A former Navy pilot has spoken out about drone sightings in New Jersey as the mystery continues.
Ryan Graves, a former lieutenant, appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast where he discussed possible technologies powering the drones that could allow them to avoid detection.
He told Rogan that law enforcement agencies have been unable to pick up the objects with their infrared systems, suggesting the drones are using “some kind of signature management” to reduce heat emissions.
“We do this in fighter jets… where we cover the engine to essentially make it harder to see, but to not have any ability to detect or capture these objects is not the technology I’m familiar with.” , Graves said.
The pilot pointed out that the objects do not behave like normal aircraft, such as their High-G force maneuvers, which include sharp turns, climbing and diving.
“Then they stay in the area for another five, six, or seven hours and they still have battery life or whatever’s driving them, and then they go across the ocean to a point where they’re untraceable again. “I’m not really familiar with those kinds of possibilities,” he said.
Graves became a household name in the UAP world in 2023 when he became the first active-duty pilot to publicly come forward about regular UAP sightings.
He testified before Congress that year, claiming to have had firsthand encounters or knowledge of secret government programs involving technology that is “non-human.”
“The word on the street is that these objects appear to be coming from across the ocean,” Graves said during the podcast.
Ryan Graves, a former high-ranking intelligence official who testified under oath before Congress about UAPs, appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast Tuesday to share his perspective on the mysterious drones in New Jersey.
“There are senior members of Congress, Coast Guard personnel and law enforcement who see a large number of these coming out of the ocean somewhere.
“I don’t know if that necessarily means they physically jump out of the water or if they come from an unknown location in the water and then go over the shore.”
‘They fly very low, sometimes they seem to operate as a group in close proximity to each other. They either transmit energy or they don’t, so you know, like radio communications or their own.
“It is not known that I have poked at that front and I can only say that the government does not know either.”
Observations began in mid-November with the first sightings over Picatinny Arsenal in Rockaway.
Rogan said “it’s so strange” that the drones are a mystery to the White House.
Graves offered some explanations, suggesting the drones may be using cameras to sense their surroundings instead of radar, which is more easily detectable.
He told Joe Rogan that the drones can manage their heat signatures, allowing them to go undetected by the government
The former Air Force pilot pointed out that the objects do not behave like normal aircraft, such as their High-G force maneuvers, which include sharp turns, climbing and diving.
“They could have a self-contained navigation system with their maps on board and they use cameras to map where they are,” he said.
Rogan asked if the technology would make them fully autonomous, to which Graves said, “Exactly.”
“I can imagine a completely self-contained autonomous drone system that potentially does something with passive sensors that allows it to operate without emissions, making it harder to track,” he said.
Rogan asked why the powers that be haven’t stopped drones, and the former pilot said it all comes down to the laws in the US.
While the White House has not yet provided an answer to the public, it has held classified briefings on the matter.
“That’s why they actually need a warrant to wiretap this,” Graves said, explaining that this is the feedback he has received.
“(They need a warrant) to even intercept these signals that they may or may not even be sending out, to be able to control where they’re going.”
He explained that base commanders must submit a request to the Secretary of Defense, making it “a super politically charged situation.”
“If they take action and shoot one of these down, even with the approval of the Secretary of Defense, you know they’re on the hook if that thing takes out a school bus or otherwise damages someone’s property, kills someone,” Graves said.
Graves envisioned the drones “having a self-contained navigation system with their maps on board and using cameras to map where they are.”
Rogan started Tuesday’s podcast by discussing the various stories surrounding the mysterious sightings.
‘The scariest thing I’ve heard is that their drones are looking for gamma rays because they’re missing a nuclear bomb. Please let’s address that first,” he said.
Rogan was quiet about the New Jersey drones until John Ferguson, who runs Saxon Unmanned, posted a TikTok video claiming the craft was searching for a gas leak of “radioactive material.”
Graves told the podcaster that he has been in contact with individuals working on weapons of mass destruction and they told him that “there is no loose nuclear bomb or any other type of weapon of mass destruction that these objects are chasing at this time.”
“Otherwise they’d be working non-stop in a skiff to make that go away,” he added.
However, the answer did not resonate with Rogan, who wondered whether Graves’ sources were truthful.
‘How (did) they convince you? Just by saying ‘that’s not the case,’ or have they given you any information that leads to that conclusion,” Rogan asked.
Graves responded that the people he was talking to would be the ones responsible for finding the atomic bomb or weapon of mass destruction.
Belleville Mayor Michael Melham had said on Fox TV’s “Good Day New York” on Tuesday that the drones may be searching for radioactive material.
‘It was a shipment. It has arrived at its destination. The container was damaged and was empty,” Melham said.
The mayor was referring to an alert from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stating that a medical device used for cancer scans went missing while in transit across the state on December 2.
The device, known as a ‘pin source’, contained a small amount of Germanium-68 (Ge-68) used to calibrate the accuracy of a medical scanner.
The pin source contained approximately 0.267 millicurie (mCi) of Ge-68, which is a very small amount that would only cause damage with short and long term exposure.
The material emits low-energy gamma radiation, making it useful for calibration purposes in medical equipment.