On July 26, the House Oversight Committee held a UFO hearing with three witnesses testifying under oath. One of those witnesses had an intriguing story about electronics jamming that might provide more insight into one of the mysteries at Skinwalker Ranch.
To review a comprehensive, in-depth breakdown of all of David Grusch’s claims about a secret UAP retrieval program, with citations, see our story here.
A Pilot Testified About UFOs That Could Jam Their Planes’ Electronics
Retired Cmdr. David Fravor filmed the famous TicTac video in 2004 while flying over the Pacific Ocean. He was one of three witnesses on July 26, testifying alongside pilot Ryan Graves and David Grusch.
Fravor testified that his UFO encounter happened while he was the Commanding Officer of the “World Famous Black Aces” for the Air Force.
Part of his testimony was released early in an opening statement that you can read in Post Apocalyptic Media’s story here.
He said the Tic Tac shaped object moved “very abruptly over the white water.”
He noted: “There were no Rotors, No Rotor wash, or any visible flight control surfaces like wings.”
The object was traveling too fast for them to keep up.
He shared: “This Tic Tac Object had just traveled 60 miles in a very short period of time (less than a minute), was far superior in performance to my brand new F/A-18F and did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere.”
But what was even more disturbing was how the Tic Tax was jamming their radar. While the pilots did note this at the time, that video was not released to the general public.
He shared: “We returned to Nimitz and mentioned what we had witnessed to one of my crews who were getting ready to launch. It was that crew that took the now famous approximately 90 second video that was released by the USG in 2017. What is not seen is the Radar tape that showed the jamming of the APG-73 radar in the aircraft, but we do see on the targeting pod video that the object does not emit any IR (infrared) plume from a normal propulsion system that we would expect.”
Fravor went on to say that the TicTac possessed capabilities they could not match.
“The Tic Tac Object that we engaged in Nov 2004 was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next 10+ years,” he said. “If we in fact have programs that possess this technology, it needs to have oversight from those people that the citizens of this great country elected to office to represent what is best for the United States and in the best interest of its citizens.”
In an interview in 2020, Fravor emphasized that it was seen by “four trained observers” on a “crystal clear day,” Fox News reported. He said that when another pilto, Chad Underwood, aimed his radar at it, his radar was jammed.
Favor shared: “He’s telling the radar, ‘Stare down the line of sight, whatever is there I want you to grab it and build a trace file on it,’ which will tell you where it is, how fast it is and the direction that it’s going… The radar is smart enough that when the signal comes back if it’s been messed with, it will tell you – it will give you indications that it’s being jammed… It’s being jammed into about every mode you can see… You can tell it’s being jammed.”
Technically, Fravor added, actively jamming a platform like that is an “act of war.”
Skinwalker Ranch Has Also Encountered Anomalies that Can Jam Their Technology
Fravor’s experience echoes similar experiences that Skinwalker Ranch has encountered. The show, which is featured on History’s “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch,” often reports technology jammed or being interfered with by unknown anomalies. Telephones, camera equipment, and even equipment from outside experts who come to conduct tests will frequently and unexplainably malfunction. In one episode, a telescope lost hardcoded star data.
In one Reddit thread about Skinwalker Ranch, a viewer asked if the film crew’s equipment ever failed too. Apaprently it does, but this isn’t shared during the episodes.
Redditor u/_OoklaTheMok_ wrote: “The film crew’s equipment IS and does fail all the time. However, the production company (Prometheus) and History Channel have taken a ‘No production Crew will be seen on screen’ attitude… Brandon and the team have said many time that there are many instances of equipment failing, both with the SWR team and the production crew.”
Redditor FireflyHarmony said that in behind-the-scenes videos, they’ve talked about this.
They wrote: “In the behind the scenes they often talk about how the production company’s equipment fails all the time, and that they have to carry extra batteries and multiple backups and redundancies to compensate. We also don’t get to see scenes that weren’t recorded due to failures, naturally. When Travis was hit with localized radiation all of the production company’s equipment failed and that scene was shot entirely on an iPhone which was the only thing that seemed to be working at the time. Members of the production team have also refused to come back to the ranch.”
In 2020, KSLTV reported that one of their reporters and a photographer visited Skinwalker Ranch for about nine hours. A GoPro operating as a second camera malfunctioned during an interview, refusing to connect to the phone controlling it. Principal investigator Erik Bard told them this was normal, and some equipment was even permanently damaged from the effect.
The crew then deployed a drone for photography, but it experienced a calibration failure during the flight. The drone said it detected “too strong magnetic interference” and warned “ensure there are no magnets or metal objects nearby.” At that exact same time, cameras captured something moving in the sky that might have been a UAP.
Then when the reporters explored Homestead 2, they had another drone malfunction and it wouldn’t connect, KSLTV reported. Tom Winterton shouted to the sky, “Will you please allow us to fly the drone?” After that, it connected and was able to fly.
KSLTV reported that the crew also noticed batteries draining at a strangely fast rate.
Skinwalker Ranch Has a Long History with Government UAP Research
Interestingly, Skinwalker Ranch has a long connection to UFO research.
In 2007, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid launched the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) (which created AATIP) to study UAPs. Robert Bigelow, who owned Skinwalker Ranch before current owner Brandon Fugal, persuaded Reid to start the program, CNN reported. In 2008, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) revived its Skinwalker Ranch lab to study UAPs, according to a website called Enigma Labs. It had won a contract from AATIP to study UAPs.
Jay Stratton, who worked with Bigelow at Skinwalker Ranch before Fugal purchased the ranch, has been involved in almost every UAP program iteration: AAWSAP, AATIP, and UAPTF, 8 News Now reported.
The strange electronic malfunctions at Skinwalker Ranch, including issues with radar, seem to fall into a similar category to what Fravor noted in the UFO hearing. It appears that these UAPs can interfere with electronics in some way, though the mechanism is unclear.
This work by Stephanie Dwilson is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
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