Americans for Safe Aerospace

Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA) is a Washington, DC-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on aerospace safety, national security, and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).¹ ASA describes itself as a military-pilot-led organization that works with Congress and government stakeholders, and it lists former Navy F/A-18 pilot Ryan Graves as founder and executive director.¹

  Origin

ASA publicly announced its 501(c)(3) launch on June 1, 2023.² Graves tied the group's origin to his Navy squadron's 2014-2015 encounters off Virginia Beach, where upgraded radar, infrared sensors, and later visual observations reportedly detected objects in training airspace.³⁴ In his July 2023 congressional testimony, Graves said one W-72 training incident involved a near collision, a submitted safety report, and no further mechanism for reporting repeated sightings.³⁴

In the House hearing record, Graves said those encounters became frequent enough for aircrew to discuss UAP risk in preflight briefs, then stated that the need for action and answers led him to found ASA.⁴ By that hearing, he said ASA had nearly 5,000 members and was working with more than 30 commercial aircrew and military witnesses.³⁴

  Mission and Advocacy

ASA's public mission is to identify what is in U.S. skies by closing domain-awareness gaps, reducing stigma, and treating UAP as a safety and national-security reporting problem.¹⁵ Its July 2023 witness campaign offered confidential support for commercial aircrew and military witnesses, interviews with relevant advisers, and possible referrals to Congress, Senate staff, the Department of Defense, or AARO only with witness permission.⁵⁶

The organization advocates UAP transparency policy, including the UAP Disclosure Act and the Safe Airspace for Americans Act, and its own homepage describes the latter as bipartisan legislation intended to enable and protect pilot reporting.¹⁵ The 2025 Safe Airspace bill would require FAA procedures for collecting, analyzing, archiving, and investigating civilian UAP reports; sharing reports with AARO; reducing stigma; and protecting medical certificates, airmen certificates, and employment from UAP-reporting reprisals.⁷

  Reporting Work

ASA's public reporting intake tells witnesses that their report may matter to aviation safety and national security, that a de-identified version can be published after expert review, and that the witness controls whether information is shared.⁶ ASA says it may request interviews and may refer cases to Senate, Department of Defense, or other government stakeholders when appropriate.⁶

Graves told Congress that commercial pilots were contacting ASA because they did not feel they had another way to report a safety issue.⁴ His written statement described ASA as a center for support, research, and public education for aircrew affected by UAP encounters.³

  Congressional Witness Role

At the July 26, 2023 House Oversight hearing, Graves appeared as executive director of ASA alongside David Fravor and David Grusch.⁴ The hearing page and transcript identify him by that role, and his written statement framed reported advanced UAP as both a national-security problem and an aviation-safety problem.³⁴

In questioning, Graves told members that commercial aviation had not adapted to the lessons from military UAP reporting and that pilots needed a system to report without fear of losing jobs or medical certification.⁴ Representative Robert Garcia's questioning also placed ASA's witness work inside a broader congressional concern about missing civilian reporting channels and stigma.⁴

  Aviation Safety Frame

ASA's aviation-safety argument rests on problems also identified in federal reviews: inconsistent reporting, stigma, sensor limits, sparse data, and the operational need to identify unknown objects in controlled airspace.⁸⁹ ODNI's 2021 preliminary assessment said UAP reporting was limited and inconsistent, identified 11 pilot-reported near misses, and judged UAP a safety-of-flight issue that could also pose national-security challenges if foreign or advanced technology were involved.⁹

NASA's 2023 independent study found that current civilian UAP reporting was inadequate for scientific inference and recommended systematic follow-up, better data repositories, and possible use of the Aviation Safety Reporting System for commercial pilot UAP reporting.⁸ The 2025 Safe Airspace bill tracks the same safety architecture by proposing standardized FAA reporting, AARO sharing, anti-stigma communications, and protections for pilots and aviation employees who report UAP.⁷

  Source-Grounded Assessment

ASA is strongest when read as a pilot-led safety and reporting organization, because official sources support the narrower claims that UAP reporting has been stigmatized, inconsistent, and operationally relevant.⁸⁹ The evidentiary basis is weaker when witness accounts move from safety reports to claims about extraordinary performance or origin, because NASA said eyewitness reports are insufficient by themselves and AARO reported no empirical evidence that any UAP sighting represented off-world technology or an undisclosed reverse-engineering program.⁸¹⁰

A cautious assessment is that ASA has helped shift UAP from fringe stigma into aviation-safety and oversight language, but its public case still depends on better reporting, archived sensor data, and follow-up analysis rather than on settled conclusions about what the objects are.⁴⁸⁷¹⁰

  References

  References

1. Americans for Safe Aerospace - Homepage https://www.safeaerospace.org/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Americans for Safe Aerospace - "Americans for Safe Aerospace 501(c)(3) Launch" https://www.safeaerospace.org/news/asa-501-c-3-launc ↩

3. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability - Ryan Graves written testimony, July 26, 2023 https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ryan-HOC-Testimony.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Congress.gov - "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency" hearing transcript https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/116282/text ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

5. Americans for Safe Aerospace - "UAP Witness Campaign" https://www.safeaerospace.org/press-releases/uap-witness-campaign-2023 ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Americans for Safe Aerospace - "Report a UAP Sighting" https://www.safeaerospace.org/report-uap ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Congress.gov - H.R.5231, Safe Airspace for Americans Act, 119th Congress https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5231/text ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. NASA - "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team Final Report" https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/uap-independent-study-team-final-report-0.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

9. Office of the Director of National Intelligence - "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office - "Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume 1" https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/AARO_Historical_Record_Report_Vol_1_2024.pdf ↩ ↩²