Ryan Graves: Former U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter pilot (combat lead, landing signals officer, rescue mission commander) and one of the few aviators to speak publicly about military UFO/UAP sightings. He now works in advanced technology, including AI-assisted combat, autonomy, and quantum materials science.
What this episode covers
Lex Fridman talks with former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves about his career flying the F/A-18 and the now-famous UFO/UAP sightings his squadron repeatedly encountered off the coast of Virginia Beach. Graves walks through the technical realities of fighter aviation, from Top Gun accuracy and dogfighting to the extreme difficulty of landing on a carrier. The core of the conversation is his firsthand account of unidentified objects detected on upgraded radar, captured on infrared, and eventually seen with the naked eye, including a near-collision that became a squadron watershed moment. They discuss the stigma and bureaucratic resistance around investigating UAPs, the Gimbal and Nimitz incidents, and government secrecy. The episode closes on AI in warfare, the war in Ukraine, the nature of conflict, and reflections on death, nature, and meaning.
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Top Gun: Maverick
Joseph Kosinski
“what did you think of the new top gun movie how accurate was it let's start there i thought the flying was really accurate”— Lex Fridman
DJI drone
DJI
“i have a dji drone myself even and you know maybe not 100 knots but if that thing's in 30 or 40 not wins”— Ryan Graves
Brothers in Arms
Dire Straits
“i told him about a song called brothers in arms by dire straits and the question i asked them i'd like to ask you the same question”— Lex Fridman
Big reveals from this episode
- After upgrading from the APG-73 to the APG-79 radar, the squadron started detecting objects that weren't there with the old radar.
- The objects were confirmed not just on radar but emitting real infrared energy on the targeting pod, ruling out a pure radar malfunction.
- Two jets from his squadron nearly collided with an object that passed between them; it was described as a dark cube inside a clear translucent sphere.
- The near-miss flight was canceled mid-mission and became the watershed moment when the squadron treated the objects as a serious safety threat.
- A former student called Graves to report he too saw a 'cube in a sphere' years later, making the sightings a generational issue for East Coast pilots.
- Graves watched an admiral glance at the Gimbal footage for only five or six seconds and walk out, convincing him the admiral had seen the objects before.
- Graves admits his 'heart tells me something's going on' regarding hidden technology, but says he has no evidence either way.
- He says leaving the Navy was his real low point, triggering anxiety the macho fighter community rarely prepares pilots for.
Worth remembering
- Ejections are far more common than people think; his squadron had several within a few months of each other.
- An ejection subjects the body to roughly 250-300 g's for a few milliseconds before backing off to 40-50 g's.
- A bird strike is like a bowling ball hitting at 250 mph; pilots are taught to always go over a bird, never under, because startled birds drop straight down.
- A 'perfect pass' landing on a carrier means flying your head through a one-foot-by-one-foot box at the right angle of attack.
- In zero-visibility '99 taxi lights on' landings, an LSO talks the pilot down by voice while descending around 1,600 feet per minute, blind.
- The East Coast objects typically cruised at 0.6-0.8 Mach for hours, sometimes supersonic, in monitored airspace 10 to 300 miles off Virginia Beach.
- The squadron's boar's-head insignia comes from the Gordon's gin logo, granted in perpetuity after the unit partied with the founder in 1918.
- The Gimbal object appeared to change direction by climbing vertically, a flight profile pilots avoid because it burns excessive fuel.
- Graves's advice: don't be afraid to look stupid; keep a beginner's mind and you can go far even later in life.
- He frames the human mind as uniquely able to imagine and then substantiate things that could never naturally occur.