippers), stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia.² Following upgrades to his squadron’s radar systems, Graves and his colleagues began detecting unidentified objects operating in their designated airspace.³ The sightings commenced in 2014 and became possible in part because the upgraded radar enabled infrared targeting camera lock-on.⁴ Graves subsequently stated that pilots in his unit were observing UAP every day for at least a couple of years.⁵

The UAP detected off the Virginia Beach coastline were confirmed by simultaneous radar and infrared sensor returns,⁶ a combination Graves described as very difficult to spoof.⁷ He testified that in the 2014–2015 period, any unit that had upgraded its radar systems was detecting UAP objects off the Eastern Seaboard.⁸ The observed characteristics of these objects were reported as highly anomalous: they remained stationary at zero airspeed in category four hurricane-force winds,¹⁵ accelerated from zero to supersonic speeds of Mach 1.1 to 1.2 in erratic and rapid manoeuvres,¹⁶ and displayed no visible means of lift, control surfaces, or propulsion.¹⁷ Graves further testified that the G-forces produced by such manoeuvres would not be survivable by a human occupant.¹⁸ The most frequently reported shape was a dark grey or black cube inside a clear sphere, with the cube’s tips touching the inside of the sphere.¹⁰

A significant incident during this period was the Virginia Beach UAP Near-Miss, which occurred during a training mission in Warning Area W-72, approximately 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. Two F-18 Super Hornets were separated by a UAP matching the cube-in-sphere description.⁹ The object came within approximately 15 metres of the lead aircraft and was estimated to measure between 1.5 and 4.5 metres in diameter.¹¹ Following the incident the mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned to base; Graves testified that there was no official acknowledgement of what had occurred.¹² Graves himself was not in one of the two aircraft but was present when the pilot landed and entered the ready room, still in full flight gear and visibly shaken.¹³ UAP encounters subsequently became so frequent that aircrew incorporated the risk into regular preflight briefings.¹⁴

Graves also provided testimony concerning the Gimbal Video recorded aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. He told both The New York Times and the History Channel documentary Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation that the publicly released footage represented only a portion of a much longer, higher-resolution video he had viewed on board the vessel.¹⁹ According to Graves, the full on-board recording showed a cluster of smaller craft flying in an inverted V-shape ahead of the larger Gimbal object — a portion absent from the publicly released version.²⁰ During the debrief he observed this fleet of objects on the radar data situational awareness page, even though the Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) recording captured only a single rotating object.²¹ Graves stated that in 2017, upon seeing the 2017 NYT Pentagon UAP Article, he recognised the voices on the video, having previously been present when it was taken and debriefed.²² He had previously appeared alongside Luis Elizondo and David Fravor in the History Channel documentary, first broadcast in June 2019.²³

In response to the absence of adequate reporting and support mechanisms for pilots who had witnessed UAP, Graves founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, an organisation dedicated to aerospace safety and national security and providing support to both military and civilian pilots who report UAP encounters.²⁴ By the time of his congressional testimony, more than thirty witnesses had come forward to the organisation and nearly 5,000 Americans had joined.²⁵ The majority of witnesses were described as commercial pilots employed at major airlines, many of them veterans with decades of flying experience.²⁶ On 2023-07-26, Graves testified under oath before the House Oversight Committee UAP Hearing 2023, where he was introduced as Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace.^27,28 Appearing alongside David Grusch and David Fravor, he testified that unidentified targets represent an exploitable opening for adversaries²⁹ and called for a centralised reporting mechanism. He noted that the Federal Aviation Administration had no official process for receiving UAP reports from pilots,³⁰ and recommended that NASA’s existing Aviation Safety Reporting System be used as a short-term platform for such reporting.³¹

In the broader public debate following the shootdown of unidentified objects in February 2023, Graves published an opinion piece in Politico on 2023-02-28 titled We Have A Real UFO Problem. And It’s Not Balloons,³² warning that the Balloongate 2023 incidents should not be conflated with the high-technology objects witnessed by pilots with whom he had served.³³ He assessed that the UAP technology he and colleagues had observed could potentially represent a foreign adversary threat observation programme, and expressed concern that such objects hovering over restricted airspace were being systematically ignored despite representing a potential national security risk equivalent to foreign tactical aircraft. Graves estimated that approximately 5 per cent of UAP sightings are reported by pilots, meaning roughly 95 per cent go unreported, and stated he came forward publicly because his colleagues lacked any means to mitigate the safety threat they were regularly encountering.