Free Republic

Former Navy pilot and Americans for Safe Aerospace founder Ryan Graves called out Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie for laughing off questions about UFOs on Wednesday. "I get the UFO question?" Christie said at the first Republican primary debate, laughing when asked about what he would do in the White House if he had authority over what the Pentagon now calls unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs. "I think it's horrible that just because I’m from New Jersey, you asked me about unidentified flying objects and Martians," Christie said to laughter. "We're different, but we're not that different." [...] Christie then...

The quote in the title comes from a new op-ed published at Politico by Ryan Graves, a Navy F/A-18 fighter pilot who was one of many military officers who encountered anomalous objects in our restricted military airspace off the coast of Virginia in 2014. In the article, he reviews some of the recent activity of balloons (or “objects” or “balloon-like entities” or whatever we’re calling them this week) in American airspace and the Pentagon’s response to them. Graves has plenty of experience with UFOs because “those damn things” had been plaguing his fighter squadron for eight months during the period...

Former U.S. Navy pilot Ryan Graves gave a detailed description of regular encounters that flight teams had with a black box UFO they were seeing "every day." *snip* He said that multiple pilots repeatedly witnessed a strange UFO phenomenon on their equipment, as well as with their own eyes, starting in late 2013. He said the pilots were seeing these objects by eye and also on their radar after receiving upgrades to their aircraft. The objects were always up there, every day, as they conducted training exercises. *snip* "There were two aircrafts from my squadron, and they took off in...

In April 2014, four naval aviators narrowly escaped disaster. Just as they entered highly controlled airspace for a training exercise, their two F/A-18F fighter jets nearly collided with an unidentified flying object (UFO). To the frustration of dozens of their fellow aviators, such a near-catastrophe was inevitable. For months before and after the incident, aircrews flying in “exclusive use” training areas off the U.S. East Coast frequently observed unknown objects exhibiting highly anomalous flight characteristics. Despite the collision hazard posed by the UFOs, aviators lacked a formal mechanism to report the mysterious objects.

Former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves Tuesday warned that regular UFO sightings are endangering the lives of military aviators, described the shape of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) seen by members of his squadron and said the mysterious objects must be treated "like a foreign adversary." Graves made the comments outside a House Intelligence subcommittee hearing Tuesday on UAP, the first of its kind examining mysterious flying objects since the 1960s. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie briefed lawmakers on the increasingly frequent sightings. The Pentagon officials said not...

Former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves says he and other members of his F/A-18 fighter squadron detected strange, maneuverable and unidentified objects flying in the restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach nearly every day for two years beginning in 2015. The sightings were so common, he says, pilots and their crews began to take them for granted. Graves is calling those objects a threat to security in a 60 Minutes interview. Graves is one of several current and former military members who have spoken publicly about what the Pentagon now calls unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP. These documented sightings of UAP,...

As part of our ongoing and in-depth coverage of the military's increasingly publicized encounters with UFOs, we want to share with you exclusive correspondence between F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot Ryan Graves and The War Zone. Graves is one of a handful of Navy tactical jet aircrewmen that recently stepped forward regarding a near constant string of encounters with UFOs while training off the southeast coast of the U.S. between 2014 and 2015. In the message, he answers our question regarding statements that the mysterious craft followed his unit while on cruise to the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt....