EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,302 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Nice to meet you, Ryan.
- RGRyan Graves
Nice to meet you, Joe. Pleasure to be here.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're, uh, one of four or five people that I've talked to that have seen something that might be from somewhere else. It's always weird when you talk to someone that may have seen something that... Well, let's just first, before we even get started, please tell people what your credentials, what your background is.
- RGRyan Graves
Sure. So, you know, my name's Ryan Graves, um, I have an engineering degree, mechanical and aerospace engineering. Uh, I promptly left doing that to go fly, uh, F-18s for the Navy as soon as I graduated college. Did that for about a decade, uh, both, uh, operationally in combat as well as an instructor, uh, role, teaching the new students. Um, and you know, we did witness something while we were flying in our jets, but, um, you know, we were doing it under... we witnessed it in the context of our just everyday flying and our missions.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what year was it that you witnessed this?
- RGRyan Graves
So we started seeing these in 2014, was the earliest that I know. 2013, late 2013, early 2014.
- JRJoe Rogan
And could you describe, what was the very first experience?
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah, so, uh, for me personally, the experience was simply just, um, flying out to the area like I would any other day, and instead of seeing an empty air space with just my, uh, wing person or another squadron doing something, a different block, there were all of a sudden a lot of different radar contacts, uh, which is immediately a problem, because, you know, we could be hitting one of those, uh, or someone working in our area, um, and this was happening because we upgraded our radar, the best we could tell. We were in a earlier radar called the APG-73, uh, and we had come back from deployment, we entered a maintenance phase, it's called, uh, we kinda do a little bit less flying, upgrade the jets if we need to, do any long-lasting, um, maintenance, and we upgraded to the APG-79, which was a much better radar.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what is the difference in the capabilities of the upgraded radar system versus the, uh, r-original system?
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm. So, you know, kind of practically speaking, it's like going from an analog TV essentially to like an OLED. It's, you know, a digital modern tool, uh, compared to more of like an analog, uh, classical radar that, um, has more limited range and has, uh, less ability to track multiple targets and things of that nature. So just generally speaking, we would exect- expect to see, you know, more objects, if there were any out there, or smaller objects, but, um, there shouldn't have been any objects out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so how far offshore are you when this is all going down?
- RGRyan Graves
Our working areas start about 10 miles off the coast and then it goes out, you know, 100 or 250 miles or so, though we don't usually use those far eastern areas. Um, but we would only see them over the water, so they would really only be in our working areas, um, maybe slightly, you know, in between the working area and land, but never over the land. Uh, sometimes over the bays that are in the area that are quite large, um, but never just kind of zoom in west over land or anything like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
And is this restricted air space?
- RGRyan Graves
It's not... So that's a tricky question. For us operating in a, in a military operating area, uh, it is not restricted in the sense that you have to be the... there's only one person allowed in there. Um, you could have these little Cessnas kind of bumbling in there, but they would get called out pretty quick, um, both from the kind of air traffic control agency that's working out there as well as the F-18s and the other, um, aircraft that may be working out there. Uh, but in a broader sense, when we look at it, uh, in relation to our Air Defense Identification Zone, which is essentially a band of air space that surrounds our entire country, if you are, uh, if your flight path originates, uh, out over the water outside of that ADIZ and you proceed into that ADIZ into our controlled air space, then you do have to, um, essentially have permission to enter that air space. It's not a restricted air space like a traditional, uh, bombing range, but it is protected air space. It's our, it's our coastal air.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you have this upgraded radar system, and what are you detecting?
- RGRyan Graves
So on the radar, really what we can learn from that is essentially the kinematics of the objects, so where is it essentially, and you know, what direction is it going, how fast is it going, things of that nature. Uh, we can't necessarily make out the shape or things of that nature, so it's a representation. It's like a, a block on our screen to show that information. And so when we see that on our radar, um, we can tell, you know, where it's located, you know, perhaps what's located around it if there's other objects we're detecting, how fast it's going, what direction it's pointed in, um, what direction it's, um, traveling in. Um, so we call that velocity vector. So if we see this, this essentially little circle, it'll have a tail coming off of it, and that, that tail kind of represents the nose of the vehicle, at least as its flight path is going. And so with that, you know, we would typically see an aircraft just kind of trudging along with a, a straight line, taking occasional turns, um, but these objects had a little bit, um, more of a, I don't want to say random but more, um, less controlled, uh, flight path. That velocity vector would kind of jump around a bit more. Uh, they would not proceed in like a perfectly straight line as you would imagine like a, a flight navigation computer would take you, right? Uh, takes you from A to B in the straightest line possible. Uh, these objects seemed to kind of be moving in a direction that was, uh, not a straight line but generally proceeding in that direction, and so they would kind of be, uh, meandering slightly but moving in that general direction, both three-dimensionally and horizontally. So they would be-
- JRJoe Rogan
So winding around, going up, going down.
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they're not on a flat plane and they're not going in a straight line.
- RGRyan Graves
So, eh, I don't want to draw too many firm statements like that because we would see them being flat, too. We'd see them perfectly stationary up there, uh, regardless of the wind, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm. Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.So what kind of wind are you talking about?
- RGRyan Graves
Oh, gosh. I mean, at altitude you can have anywhere up to 100, 120 knots of air speed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is, what is that in miles per hour?
- RGRyan Graves
It's about 130, 140 miles an hour.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they're completely stationary with 140-mile-an-hour wind?
- RGRyan Graves
Correct.
- JRJoe Rogan
How would something do that?
- 15:00 – 30:00
13 hours? …
- RGRyan Graves
you, you learn it was doing it for, you know, perhaps 13 hours, I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
13 hours?
- RGRyan Graves
You know, perhaps. They were out there all the time, you know? So, uh, you know, I land and I go back and we weren't on a, a, um, intel mission to analyze these, right? We're going to do our training. It's very expensive. $30K an hour to fly these things, right? So, um, really the only time we can put energy into looking at these things is when we're kinda transiting back and forth or waiting for a fight to start. Uh, and so, you know, it's never like, a dedicated analysis. Um, one of the problems I've had is that, you know, people haven't wanted to look into and, and to study this topic. And people ask me all the time, "Okay, you know, what were you seeing on the jet? What were you seeing in the radar?" I wanna be able to tell them that there was a, a great thing that we saw, but an F-18 is not a scientific tool. All right? We only get presented a certain amount of information, uh, th- when all the sensors essentially filter all, um, all the data out so that we can prosecute the targets and do our job. Uh, it's not some type of, like, analog, you know, information we receive. So, you know, just because say something is showing jamming on my radar from one of these objects doesn't mean the object is executing, you know, electronic warfare to jam my jet. It just means that, you know, it's doing something to our radar signal and when it comes back, you know, our jet is processing it like it's EW. So, we need to get proper scientific tools to do an analysis on these objects, uh, instead of basing, you know, a lot of our analysis right now just on tools of war that aren't built for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Um, how long can you guys stay up in an F-18?
- RGRyan Graves
If we're dogfighting, about an hour. If we're holding at .6 to .8 mach, you know, like I des- described them as doing, somewhere maybe around, like, two, two and a half hours maximum.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you think that these things are up there for far longer than that?
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, w- how big was this thing when this guy saw it?
- RGRyan Graves
So, it's very difficult to tell in the air, but because they were flying in formation, we can make some estimated guesses essentially and that's what we did when we talked about it afterwards. Right? So the aircraft were about 100 feet apart. This thing, you know, they estimate it essentially split the section, which means it went more or less right down the middle, uh, but slightly closer to lead, which would put it somewhere less than 50 feet, you know, on average if they're about 100 feet. Um, you know, and then he, so he essentially used that, that size reference to say, "Hey, you know, this might've been somewhere in, like, the five to 15, you know, foot diameter." It's, you know, not a tight guess, but that's the best we could come up with.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what is it like, like, what, what's the atmosphere like when you go back to base? Are you allowed to discuss this? Is this something that's openly talked about? Is this something that you get ridiculed for?
- RGRyan Graves
It just, you know, uh, like you would expect any group of, you know, dude and dudettes, you know, hearing about this that just kinda, you know, do the normal reaction like anyone else and they'll, they'll kinda, you know, make the jokes and then kinda get back to work essentially because, you know, w- we're just so busy at this time, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RGRyan Graves
We're getting ready for war.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RGRyan Graves
Like, it, for a lot of us, this is the, the apex of our career in a sense, to get ready for deployment, you know? And-... it's kinda like the long blade gets cut in a sense. In a fighter community like that, it's very much a trust-based, um, organization. So, you know, no one's out there looking to, like, make a big deal out of something that's completely irrelevant, you know, in our eyes, to our day-to-day operations, other than a safety risk. That's really, like, as much as we could process it. So yeah, there was ridicule, but I don't think it was, um... I wouldn't say it was, like, over the top or emotionally damaging. But, you know, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RGRyan Graves
... it made it clear it wasn't something to, like, you know, we were gonna, like, put serious thought and energy into. You know, it was, "Hey, yeah, stay away and, you know, let me know how you did in that next fight," essentially.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when you discussed this, how many other people came forward with similar stories?
- RGRyan Graves
It, it was less about people coming forward 'cause everyone was just like, "Well yeah, of course, we see them out there." Like, at this point, when we... It was almost a safety issue at this point. Um, well, let me back up. At first, you know, p-... As soon as people, you know... The joke subsided when people eventually flew in a jet with upgraded radar and saw it themselves, right? So, you know, it dwindled down where everyone was aware of this and it was just a safety hazard. Um, but when we almost had the mid-air, that kinda upped the ante, right? Because, um, we were kinda getting pissed at this point because, you know, the high probability answer was that this was some time of... some type of classified program, uh, of our own making that had perhaps just started operating, um, in an area they weren't supposed to, for whatever reason. Uh, and that was j-... You know, that was kind of our assumption. And so we submitted a safety report because of that near mid-air, uh, a HAZREP or hazard report, which is essentially a, a notice that goes out to the whole, uh, fleet that says, you know, this is a potential hazard that could cause a loss of an aircraft. Um, and, you know, it was due to us almost hitting an unknown object of unknown origin. Uh, and that's how it continued for a while, and there was a number of HAZREPs about that, about near misses. Uh, eventually they put out what's called an, a NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen, which is a published, um... It's published on a federal website which essentially lists things like, "Hey, the runway lights are down," or, you know, "They're working on this runway," or, "This area is closed for, for something." And we had one in our area, local area, that said, you know, "Caution for the unknown objects working in our, our operating areas." Um, "We just don't know what they are," essentially. So, that's just kinda where it stagnated at, at that point, as far as, you know, resolution.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's gotta be a very bizarre feeling. You're, you're flying around in these jets, preparing for deployment, and you see things that are, if not unexplainable, haven't been explained yet.
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm. It just didn't fit into our framework, right? Even if we look at... So, you know, when we were really kinda were trying to hash it out in the squadron, it's, you know, said, "Okay, what could these be?" And even the classified, you know, drone thing, and I, I'm not even gonna consider all the things that have happened since then, but even at, at this time, you know, the drone thing didn't make sense to us for a number of reasons. One of those is, you know, why? Right? Why are, you know, why do we have potentially hundreds or, or more, you know, small drones that can perform better than anything we've seen just hanging out, you know, for years off the coast, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
And is there a visible method of propulsion that's coming from these objects?
- RGRyan Graves
No. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
What about a heat signature?
- RGRyan Graves
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- RGRyan Graves
So, yeah. So there's no, there's no plume of, of heat coming out the back. There's no propellers. There's no wing surfaces that we've seen.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when you're looking at it, are you looking at it in, through some sort of an infrared that will detect heat?
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't see any of that?
- 30:00 – 45:00
Um ... f- …
- JRJoe Rogan
is rotating?
- RGRyan Graves
Um ... f-
- JRJoe Rogan
Definitively.
- RGRyan Graves
Well, so f- we don't, right? We don't necessarily definitively know it's rotating at the end of the day, right? We have evidence that it is, but, um, I'm, I don't have definitive evidence that you're a conscious human being on the other side of the table with me either, but ... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I see what you're saying.
- RGRyan Graves
You know what I mean? Like, we just don't have that information.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you only have video footage, and in the video footage, it appears right now, in relation to where it sits on the clouds, that it has rotated?
- RGRyan Graves
Yes. So, you know, we can also...We can also see if you, if you, uh ... And I know it's been done. People have created models out there, uh, that, you know, essentially look at the clouds, and they, they draw out a flight path that this could be at. And the only variable is essentially how far away the object is. And that flight path obeys, you know, an equation that can be observed pretty readily when, you know, you build the little model. And essentially, if you're at, you know, six miles or so, the object is proceeding in a direction, and then when it starts to rotate as, as the air crew have described, it climbs and reverses directions. So you can't quite make that out, but when you, when you, when you actually model it out, you can see that at these ranges, it does what was, was claimed. And, uh, we're kind of skipping a little bit in the story, so maybe I should back up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- RGRyan Graves
So, you know, when we observed, uh ... When they- when this object was observed, um, the air crew essentially saw it on what they call a situational awareness page. And so that is a God's eye view of all the, um, sensor data and everything else that our jets and other jets, uh, put out, right? And so we can put cursors on and move it around, select stuff. And what the air crew described during this video verbally, uh, is a formation of objects and then the Gimbal object. So what happened was, you know, we had all gone out on an air-to-air training mission during this workup cycle off of the aircraft carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt. Uh, and again, we're off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. And, you know, there's like four or five or six, you know, red fighters which are, uh, our own guys or gals acting as, um, the enemy, and then we go up and act as the, the blue fighters and go do our tactics. Um, I was part of the flight. We all flew up there. When we kind of run out of gas during the fight, you kind of just return by yourself, and if you still have gas, you continue the fight type of thing. Um, so we don't always fly home together. Uh, and in this case the air crew from the Gimbal video, you know, they knocked it off and started flying back to the boat. Um, we don't go like directly back to the boat when we run out of gas. It seems counterintuitive, but we have to wait for our landing time. Uh, we can't just come back and land earlier, so doesn't really matter where we are as long as we're nearby, and w- we just slow down to what we call our max endurance speed, right? So we just kind of cruise around, putt along out there, and just hang out until it's our time to land. Um, and so, you know, while they were doing this, they noticed that there was a group of contacts on their situational awareness page, again from their radar, and they're like, "Okay. You know, maybe this is like a penetration test," 'cause they'll launch aircraft from the coast, uh, you know, like old, old fighters or, you know, um, just things that can move relatively quick but, you know, not necessarily there to engage us in a dogfight, uh, to see if we can detect them and intercept them in time and things of that nature, part of the overall training. And so when they saw these objects, that's what they thought this was, and so they started flying over to it, um, and they got, you know, they got about, you know, six to seven, eight miles away. Six to eight is what the air crew told me. Uh, they didn't want to get any closer because it was nighttime at this point. They couldn't see the object, which is why they were only in the IR mode. Um, and they essentially, you know, they checked out for a bit and then circled a bit and then flew back essentially as it was time for their recovery. Uh, but what they saw was, you know, you saw the Gimbal object that we saw in the film, but there's also, there was also a formation of like four to five, I might say six, I don't remember the exact number, but somewhere in the four to six range, um, objects that were flying in a wedge formation, so essentially like a triangle without a base. Um, and those objects were kind of proceeding along the same line as the Gimbal. From my recollection, the Gimbal was, you know, slightly behind that formation, uh, and offset below it. And so that formation essentially kind of just turned in, in a, I'll call it left-hand turn in a normal radius of turn to slightly less, like but just got ... They got all jumbled up, so they just started turning instead of like a, a clean turn where they all kind of stay in the same spot, kind of a big sweeping thing. Instead of that, it was a lot tighter, and they kind of, kind of broke down. They didn't look like they were in formation anymore in a sense, you know? They were kind of scattered about. And I can't tell which one's which really out there, uh, on the radar looking at it, so I don't know if they came back in the same formation, exact same position, but when they rolled out 180 degrees out, basically reversed their direction, you know, they kind of got back into similar if not the same formation proceeding the opposite direction. And during this time, the Gimbal object, you know, again proceeding call it left to right, trailing this formation, uh, while it kind of executed its radius of turn, the Gimbal just essentially was continuing in a straight line and then as if it like pinged off a wall, just reversed direction to follow that formation, you know, once they had started flowing in the opposite direction. So note
- JRJoe Rogan
Just stopped?
- RGRyan Graves
... the turn radius.
- JRJoe Rogan
Stopped in midair and went backwards?
- RGRyan Graves
I wouldn't even say stopped. It just seemed like it, it just like never stopped. It just went ping, you know? Just ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- RGRyan Graves
You know? And that was, that's how we saw it from the, the situational awareness page from looking down, right? And so when you lift that up and look at it from the side, you know what that ping motion looks like is a U-turn, vertical U-turn to go in the opposite direction, right? So it climbs to reverse its turn to flow in the opposite direction within about 500 feet, which is very tight turn. Uh, I think an F-18 needs like 6,000 feet or, or 4,000 feet to do a turn like that. Uh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. So there's nothing that we have as a drone that's capable of moving like that?
- RGRyan Graves
So, yeah. Again, if you just look at one particular case, it's like, all right, so something climbed vertically and proceeded in a opposite direction. Like that's not the sexiest thing in the world. But then let's look back in context and say, okay, we're, you know, 350 miles off the coast in protected airspace around an aircraft carrier, you know, with only fighter jets in the air, and then all of a sudden there's a formation of small objects just kind of cruising around, you know, for a period of time that's unknown.... performing the least fuel-efficient turns possible, right? Like, there's no concern for how, uh, fuel-efficient that turn is. That's not, that's like the least efficient way to do a turn. Um, and so how is an object hundreds of miles off the coast, you know, with apparently no concern for fuel, um, hanging out next to our carrier?
- JRJoe Rogan
And without the FLIR footage, you would have never been able to see these things?
- RGRyan Graves
Correct, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, when you report this, what is, what's the reaction? Like, how did, how does that go?
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah. Because we were practicing like we play at this point, getting ready for war, we were doing like a formal intel debrief after our flights, right? It's kind of like, "Hey, we intercepted these guys and did that, and the other thing." And so, the, the aircrew who recorded it were going down into that room to debrief it, um, and someone told me, like, "Hey, you know, your friend there got something interesting on the, on the FLIR this time and, you know, maybe you should go take a look or something." So, because I had already landed, my gear was off, you know, and so, uh, waiting to debrief essentially, and so I'm like, "Yeah, I'll go check it out." So I walk down there, you know, it's like the other side of the ship, uh, go in, it's a classified space, all the intel folk are in there. And they're queuing up the video, the tapes, to watch, uh, the FLIR footage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- RGRyan Graves
And, now here's an interesting thing too, right? So, the situational awareness page, that screen I told you about with radar data, that's kind of in a screen that's, you know, chest-level, and then there's a screen here, screen here, uh, eye-level on either side. Uh, and if you recor- we, we put the FLIR here as standard procedure and the situational awareness page down here. And then we'll have our radar up here or any of our other systems. Um, if you record this screen with the FLIR, you record the SA page automatically, like it's part of the same tape. So, what's interesting is that, is that's what we watched when we were, um, in that intel space, you know? I was able to see the FLIR footage, uh, and that's what, you know, we just watched. And then the situational awareness page with the radar data, um, showed that as well, which, you know, showed the fleet and showed that movement I described. Uh, those are, you know, if that FLIR footage exists, then the radar data for that event exists as well, all right, because it's filmed the same time. So someone would have had to specifically split it off to, um, get the, um, the gimbal video out without the radar data, right? So-
- JRJoe Rogan
So the gimbal video was leaked? Is that what happened?
- RGRyan Graves
I don't know the exact mechanics. My understanding, it was that's the way it could be described, but it was done within channels that, um, that doesn't make it, you know, an illegal activity. But I honestly don't know the mechanics of how it was released.
- JRJoe Rogan
So somehow or another, it gets out there and it gets online, but the situational awareness page and the radar data does not, you only get the FLIR footage?
- RGRyan Graves
Correct.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do you think that is?
- RGRyan Graves
I think there's good reasons for that, you know, I don't think it's overly mysterious. You know, our radar sensor systems are our primary sensor out there, they're how we employ our weapons, and that's all fine. I think that's completely reasonable to not have that released, like-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Stopped talking about it?…
- RGRyan Graves
to, to answer that in the w- the w- the worst way possible, you know, we walked back to our ready room, and, of course, and we're all like, you know, talking about it, and like, "Well, what's this?" 'Cause we had- we've seen the other objects. Like, from the best we could tell, the formation represented the objects we were used to seeing off the East Coast, but the gimbal was new. And, you know, now, we're building theories 'cause it's like, "Well, this is different." You know, we're starting to get a little more interested. And, you know, essentially, someone just came in and just said that was enough, essentially. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Stopped talking about it?
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah, and it wasn't like it was, you know, here's, here's an NDA or anything like that, and it wasn't really even anyone in a position to order that if they wanted to. But it was, it was still just like, "All right, you know, just another weird thing here at this point."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RGRyan Graves
And, again, we're in a super stressful time, right? Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RGRyan Graves
... 18-hour days, you know, it's, um, a stressful time. But, yeah, you know, f- you know, I look back, and I, I feel like I have to defend that decision because it's like, "Why weren't you more curious? Why weren't you more into it," you know? Or, "Why didn't you think to explore this part of it?" But, um, yeah, we were just busy. We were just so focused on what we were doing and trying to do it the best we could.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you guys are alone, like, if you're having dinner or you're just a- alone having a beer, does th- do these things come up in conversation?
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah, absolutely, especially over a beer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RGRyan Graves
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Are there more different shapes and more different types of these objects?
- RGRyan Graves
The observations off the East Coast, we talked to other people in other squadrons with similar capabilities, and they were describing it the same way, the Cuban sphere, same color, same, you know, everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
And does that seem indicative of things that you only see on the East Coast?
- RGRyan Graves
So far as I know, you know, that, uh, again, there's no... I wish there was a better place to answer these questions. But part of the reason I don't have answers is 'cause we've just refused to look at this for so long, right? There's just never been data collection so far as, you know, I know. Um, and so, you know, that would be, these would be questions we could answer that we sh-... if we had started looking at this 20 years ago perhaps, uh, that we could be answering now. But, you know, we have to collect a lot of data. Um, and it's, you know, it's interesting because we have really two ways of doing that, right? There's, there's leveraging the world's best sensors and things of that nature through the US government, and, of course, all that is always gonna be classified, and it's always gonna be difficult.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RGRyan Graves
Um, and then, on the other hand, there's really discovery, right? I mean, it, this, it... we don't have to just wait for the government to tell us, you know, what's right and what's wrong and what's real on this topic, right? It, we, we are at an age now where technology and democratization of tools essentially and access to space, you know, is, is moving it so, you know, we can verify and, and move the topic forward without being hand-fed perhaps from the people with the world's greatest sensors, if that makes sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it does make sense. Um, how many different types of these objects have you heard other people discuss? There's the, there's circle that has a c- the cube inside of it. There's this gimbal thing which you don't really necessarily know what the shape is. But have people witnessed, eyewitness accounts, other than Commander David Fravor described something that he said looked like a Tic Tac.
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I believe he said it was somewhere in the neighborhood of, like, 25 feet wide. Is that what, something-
- RGRyan Graves
Sounds right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, th- so there's three, right? With- you don't know what the gimbal, the physical shape of it is. Then you have the, the c- this, the circle with the cube inside of it, and then you have the Tic Tac.
- RGRyan Graves
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are there more?
- RGRyan Graves
Probably. You know, it's, it's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever talked to someone who's seen others?
- RGRyan Graves
W- on the East Coast, you know, we were typically seeing what I've already described to you, uh, all up and down. So even up in, uh, like the, uh, Patuxent River area outside of DC, you know, people were seeing 'em up there at the test pilot area. Uh, on the West Coast, like you said, I've heard the Tic Tac, uh, description, you know, multiple times.... um, once, kind of, the word got out, I think, about the cube a bit and people were looking and paying attention, I started to hear about those being observed in other areas, such as the West Coast and, um, and further inland, actually, um, around other bases. But we still don't know necessarily if we're observing things, um, there because they're there or because we just happen to have the sensors there, right? C- they could be in more places, we're just not necessarily looking there. So, there's a huge aspect right now, the observation bias.
- JRJoe Rogan
In 2017, it was kind of a, a milestone moment for UFO, um, just the discussion because The New York Times printed a story, and once it was on the front page of The New York Times, it was like, okay, this is a serious magazine, or this is a serious newspaper, and you have a serious discussion now about this thing that had been, for a long time, been ridiculed. And then, the Pentagon discusses it. You start hearing people ... wh- why do you think that's happening? Like, what i- what is it about this subject? Like, it must have been for you, in 2014, very bizarre when you have this new radar system that starts detecting these things. Now, you get this understanding of the fact that these things are there all the time, you just haven't been able to put eyes on them and you haven't had equipment that measured them accurately. Now, you do, and now there's this discussion of it in The New York Times. What, what do you think is going on?
- RGRyan Graves
At the end of the day, I, you know, I wish I had an answer for you. I don't, but, you know, from my ... from where I'm sitting, you know, I th- I see a lot of people that seem to be paying attention more so now, especially after that article came out, myself included, right? I mean, I was part of it. I was witness to it, but, you know, just like everyone else, I kind of just let it be part of my history until I saw that article pop on The New York Times. Um, and, you know, I, I, I don't know why we are moving the conversation forward. I've listened to, you know, Chris Mellon talk about it. I've listened to Lou talk about it, and, you know, it's very simple when I talk about it because it's very simple. It's just, there are objects out there that our aviators are almost hitting, and for me, whenever I, you know, I engage this topic, it's always from that perspective of aviation safety. So, it's never really, like, engaging on this, like, crazy ontological, like, wave, right? It's just, it's me just working on a problem that I was trained for by the Navy. I was trained to be an aviation safety officer, right? So, um, I see the signs of the safety problem brewing. I s- you know, we're ... people don't want to talk about it. It's taboo, right? That's not how aviation safety works. It doesn't live in, in silence in a cone like that. Uh, you need to share lessons learned, and the government gets it now. The DOD gets it. That's why the air crew have a reporting mechanism now. They can come back after their flight, after they've seen one of these objects, uh, and they can report it. And, you know, I understand that reporting mechanism has, uh, an area where they can describe the shape of it. So, my hope is, you know, we can answer that question of yours, uh, once that data gets, uh, released. I, I hope it will at some point. It's classified at the moment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have any understanding of how often these things get reported?
- 1:00:00 – 1:14:42
Did you watch that,…
- RGRyan Graves
or whether that's, you know, the water drag that it would be exposed to. That's, like, the first kind of, like, out there thought as far as how this could operate. It would somehow be affecting, you know, the air or the water, right? The liquid around it, to, to move it around the aircraft or to, you know, negate the effect of all that force, right? 'Cause moving under water is just so much pressure, so much, uh, friction that it's just so hard to go fast.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you watch that, uh, Jeremy Corbell documentary, Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers?
- RGRyan Graves
Uh, I did. I did.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did you think of that?
- RGRyan Graves
I, it was interesting. You know, I, I, I got a cool story for you here. When I was a kid, I was an avid explorer of the internet. Uh, and I had stumbled upon what I thought at the time was the coolest possible website ever. It was this guy selling all sorts of, like, radioactive rocks and, like, cool scientific equipment (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RGRyan Graves
And I was like, "This is the coolest website." Like, this is why the internet was built. Uh, and, you know, fast-forward, you know, many years later, I learned that, you know, that was Bob's website.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, United Nuclear.
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- RGRyan Graves
I heard it... It might have been in that movie, actually, in the, or the documentary, and, uh, yeah, I was like, "Holy smokes. Like, that's that guy."
- JRJoe Rogan
... um, but, you know, the story's, the story's fascinating. Um, here- here's, here's my only... You know, I don't wanna say I believe or disbelieve, 'cause this is such an- a controversial area when people start, like, drawing these, you know, conclusions. So, um, I wanna be able to establish the ability to do real science on this topic, right? Like, I wanna be able to, you know, get a material or to get a bit of information and have a real peer review process that is going to look at that information objectively without the stigma that, uh, UAP have had. Um, even Bob's story, right? It comes with, you know, people either, you know, hate it or love it. Yeah. It's very controversial. At the end of the day, you know, data is data, and if, if we can, you know, perhaps get Element 115 or, or some other, uh, thing that could be used to do an analysis and we can write papers, we'll have a process to take that forward and be able to say, "Hey, you know, here's now a flag in the sand that we can kind of move science forward on, on this, you know, unique topic." And if n- no one... Uh, if the people that haven't seen the documentary, what Ryan's referring to with, uh, Element 115 is something that Bob talked about in the late '80s, and w- what he describes is a reactor that uses this element called 115 that was theoretical in the late '80s, but then proven in... Somewhere in the 2000s. Was it 2000... Was it, like, 2009 or something like that? But it was, it was proven through, uh, a particle collider, where they, um, they w- were able to detect it, you know, when they have these particles, and they, uh, can detect them for a very short period of time. But they know now for f- that it's not just theoretical. This Element 115 is an- an actual element. In the first discussions that Bob Lazar had about this, he claimed that there was a stable supply, a, a stable version of Element 115, and that this Element 115 was used to make some sort of a gravity field, and that was the method of propulsion that these crafts were using. Um, and that... They exhibited a method of, of, of flight that is very similar to the gimbal. The way he described it, and this is, again, in the late '80s, that this thing would be traveling and then it would turn and rotate, uh, vertically, and that it would then travel in... That would be... Th- th- somehow or another, this Element 115 with this reactor, would create this... Some sort of a field that allows it to bend gravity and bend space and time around it. And the way he described it is if... The way it uses a propulsion system, he would say if you had an incredibly heavy bowling ball and you put it in the middle of a mattress and it sort of pushes the mattress down. Mm-hmm. Like, that's what this thing is doing to space. And that in- Bending. Yeah. Instead of, like, firing flames out the back, it's doing something with this element that's allowing it to travel in an incredibly fast way. And when you listen to Commander David Fravor's depri- depiction of that Tic Tac object, one of the things that's incredible is that they detected this object at more than 50,000 feet above sea level, and then it went from above 50,000 feet to 50 feet in less than a second, which is just bonkers. Like, w- who the fuck knows what could do that- Mm-hmm. ... with no visual propulsion system, no visible... No, no understanding of, like, how this thing is moving around. But the fact that Bob Lazar was describing that actual method of propulsion back in the late '80s, it's w- It's trippy. I just... I wish, I wish there was... If he's a liar, he's one of the best liars of all time, and what a great con he's been running, because he's been telling the exact same story the exact same way for more than 30 years. It's really crazy, and you don't know what to think. I mean, I talked to the guy. I had dinner with him, and then I talked to him on the podcast. And, you know, I like to think I have a, a fairly decent bullshit detector, but I, I'm ju- I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he's a- obviously a brilliant guy, a legitimate scientist, incredibly intelligent, and I just... He would have been called out, and he, he kind of has about his education record, but he explained that to me, and I'll explain it to you afterwards, like, what he told me that he doesn't want discussed publicly. But it's, it's so strange that the way this guy was talking about these objects back in the late '80s is exactly how we're observing them behave today, and that he was saying that the United States government had these things in their possession and they were attempting to back engineer them, and they hired him, a propulsions expert, to try to figure them out. Hmm. So that's Element 115. So when you are watching this documentary and him explaining this and talking about, uh, Area S4, which is, uh, where he was, uh, supposedly working on these things, like, what di- what's your sense of that? Eh, uh, I, I try to s- stay agnostic in a sense, because I think probably, like most people, like, I want to believe it. Yeah. You know? That's the problem. Like, it's super interesting. Oh, yeah. And it... A very deep part of me just is like, "Man, I want all of that to be true." (laughs) It's super cool. Yes. Um, and so in a sense, that's what kind of pushes me away from it, you know? Um, because I don't have any tools to, to prevent that from taking over, right? Like- Right. ... I don't have any data or anything other than just that. But that's okay. We've... That's what we've dealt with, I think, in the past. But, you know, I think...
- RGRyan Graves
And I believe and I hope that as we move forward, we're gonna be dealing with this in a new way, right? It's gonna be, um... it's going to be about planting flags and moving the conversation forward with data and science. And there's some... you know, another reason, again, this could be happening now is that there's just better tools, right? Our technology is getting better. Um, we, in a sense, have, you know, another non-human intelligence on Earth with us right now, right? With our, you know, our advancement in machine learning and artificial intelligence. You know, that, those, those tools might give us information, insight into these behaviors in a way that we wouldn't obviously put together, right? That's what ML does best. Um, and so I see, I see great, um, I can see great promise for us having a better understanding of some of these mysteries kind of when we bring in that tool to show us things that we just, you know, our brains aren't well-suited to find those patterns.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- so part of the problem with all this stuff is the fact that it's not openly discussed.
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I know that you were brought in, um, for a hearing. Now, th- this is in front of Congress? Is that what it was?
- RGRyan Graves
So, you know, way back when, when this kind of got kicked off, I had a private meeting with members of the Senate Armed Service Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what was that like?
- RGRyan Graves
Pretty nerve-wracking. I mean, I was, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah. So, you know, uh, it was funny. I, you know, I volunteered to do this in a sense, and I was like, "Listen, I, I realize that, you know, I'm active duty right now. This is definitely not like... you know, I can't represent the Navy here or the military, right? I have to just try to speak as a citizen the best I can." So I was like, "I'm not gonna wear my uniform. I'm just gonna go as, you know, as Ryan, not Lieutenant Graves, hopefully." Um, and I end up getting a call at, like, 9:30, 10:00 at night, the night before I was about to leave, uh, essentially saying, "Get your, get your uniform ready 'cause you're now on orders to go up there to have that conversation."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RGRyan Graves
"And you'll be, uh, in uniform." And this was, like, months before I'm, like, getting out of the Navy. So, uh, like, my, my shit's all packed up, you know. Like, I'm, like, calling friends that, like... and some of the stuff I had shipped back home already, you know? Like, back up to New England. I'm in Mississippi at this time, so I'm calling my squadron mates at like, you know, 10:00, 11:00 at night, trying to, like, get uniform pieces to patch together.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RGRyan Graves
I'm like, "Oh, shit." Here's the worst part, right? So I'm in there. There's, you know, some very serious people in there. One of them is a former admiral, and now he's a staffer, essentially. And like, all the questions and, you know, we're having the whole conversation. Near the end, he's like, he's like, "So I noticed that you're missing a, a ribbon on your uniform." 'Cause I, you know, I had to have that rack right here. And there's one you get, like, every time you kind of leave a squadron. Um, they're no, you know, no big deal. But I didn't have it 'cause it was just, like, the stores were closed. I couldn't get it in time. He's like, "Did you leave your squadron? Did you leave your squadron on a bad note?" You know, 'cause I didn't have that medal. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, no.
- RGRyan Graves
I'm like, "Oh, shit. No." But he, he was pretty cool about it. But yeah, that was probably the most stressful part.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you have to explain the whole thing that you didn't know you were coming in uniform?
- RGRyan Graves
Yeah, pretty much. I just told the story I just told you. They loved it.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Well, I'm, I'm sure they were probably, like, thought it was funny that you were so nervous about it too.
Episode duration: 2:38:44
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