During a prominent Congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) disclosed that military personnel recently presented him with evidence that included an image of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) which he could not associate with any known human capability, reports thedebrief.org.
The hearing, conducted by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, featured prominent witnesses such as former U.S. Navy pilots Dave Fravor and Ryan Graves, along with former intelligence officer turned whistleblower, David Grusch.
According to reports, Gaetz was shown the UAP image several months ago during a visit to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He was accompanied by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) during the visit.
“Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating there was a UAP incident that required my attention,” Gaetz later wrote in a post on X, the social media website previously known as Twitter before its recent rebranding.
Gaetz says that after learning of the incident, he requested a briefing on the situation and brought Burchett and Luna along with him during a visit to the base.
“We were initially denied access to images, radar, and conversation with all members of the flight crew,” Gaetz said. However, after the initial denial, additional demands by the Representatives for the release of imagery resulted in Gaetz being allowed to see a photograph captured by a member of the flight crew involved in the UAP encounter.
Gaetz said that he was the only one who was shown the UAP image, and that he was allowed to speak directly to the pilot who took the photo afterward.
“The image was of a UAP that I am not able to attach to any human capability,” Gaetz wrote, “either from the United States or from any of our adversaries.”
According to Gaetz’s account, the pilot had reportedly encountered what he characterized as a fleet of four UAPs “flying in a diamond formation” while conducting training exercise over the Gulf of Mexico.
The visual observations were also corroborated with radar data that personnel at Eglin Air Force Base allowed Gaetz to review.
“There is a radar sequence that I, and I alone, have observed in the United States Congress,” Gaetz said during Wednesday morning’s hearing.
According to the account the pilot provided Gaetz, as he went to investigate and came in near proximity to the objects, the approach of the UAPs apparently caused his radar system and Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) to malfunction, requiring him to have to rely on manual controls in order to obtain an image of the UAP.
When attempting to characterize the object he observed in the pilot’s photo, Gaetz said it resembled “what I can only describe as an orb,” adding that it did not appear to be “of any human capability that I’m aware of.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Gaetz asked witness Dave Fravor how incidents where UAP appear capable of disarming onboard systems on military aircraft should be addressed.
“I think this goes to that national security side,” Fravor said. “And you can go back through [the] history of things showing up at certain areas and disabling our capabilities, which is disheartening.
Fravor added that footage obtained by Chad Underwood, at the time the Weapons System Officer on board a F/A-18 Super Hornet who captured FLIR imagery of the famous Tic Tac during a widely-discussed 2004 incident, “completely disabled the radar on the aircraft.”
“The only way [Underwood] could do it was passively, which is how he got that image,” Fravor said on Wednesday.
In the past, instrumental disturbance of onboard electronics is a feature commonly reported during pilot UAP encounters.
