Rep. Garcia Calling on Washington to Disclose More About UAPs

For those of you interested in learning more about possible sightings and crashes of UFOs, number one, make sure you start calling them UAPs – unidentified aerial phenomena.

Number two, you’ll probably be interested in knowing how involved Rep. Robert Garcia has been. The 42nd district Democratic Congressman covering Long Beach and surrounding communities, and who has served as mayor of Long Beach, has been an active member of the House Oversight Committee joint subcommittee hearings on UAPs. That’s been the case during both their Nov. 13 and July 2023 hearings.

In January, Garcia and another subcommittee member, Glenn Grothman (R-WI), introduced the ‘Safe Airspace for Americans Act,’ which would facilitate reporting of UAP sightings to the Federal Aviation Administration and Dept. of Defense by civilian pilots and flight crew.

On Nov. 13, the House Oversight Committee joint subcommittee, led by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), emphasized the need for transparency, questioning the Pentagon’s secrecy, and financial accountability. Garcia highlighted UAP as a bipartisan national security issue requiring ongoing Congressional focus. Each of the subcommittee members seemed to be very serious about the subject matter, as reflected by their comments and questions asked.

Four panelists testified before the subcommittee. Dr. Tim Gallaudet, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (retired); Luis “Lue” Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the Pentagon unit that researched UAPs; Michael Shellenberger, a professor, author, and journalist; and former NASA associate administrator, Michael Gold, gave brief presentations and answered questions.

Shellenberger detailed his reporting of the alleged ‘Immaculate Constellation’ secret government program. A whistleblower revealed the alleged UFO program, in which the Pentagon collects information on UAP sightings, Shellenberger said.

One reason that these committee meetings changed over to UAP from unidentified flying object (UFO) is that the spacecraft could be traveling underwater in an ocean. They use the terms ‘terrestrial’ and ‘oceanic’ to clarify it, according to the panelists.

Immaculate Constellation covers both of these types of UAP incidents. One of them involved an orb-shaped craft that came out of the ocean and met with another flying orb-shaped craft, Shellengerger said.

Rep. Garcia asked the witnesses if they believe that any part of the federal government is knowingly concealing evidence about UAPs from the public. All four answered in the affirmative.

When Garcia asked the witnesses what they believe UAPs could be, Gallaudet said: “Strong evidence that they are nonhuman, higher intelligence.”

Garcia Working with Aerospace Group

During the Nov. 13 House subcommittee meeting, Garcia said that he has been working with Ryan Graves, founder and executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Graves was attending the hearing. Garcia also acknowledged the role that Gallaudet played, along with Graves, in crafting the Safe Airspace for Americans Act.

Graves, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and F/A-18 pilot, had testified at the July 2023 House Oversight Committee joint subcommittee hearing. He talked about an incident with a flying object off the coast of Virginia Beach in 2014. While flying an F-18, he said, he came upon an aircraft that looked like a “dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere” that he estimated to be five to 15 feet in diameter and unlike any aircraft he has ever seen. Graves claimed the UAP could remain stationary despite hurricane-force winds, according to NPR.

His attempts to report the incident did not go well. Graves told lawmakers that his squadron submitted a safety report at the time but that he received no official acknowledgment of the incident, according to NPR.

It would be very interesting to find out if representing ‘Space Beach’ had something to do with Garcia introducing the legislation with Grothman. There are many civilian and military pilots and flight crews that fly over Garcia’s Congressional district area in Long Beach.

Garcia has not responded to a request to interview him or another staff member for this article. Americans for Safe Aerospace has not responded to a request for an interview with Graves or a staff member.

Will the Pentagon Reveal More?

The day after the House hearing this month, the U.S. Defense Department’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released its annual UAP report. AARO reported that 485 of these reports featured UAP incidents that occurred during the reporting period of May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024. Of these, 21 were still being investigated while the remainder were attributed to commonplace objects such as balloons, birds, drones, satellites and aircraft.

On Nov. 19, The U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities held a hearing on UAPs. Dr. Jon Kosloski, director of AARO, spoke at the hearing on the annual AARO UAP report.

Kosloski talked about the most-known incidents that had been the subject of media reporting and public discussions since a 2017 news report broke the story. He said that AARO had resolved one of its most high-profile cases, which has been nicknamed GOFAST. That video came out in 2017. It had been recorded by a fighter jet from the USS Theodore Roosevelt off the east coast of Florida in 2016.

He said that a “trick of the eye,” which is called parallax, made the object appear anomalous – or out of the ordinary – when it was not.

Graves has requested that the Pentagon continue to investigate the GOFAST case. He has argued that there were more objects in the air at the time than the one shown in the GOFAST video, according to CBS News.

Kosloski said that AARO doesn’t have any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology; but he did acknowledge that not every UAP mystery has been solved and that they do have some “very anomalous objects,” according to Space.com.

Members of the House subcommittee and others, including current and former military officers and elected officials, have been making statements about the importance of disclosure to the public, especially since three UAP videos were released to the public in 2017.

Elizondo had his book published by William Morrow in August, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs.” He’s the former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the secretive Pentagon unit that studied UFOs. The book delves into the recovered non-human ‘biologics’ from UFO crash sites, and the revolutionary technology found in crashed spaceships, according to the publisher.

Rep. Nancy Mace gave Elizondo tough questions to answer about the major aerospace companies that have had major defense contracts for several years. She asked him for yes or no answers to two questions. One, is there a crash retrieval program for UAPs; and two, is this program meant to reverse engineer alien craft? Elizondo said yes to both of these questions.

The reference to crash retrieval programs refers to non-human spacecraft that may have been retrieved and stored by the military. Reverse engineering refers to major aerospace companies that may have studied the crashed spacecrafts and duplicated some of the advanced technology.

Mace has been especially concerned about how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent. The American public is being lied to about it, she has said.

Mace, Garcia and the House subcommittee would like to be part of holding the federal government accountable for honoring the public’s right to know about UAPs.

Jon LeSage is a resident of Long Beach and a veteran business media reporter and editor. You can reach him at jtlesage1@yahoo.com.