Ryan Graves
Ryan Graves is a former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot who, together with fellow pilots, repeatedly observed unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) during live training exercises. Since then he has campaigned for transparency and pilot safety, and he has also testified before Congress on the subject.
Ryan Graves served in the United States Navy as an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter pilot. According to his account, between 2014 and 2015 he and his fellow pilots regularly observed airborne objects near the Virginia coast that appeared on both radar and optical sensors but could not be identified as conventional aircraft.
What he claims
According to Graves, these objects at times hovered motionless for long periods in strong winds, then suddenly accelerated or maneuvered in ways exceeding the capabilities of known aircraft. He states that the sightings were regular and that several pilots reported them, but because of the haphazard reporting system many cases went undocumented. Graves considers this a safety risk, since the pilots were not always able to avoid the danger of collision.
After leaving the service, Graves founded an organization called Americans for Safe Aerospace, which advocates for greater public disclosure of UAP phenomena and for safe reporting options for pilots. In 2023 he testified before Congress on the subject, together with other former officials.
Official and skeptical positions
According to the official U.S. position, investigating such sightings is the task of AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office), which explains the majority of reported cases as known phenomena or technical errors. According to skeptical researchers, the pilots' experiences are interesting but do not in themselves provide evidence of an extraterrestrial or unknown technological origin, and further instrumented, repeatable data are needed for a final explanation.