Where we last left off in Part I, the U.S. Government had just confirmed the existence of unidentified flying objects, now being called 'UAPs' for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon for more legitimacy – along with three incredible videos confirming that yes, these things do exist, and they're in our airspace.

Let's examine some of the major players in this game: folks who witnessed, testified, or otherwise became involved in the UAP story somewhere along the way. We'll dive a little bit into each person and explore their historic contributions to this still-developing field of research. From there, we'll also discuss the mind-blowing facts about the various Congressional hearings that have occurred in regards to UAPs and what we know about them, the roles of journalists and the media in the whole thing, and everything you need to know about the secretive (but 100% real and verifiable) All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, also known as AARO.

Let's keep diving in!

Key Witnesses and Whistleblowers

The UAP disclosure movement has been driven by a remarkable group of highly qualified, credible witnesses from within the U.S. Government who have come forward to inform the public about the extraordinary things they've witnessed over the last several decades. Let's examine each of these individuals, their roles in this developing story, and why their testimonies matter.

Luis Elizondo

A major player in the modern UAP scene, Luis Elizondo was one of the original whistle-blowers that got the movement started in the public eye to begin with. Some of his credentials and experience include his experience as a public figure, an author, and, of course, a major activist in Unidentified Aerial Phenomena spaces. He used to work for the U.S. Department of Defense in areas like Army Counterintelligence, and as a result, he gained firsthand knowledge of various government projects and acknowledgements of true-blue UAP activity. To this day, Elizondo maintains his truth – that these objects exist, that they are of 'non-human origin', and that the U.S. government is intentionally withholding this information from the American public. He has testified publicly as to the nature of these things and is easily one of the most prominent whistleblowers in the entire affair.

Christopher Mellon

Christopher Mellon is a former Department of Defense (and U.S. Senate) staff member who specialized in defense and intelligence from 1985 until 2017. In 2017, he assisted in the leak of the now-famous Pentagon videos and fully believes that 'we are not alone' based on his decades of experience within the field. His career started off within the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, and from there he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence on behalf of both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

These credentials alone add to the legitimacy of Mellon's claims. But it goes a step further: Mellon also personally wrote laws and legislation creating the U.S. Special Operations Command and, as a member of this team, he actively participated in investigations of UAP activities. He was on a committee providing oversight for the DoD's Special Access Programs, meaning he had special access to evidence other players in this game did not have.

Upon leaving his post with the U.S. Government in 2017, Mellon joined To the Stars in an effort to further his mission, which he learned that he shared with others: to inform the public that, yes, UAPs are indeed real, they're in our airspace, and we do not know what they are. It's also worth noting that he was a part of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program as well, further establishing his credibility.

David Fravor

David Fravor is certainly a major part of this story: he was one of the few eyewitnesses to the Nimitz ("Tic Tac") UFO Incident on November 14th, 2004. Having joined the military at just 17 years old, his career and credentials are impressive: 24 years of service total, 18 of which he spent as a pilot for the Navy. Fravor's experience and subsequent testimony to Congress rocketed his name into the public eye as he made a daring claim: he, too, had seen something that day in 2004 that neither he nor his experienced colleagues could explain. His absolutely incredible testimony that "I think what we experienced was ... well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently or that we're going to have in the next 10 to 20 years" ignited a fire of curiosity in both the U.S. Government and the general public. Fravor remains a staunch advocate of UAP transparency.

Alex Dietrich

With an impressive 20 years under her belt as a Naval officer and currently a Scholar-in-Residence for the Lockheed-Martin Engineering Management Program, Alex Dietrich was the other eyewitness to the Nimitz UFO Incident alongside David Fravor. Like Fravor, she's a highly credible witness; she served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and then again during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. She's been awarded twice: an Air Combat Medal and a Bronze Star. Like the others who came forward, Dietrich had and still has no reason to mislead the public about what she and Fravor saw that day.

Lt. Chad Underwood

A third eyewitness to the Nimitz "Tic Tac" Incident, Lieutenant Chad Underwood was the U.S. Navy flight officer and Weapons Systems Operator who recorded the now-famous video of the Nimitz affair known as FLIR or FLIR1 (see Part I for more details about the FLIR video). Underwood is credited with coining the 'Tic-Tac' moniker, which obviously stuck.

Lt. Ryan Graves

Ryan Graves served in the U.S. Navy for more than ten years as a lieutenant and pilot notable for being the first active-duty pilot to publicly come forward about the unidentified things he'd seen in U.S. airspace. Deeply affected by his experiences with UAPs and enormously concerned about the safety implications of such things, he founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, which is the first-ever pilot-led nonprofit concerned about UAPs in terms of national security and aerospace safety. Graves is a vocal advocate for transparency, and although he admits he doesn't know what these things are any more than anyone else, Graves has stated it's probably best to have an 'agnostic' - or 'unknowing' - view of what these UAPs are, not attributing them to terrestrial OR extraterrestrial origins.

Kevin Day

Kevin Day is a now-retired United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer and former Operations Specialist/TOPGUN Air Intercept Controller. His experience in air defense is truly impressive, with more than two decades of experience and hundreds of in-air intercepts, both during peacetime and in wartime. It was Day operating the radar in November 2004 – he is, in fact, the voice that advised pilots to "change course" and investigate the anomalous phenomenon when multiple unidentified crafts appeared on radar. To say the event changed his life is to understate things a bit.

Upon retiring from the Navy, Day founded UAP eXpedition, also known as UAPx, alongside former military officials, entrepreneurs, university professors, scientists, and others. The primary goal of UAPx is to study, examine and understand just what these objects are, why they're here, and how they operate.

David Grusch

David Grusch is a former USAF officer and intelligence official and, like many others on this list, has disclosed some jaw-dropping things about what might just be going on behind the scenes of the UAP movement. Grusch's claims under oath to Congress are among the fieriest: he maintains that we are not alone in this universe. Incredible things Grusch has stated include that he learned of a program dedicated to "retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles", call it spacecraft if you will. Non-human, exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed. He also claims that the government may be in possession of bodies of the pilots of these crashed exotic objects. His life, he says, has only been made harder by coming forward. Nevertheless, he did it for what he calls "the right reasons," with a steadfast interest in transparency to the public. Grusch reported to the UAP Task Force and, eventually, to AARO.

Tim Gallaudet

Tim Gallaudet is a now-retired Rear Admiral for the U.S. Navy as well as an oceanographer. He's a staunch supporter of the UAP/UFO disclosure community and claims to have seen incredible footage of UAPs and USOs, otherwise known as Unidentified Submerged Objects – unidentified objects underwater – and notably made these claims while still an active-duty member of the military. He's a major advocate for David Grusch and the idea of public transparency, often calling for what he says should be a "destigmatization" of UAPs in the science community. He's currently on the Advisory Board for Americans for Safe Aerospace, a nonprofit dedicated to researching UAPs as well as The Galileo Project.

Congressional Hearings

It's worth pondering: if none of this is happening (and it's not a big deal), then why would Congress be so fascinated with it? And should UAPs truly be a phenomenon making such waves in the ranks of government, then how is it possible that members of Congress hadn't heard of such things until then?

As it turns out, there have been at least three congressional hearings on the topic of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. The first of these hearings took place on May 17th, 2022, in which the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation met with high-ranking military officials to discuss reports of UAP activity by servicemembers. Amazingly, this was the first UFO-centered hearing in the U.S. government in more than five decades (in 1969). Amazingly, this can be attributed to a COVID-19 relief bill in 2020 that included a unique stipulation: U.S. intelligence was to deliver Congress with a report about these UAPs within 180 days of its being signed.

In June 2021, it was quietly legitimized: the U.S. Director of National Intelligence conceded that, yes, this is a very real phenomenon, and up to 144 incidents since 2004 completely defied explanation.

May 2022 Hearing

During the 2022 hearing, which was opened by Representative Andre Carson of Indiana, the subcommittee heard testimonies from several officials: Ronald Moultrie, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, and the uppermost intelligence official with The Pentagon. It's worth noting that Bray did not agree that Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon might have extraterrestrial origins; so far, he claimed, there was no evidence of this and no communication with these objects has ever been established.

He also mentioned that while there have been 11 "near-misses" with these craft, no collisions had yet occurred.

The fact that officials felt compelled to clarify that no collisions had occurred is itself noteworthy – suggesting these encounters are frequent enough to warrant such reassurance. During the hearing, numerous pieces of unclassified videos of UAP encounters were presented, and some concerns were expressed regarding the possibility of these objects being hypersonic weapons from China or Russia. Lawmakers expressed concern that not knowing what these were constitutes a possible threat to national security.

July 2023 Hearing

On July 26th, 2023, Congress had another hearing: one formally called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.

At this hearing, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee spoke with three seasoned military veterans considered to be highly credible: Maj. David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and now-retired Commander David Fravor. This hearing was, in our opinion, far more sensational than the first thanks to truly jaw-dropping claims (made under oath) by the aforementioned members of the military.

Grusch's testimony contained some truly incendiary claims; what he said sounded like something straight out of a conspiracy theorist's playbook. He stated that the executive branch of the government is and has been withholding information about UAPs from just about everyone – including major parts of the government itself - for decades. While he had been unallowed to access certain parts of the programs, he did know the exact locations of UAP objects in the government's possession.

While he did not offer explicit details during the public hearing, he did answer questions in a closed-door meeting later wherein the public was not permitted.

Ryan Graves' testimony was also quite surreal. After witnessing a bizarre, unexplainable craft he came upon during a routine exercise, his team submitted a safety concern report to the higher-ups only to never hear anything back. It's worth noting that Graves stated that these encounters are not isolated, and they are not rare. Thanks to his bizarre experiences with UAPs and all the red tape surrounding them (or, perhaps, a lack thereof) he founded Americans for Safe Aerospace, a support group of sorts for pilots who had also seen these things.

At one point in his testimony, Graves stated that "If everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change."

The third key witness, David Fravor, had even more incredible revelations to share with the committee. He discussed the 'tic-tac' experience in detail – everything he witnessed – and how he felt utterly "flabbergasted" while witnessing it. "There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any visible flight control surfaces like wings," he stated. He went on to say, "The technology that we faced was far superior than anything that we had," Fravor said. "I'm not a UFO fanatic. But what we saw with four sets of eyes — we have nothing close to it. It was incredible technology."

All three men expressed a need for a centralized reporting system in regard to Unidentified Anomalous/Aerial Phenomenon. According to Ryan Graves, less than 5% of all of these sightings are ever reported at all, and this needs to change.

November 2024 Hearing

Just a few months ago as of the time of this writing, on November 13th, 2024, a third hearing was held, now with a more sensational title than ever: UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA: EXPOSING THE TRUTH. Once more, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability heard some genuinely mind-blowing claims from a handful of highly credible witnesses and sources.

This time, no holds were barred. Lawmakers asked what would, in a normal world, be considered bizarrely sensationalist questions: Are these UAPs piloted by alien life? And, if so, has the government been covering it up?

Among the folks testifying to congress on this day were Tim Gallaudet, who supplied written testimony regarding his role in the GOFAST video's creation and eventual disclosure. Perhaps incredibly, like something out of a spy movie more than real life, a small group of commanders who were there that day were sent copies of the video by the operations officer of Fleet Forces Command.

Bizarrely, the next day, the emails were gone. No trace of them ever being in anyone's inboxes remained.

Luis Elizondo made another 'appearance' via written testimony. He did not mince words. In his short-and-to-the-point statement, he says, "Let me be clear: UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government, or any other government, are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries."

Luiz Elizondo testified (again) that the US Government does indeed have retrieval programs for incidents in which these UAPs crash. These programs were designed to reverse engineer the craft to find out just what was happening here. He was, notably, unable to go into detail without the safety of a closed-door hearing. Upon being asked just how he might 'characterize' UAPs, Elizondo responded with a sobering: "An enigma... and a frustration. We are talking about technologies that can outperform anything we have in our inventory. And if this was an adversarial technology, this would be an intelligence failure eclipsing that of 9/11 by an order of magnitude."

The third witness was Michael Gold, whose impressive credentials included being the NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy as well as a member of the NASA UAP Independent Study Team. Gold, also through written testimony, discussed the stigma surrounding these objects and the people who report them. Gold pressed the committee to help shed this enormous public shadow surrounding these things, which, he claimed, is impeding any legitimate effort to really study what's happening here by any legitimate means.

The fourth witness, Michael Shellenberger, a journalist for Public, provided 214 pages of testimony including a comprehensive timeline of credible UAP reports spanning from 1947 through 2023. Shellenberger demanded action, insisting upon transparency in legislation and even cutting funding to all UAP programs that aren't disclosed to fellow lawmakers.

Perhaps most significantly, Shellenberger revealed details about a secretive program called Immaculate Constellation, which he described as an "active and highly secretive 'Unacknowledged Special Access Program'" designed to collect high-quality imagery and data about UAPs. According to the whistleblower document he shared, the program has documented extraordinary encounters, including an incident where an F-22 fighter jet was reportedly "intercepted and boxed in by approximately 3-6 UAPs" during a patrol mission.

IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION - Report on the US government's secret UAP (UFO) program

From a whistleblower and released today by @NancyMace and discussed in today's Congressional hearing

FULL REPORT

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 13, 2024

Twitter Post: Michael Shellenberger announces the release of the Immaculate Constellation whistleblower report

Shellenberger also mentioned that he'd been warned about the secrecy of the program and could not disclose certain details without endangering his own safety.

It's worth noting that, still, there isn't any evidence that we do have (that we, the public, are aware of, anyway) that says these UAPs are of 'alien origin' and/or piloted by "non-human biologics". Michael Gold provided a level-headed depiction of the reality of these things: "I think probably the vast majority of UAP are drones, experimental aircraft, weather conditions. But there is a percentage that isn't."

Between May 2023 and June 2024, there were 757 reports of UAP activity in the skies over the U.S. These reports were very thoroughly investigated by AARO, a secretive program that we'll dive into in just a little while. 49 cases were resolved entirely, found to be objects like balloons or critters like birds. 243 cases were recommended for closure, also citing resolution. Interestingly, 444 cases were filed in the "don't know" folder, essentially, due to lacking adequate information for investigation. They can be re-examined if more information is brought to light.

The most interesting tier of these objects, though, is by far the 21 bizarre cases that were determined to require further analysis thanks to what they called "anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors."

AARO

So far, we've mentioned AARO – or the All-Domain Anomaly Research Office – a few times, but let's take a closer look at what it is, what it does, and who's involved.

AARO's mission is simple: per its own website, it aims to "minimize technical and intelligence surprise" by synchronizing identification, attribution, and mitigation of UAP in the vicinity of national security areas, or in other words, it hopes to reduce the number of 'surprise' UAP sightings that might otherwise put National Security at risk by identifying, tracking, and ultimately mitigating the objects. It takes reports from military servicemembers and the public alike, offers a smorgasbord of evidence on its website for the public to see and experience for itself.

AARO essentially replaced the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) in 2022. It's worth noting that UAPTF replaced the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) in 2012. As of October 2024, AARO has received 1,652 UAP reports, many of which are still actively being investigated.

At the time of this writing, AARO is led by Dr. Jon T. Kosloski. Kosloski once held leadership and technical positions within the National Security Administration (NSA). He has bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He once notably testified, in regard to AARO and its work, that "There are interesting cases that I, with my physics and engineering background and time in the [intelligence community], I do not understand. And I don't know anybody else who understands them either."

AARO is not, however, without its imperfections. Its highly anticipated March 2023 report in regard to UAP sightings and experiences from World War II onward was evidently "riddled" with errors and falsities, which did absolutely nothing favorable for those attempting to legitimize the field or for those trying to debunk it. Key witnesses, dates, and other elements had been incorrectly inserted into the story. Certain reports cover things that didn't go down anything like the official reports state it did. You know... that kind of shifty stuff that may or may not allude to the idea that AARO has an interest in keeping some things covered up, even in the name of transparency.

Despite the bumpy beginnings, AARO has been hard at work. Since 2022, it has opened countless investigations into UAP sightings and experiences. Of these investigations, about half are typically found to have mundane explanations; the other half, however, remains unexplained – be it due to a lack of evidence or thanks to truly baffling details.

Today DoD released the unclassified version of AARO's Annual Report on UAP. Read about it here:

— All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (@DoD_AARO) November 14, 2024

Twitter Post: AARO announces the release of their 2024 annual report on UAP

What This All Means

The transformation of UAP research from fringe conspiracy theory to legitimate government concern represents one of the most remarkable shifts in modern history. What began with the foundational videos and initial disclosures covered in Part I has evolved into a complex ecosystem of credible witnesses, congressional oversight, and official investigation.

The witnesses we've examined – from Elizondo and Mellon to Fravor, Dietrich, and Graves – represent decades of military and intelligence experience. These aren't conspiracy theorists or attention-seekers; they're career professionals who have risked their reputations and, in some cases, their safety to bring this information to light.

The progression of congressional hearings from 2022 to 2024 shows an increasingly serious approach to the UAP phenomenon. What started as cautious government acknowledgment has evolved into detailed testimony about crash retrieval programs and non-human technology. The questions being asked in Congress today would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

AARO, despite its flaws and limited transparency, represents the first official, dedicated effort to systematically study these phenomena. With over 1,600 reports and counting, the data suggests that while many sightings have conventional explanations, a significant percentage remain genuinely unexplained.

The story is far from over. As more witnesses come forward, as congressional pressure for transparency increases, and as AARO continues its investigations, we may be on the verge of answers to questions that humanity has pondered for decades. Whether those answers point to advanced foreign technology, natural phenomena we don't yet understand, or something even more extraordinary remains to be seen.

What's certain is that the UAP phenomenon has moved from the margins of society into the halls of Congress and the Pentagon. The witnesses have spoken, the government has acknowledged, and the investigation continues. Whatever the truth may be, we're closer to understanding it than ever before.