Americans for Safe Aerospace
Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA) is a nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 2022 by former U.S. Navy F-A-18 pilot Ryan Graves to collect, document, and publicly report UAP encounters by military and commercial aviators. Graves founded ASA after years of attempting to route pilot UAP reports through official channels and finding persistent institutional resistance.
Founding and Mission
Ryan Graves served as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot flying F-A-18 Super Hornets off the East Coast of the United States beginning around 2014, the year his squadron transitioned to an upgraded radar system that began detecting persistent, unidentified objects in restricted airspace. The objects — including a translucent sphere encasing a rotating cube — appeared daily and were tracked by multiple pilots and the ship's combat system operators. When a near-midair collision occurred, the squadron submitted formal aviation hazard reports, but received no follow-up from command.
Graves identified what he called a structural gap in aviation safety culture: pilots observed UAP routinely but had no dedicated, non-stigmatised channel for reporting them, and those who did report risked career consequences. ASA was established to fill this gap — operating as a civilian data-collection body independent of both the Department of Defense and the commercial airline industry, so that pilots could report encounters without professional risk.
The organisation's website, AmericansForSafeAerospace.org, provides a standardised UAP reporting form for military veterans, active-duty personnel, and commercial pilots.
Pilot Reporting Gap
A central argument of ASA is that UAP reporting by military and commercial aviators is systemically suppressed by a combination of institutional stigma, absence of formal procedure, and fear of career damage. Graves documented the specific failure mode: pilots who submitted hazard reports after UAP encounters received no feedback, which caused subsequent sightings to go unreported.
ASA's intake network encompassed pilots from every major U.S. airline by 2024, some of whom had formed internal UAP working groups within their carriers. ASA also accepts reports from non-aviation witnesses, including individuals who observed UAP from the ground.
The organization collaborates with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) UAP Community of Interest, a technical working group that includes engineers with over 300 cumulative years of NASA experience.
July 2023 Congressional Testimony
On 26 July 2023, Graves testified before the House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee alongside former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch and retired Navy Commander David Fravor. The hearing, chaired by Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), marked the first time sitting members of Congress received open, sworn testimony from a combination of military pilots and an intelligence officer alleging the existence of a clandestine UAP retrieval programme.
Graves's testimony at the hearing focused on the aviation safety dimension: he argued that UAP posed a direct collision risk to military and commercial aircraft, and that the absence of a national, unclassified reporting infrastructure was itself a public safety failure. He explicitly called for UAP reporting to be elevated above the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) level to the Office of Science and Technology Policy or equivalent senior executive body.
Grusch, testifying alongside Graves, stated under oath that he had provided eleven and a half to twelve hours of classified testimony to congressional staffers regarding UAP crash-retrieval allegations he described as "credible and urgent".
Pilot career stigma
The institutional barrier facing military aviators who observe UAP was described explicitly by test pilots briefing members of the House Oversight Committee. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN), who sat on the committee that hosted Graves's testimony, disclosed that pilots had told him personally: "if you have a UAP experience, the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone because any type of reporting, either above the surface or below the surface, does have a perceived consequence to these people."Shawn Ryan (2023-10-11). Tim Burchett - Non-human Biologics, UFO Encounters, and Mexico's Alien Bodies [[:Template:!]] SRS #78 Part 216:42. youtube.com. Shawn Ryan Show. Retrieved 2026-03-15. it was stated explicitly to me by these test pilots that if you have a UAP experience, the best thing you can do for your career is forget it and not tell anyone because any type of reporting, either above the surface or below the surface, does have a perceived consequence to these people and that is a culture we must change if we want to get to the truth. ＋ {{cite AV media}}:URL–wikilink conflict (help) This corroborated Graves's own 2023 congressional testimony statement that "the stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security."Shawn Ryan (2023-10-11). Tim Burchett - Non-human Biologics, UFO Encounters, and Mexico's Alien Bodies [[:Template:!]] SRS #78 Part 250:12. youtube.com. Shawn Ryan Show. Retrieved 2026-03-15. The stigma attached to UAP is real and powerful and challenges national security. It silences commercial pilots who fear professional repercussions, discourages witnesses. ＋ {{cite AV media}}:URL–wikilink conflict (help)
Cross-platform corroboration cases
ASA's multi-source reporting methodology has produced cases where independent observations from separate platforms corroborate each other — illustrating the value of a centralized civilian intake system. One documented example involved a large, brightly lit object observed at approximately 8,000 feet over Atlanta Hartsfield airport: four or five commercial airliners called it in to air traffic control, which was unable to identify it. The object then "started to accelerate level, due south... to what I call conventional speeds — as fast as an airliner — and then took off much faster continuing due south." The following day, ASA received a report from a civilian in Florida — approximately due south of Atlanta — who had photographed an object matching the description. The cross-corroboration between aviation witnesses and a ground observer with photographic documentation illustrates ASA's model of building an independent dataset that does not rely on government collection systems.
Data Methodology
ASA uses standardised reporting forms designed to capture kinematic parameters (speed, altitude, trajectory), sensor data (radar returns, electro-optical signatures, FLIR imagery), and pilot physiological effects. Reports are stored in a database intended to feed peer-reviewed scientific analysis. Graves has argued that unclassified, open-source data collection by civilian organisations is necessary to build a body of evidence that does not depend on government disclosure, enabling the scientific community to analyse UAP independently.