David Grusch

In 2023, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and former intelligence official David Grusch was interviewed by various media outlets and testified in a U.S. House of Representatives congressional hearing. Grusch claimed that he had conversations with unnamed officials that led him to believe that the U.S. federal government maintains a secretive UFO (or UAP) recovery program and is in possession of "non-human" spacecraft along with their "dead pilots". In 2022, Grusch filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) to support his plan to share classified information with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also filed a complaint alleging retaliation by his superiors over a similar complaint he made in 2021.

He claims to have viewed documents reporting that Benito Mussolini's government recovered a "non-human" spacecraft in 1933, which the Vatican and the Five Eyes assisted the U.S. in procuring in 1944 or 1945. Grusch claims second hand knowledge that American citizens have been harmed and killed as part of the government's efforts to cover up the information. In response to his June 2023 claims, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) issued statements reaffirming that no evidence of extraterrestrial life has been discovered and that there is no verifiable information about anyone possessing and reverse engineering any "extraterrestrial materials".

In July 2023 testimony given to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Grusch repeated some of his claims under oath, alongside testimony from retired U.S. fighter pilot Ryan Graves and retired U.S. Navy commander David Fravor on their personal experiences related to UFOs. Grusch testified that he could not elaborate publicly on some aspects of his claims, but offered to provide further details to representatives in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

Background

David Charles Grusch is a decorated Afghanistan combat veteran and former Air Force intelligence officer who worked in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). From 2019 to 2021, he was the representative of the NRO to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. From late 2021 to July 2022, he was the co-lead for UAP analysis at the NGA and its representative to the task force. He assisted in drafting the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023, which includes provisions for reporting of UFOs, including whistleblower protections and exemptions to non-disclosure orders and agreements. Congressional interest in UFO sightings immediately prior to Grusch's public claims surrounded questions about the four objects that the Air Force shot down in February 2023.

Grusch's public claims

On June 5, 2023, independent journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal provided a story detailing Grusch's claims of a UFO coverup by the government to ''The Debrief'', a website that describes itself as "self-funded" and specializing in "frontier science". ''The New York Times'' and ''Politico'' declined to publish the story, while ''The Washington Post'' was taking more time to conduct fact-checking than Kean and Blumenthal felt could be afforded because, according to Kean, "people on the internet were spreading stories, Dave was getting harassing phone calls, and we felt the only way to protect him was to get the story out". According to Kean, she vetted Grusch by interviewing Karl Nell, a retired Army colonel who was also on the UFO task force, and "Jonathan Grey" (a pseudonym) whom Kean described as "a current U.S. intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC)". Kean wrote that Nell called Grusch "beyond reproach" and that both Nell and "Grey" supported Grusch's claim about a secret UFO retrieval and reverse engineering program. Also on June 5, portions of an interview of Grusch by Ross Coulthart aired on NewsNation with additional excerpts appearing on June 11.

Grusch claims that the U.S. federal government maintains a highly secretive UFO retrieval program and possesses multiple spacecraft of non-human origin as well as corpses of deceased pilots. Grusch also claims there is "substantive evidence that white-collar crime" took place to conceal UFO programs and that he had interviewed officials who said that people had been killed to conceal the programs. Grusch stated that he tried to get the director of AARO to help him share his claims with Congress, "I expressed some concerns to Dr. Kirkpatrick about a year ago, and told him what I was starting to uncover. And he didn't follow up with me."

Grusch elaborated on his claims in a subsequent interview with the French newspaper ''Le Parisien'' on June 7. He said that UFOs could be coming from extra dimensions; that he had spoken with intelligence officials whom the U.S. military had briefed on " football-field" sized crafts; that the U.S. government transferred some crashed UFOs to a defense contractor; and that there was "malevolent activity" by UFOs.

During a July 26, 2023, Congressional hearing, Grusch said that he "was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access" and that he believes that the U.S. government is in possession of UAP based on his interviews with 40 witnesses over four years. Grusch claimed in response to Congressional questions that the U.S. has retrieved "non-human" biological matter from the pilots of the crafts and that this "was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the APprogram I talked to, that are currently still on the program". When asked by U.S. Representative Tim Burchett during this July 26 hearing, if Grusch had "personal knowledge of people who've been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal" the government's possession of "extraterrestrial technology," Grusch said yes but that he was not able to provide details except within a SCIF.

BBC Radio 4's ''The World Tonight'' on August 3, 2023, interviewed Grusch along with his attorney Charles McCullough, a former Intelligence Community Inspector General. When asked about the U.S. having "intact and partially intact alien vehicles in its possession", Grusch repeated his claims, and McCullough noted that Congress should have "access to the information it needs to properly oversee things going on in the executive branch".

Response from relevant experts

Joshua Semeter of NASA's UAP independent study team and professor of electrical and computer engineering with Boston University's College of Engineering concludes that "without data or material evidence, we are at an impasse on evaluating these claims" and that, "in the long history of claims of extraterrestrial visitors, it is this level of specificity that always seems to be missing". Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, published a critique of the Grusch claims on June 22 with ''Big Think''. Frank writes that he does "not find these claims exciting at all" because they are all "just hearsay" where "a guy says he knows a guy who knows another guy who heard from a guy that the government has alien spaceships". Frank also said of the Grusch account that "it's an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary evidence, none of which we're getting", adding "show me the spaceship".

''The Guardian'' printed an opinion piece by Stuart Clark about Grusch's claims which included questions from three scientists. Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb, who co-founded the UFO-investigating Galileo Project, noted that nothing extraterrestrial has been observed. Radio astronomer Michael Garrett noted that crashed landings of alien craft "would imply that there must be hundreds of them coming every day, and astronomers simply don't see them". Sara Russell, a planetary scientist from the Natural History Museum in London, said that, "if you give me an alloy, it would take me less than half an hour to tell you what elements are in it", and that "it should be easy to understand whether something falling to Earth is man-made or extraterrestrial, and if it is the latter, whether it is naturally occurring or not".

Greg Eghigian, a history professor at Pennsylvania State University and expert in the history of UFOs as it occurs in the context of public fascination, notes that there have been many instances over recent decades in the U.S. of people "who previously worked in some kind of federal department" coming forward to make "bombshell allegations" about the truth regarding UFOs with the whistleblower claims by Grusch fitting this pattern. Eghigian describes the 1940s–50s media enthusiasm about flying saucers, and comments that the successful books on the subject by authors Donald Keyhoe, Frank Scully, and Gerald Heard "provided the model for a new kind of public figure: the crusading whistleblower dedicated to breaking the silence over the alien origins of unidentified flying objects." Since then all these similarly credentialed claimants have been unable to provide any further corroboration. Eghigian said that "a new kind of sobriety needs to be interjected here" and that the Grusch story "ups the ante" but is "very hard to take seriously unless we start getting some real evidence that's of a forensic nature to prove these things".

Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute writing on MSNBC.com about Grusch's claims, said that the claims are extraordinary, before asking, "But where is the evidence? It's MIA. Neither Grusch nor anyone else claiming to have knowledge of secret government UAP programs has ever been able to publicly produce convincing photos showing alien hardware splayed across the landscape. And remember, we're not talking about a Cessna that plowed into a wheat field. We're talking about, presumably, an alien interstellar rocket, capable of bridging trillions of miles of space, and sporting technology that is obviously alien". Shostak concluded that, "from the standpoint of science, there's still no good evidence hat extraterrestrials are visiting the Earth only an ' argument from authority'". Michael Shermer, publisher of ''Skeptic'' magazine, said of the July 26, 2023, congressional hearing that "it's astonishing it's come this far without any real evidence, without anybody in the scientific community making an appearance" and "we are still seeing not a shred of physical evidence".

Physicist and cosmologist Sean M. Carroll said of Grusch's claims about non-human visitors, "the evidence is laughable". About Grusch's physics claims, Carroll said that Grusch was "talking about the holographic principle and extra dimensions and stuff like that" which should "set off your alarm bells". He concluded that Grusch "has all of the vibes of a complete crackpot".

Laurie Leshin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director for NASA, when asked by reporter in August 2023 if she had "seen spacecraft made from outside of this world", replied "Absolutely not. No." with a laugh and head shake.

Physicist and popular science writer Michio Kaku told NewsNation that "so far we have not seen the smoking gun" to prove any of Grusch's claims. However, he also suggested that "the burden of proof has shifted, now the Pentagon has to prove these things aren't extra-terrestrial". That prompted Real Clear Science editor Ross Pomeroy to comment, "no, the burden of proof has not shifted. Aliens are not the default explanation when a simpler explanation readily does the job". According to Pomeroy, "Kaku is seriously jeopardizing his reputation and misleading the public through his unscientific new stance on UFOs."

United States government responses

Department of Defense and NASA statements

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred questions about Grusch's complaint to the Department of Defense (DoD). In a statement, Sue Gough, spokesperson for the Pentagon, said: "To date, AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently. AARO is committed to following the data and its investigation wherever it leads."

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave an interview to ''The Washington Times'' on August 6, 2023, and said that he never saw or heard of any evidence that would backup the claims made by Grusch regarding "quote-unquote 'aliens' or that there's some sort of cover-up program". Milley added that he was not that surprised that such ideas would circulate and be believed by some within an organization as large as the U.S. military.

NASA stated: "One of NASA's key priorities is the search for life elsewhere in the universe, but so far, NASA has not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and there is no evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial. However, NASA is exploring the solar system and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions, including whether we are alone in the universe."

Congressional action and comments from members

In response to Grusch's claims, Representative Mike Turner, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, "every decade there's been individuals who've said the United States has such pieces of unidentified flying objects that are from outer space" and that "there's no evidence of this and certainly it would be quite a conspiracy for this to be maintained, especially at this level". Representatives Anna Paulina Luna and Tim Burchett were tasked with organizing a hearing in response to the Grusch claims on behalf of the House Oversight Committee. This took place on July 26, 2023.

Senator Lindsey Graham found the claims unreasonable, saying, "If we'd really found this stuff, there's no way you could keep it from coming out". Senator Josh Hawley said, "I'm not surprised, necessarily, by these latest allegations, because it sounds pretty close to what they kind of grudgingly admitted to us in the briefing". Some senators, though not concerned about Grusch's specific claims, were concerned that Congress might not have been briefed on special access programs. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who led a Senate hearing on UFOs in April 2023, said she intends to hold a hearing to assess whether "rogue SAP programs" existed "that no one is providing oversight for". Senator Marco Rubio, vice-chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said, "there are people who have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years" with "first-hand knowledge" and that they were "potentially some of the same people perhaps" referred to by Grusch.

Following the July 26 hearing with Grusch as a witness, a bipartisan group of U.S. representatives called for the formation of a select committee on UAPs with subpoena power.

In July 2023, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds lead a proposed 64-page amendment to the 2024 National Defence Authorization Act, called the UAP Disclosure Act 2023, that proposes wider access to records of UAP and federal government ownership of any "recovered technologies of unknown origin". The enrolled bill directs the National Archives to collect government documents about "unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence".

2023 House Committee Oversight and Accountability hearing

On July 26, 2023, Grusch testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, regarding his experiences and claims. House Representatives present included Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna.

He did so alongside retired U.S. fighter pilots Ryan Graves and retired U.S. navy commander David Fravor. Fravor gave a first-hand account of his involvement in a 2004 incident released in the Pentagon UFO videos involving his fighter jet and a UFO, and Grusch repeated his previous claims under questioning from house representatives.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the three witnesses, "If you were me, where would you look?" regarding answers to UAP questions and evidence to validate his claims. Grusch replied, "I'd be happy to give you that in a closed environment. I can tell you specifically." Since the hearing, several lawmakers have said that they want to hear more from Grusch in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), however, according to Representative Burchett, officials have informed the lawmakers "that Grusch doesn't currently have security clearance to discuss the issues in a SCIF".

Following the July 26, 2023, Congressional hearing, AARO's director Sean Kirkpatrick wrote on his LinkedIn page that, "contrary to assertions made in the hearing", Grusch "has refused to speak with AARO" so that some details said to have been given to Congress had not been provided to his office and also that the hearing was "insulting ...to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO, many with not unreasonable anxieties about the career risks this would entail". A Pentagon spokesperson told reporters that the post was Kirkpatrick's "personal opinions expressed in his capacity as a private citizen," and declined to comment on the content of the post.

Media reporting on Grusch's claims

Connections to studies funded by Robert Bigelow

Keith Kloor writing for the ''Scientific American'' on August 25, 2023, draws a line from "these outlandish assertions" by Grusch "to the vast repository of so-called studies" funded over past years by Robert Bigelow. Kloor also points to the specific references to "a football field–sized UFO" showing up in one of the claims made by Grusch and in past claims by Bigelow.

Reporting on psychiatric treatment received by Grusch

Ken Klippenstein reported in ''The Intercept'' on August 9, 2023, that Grusch was twice committed after incidents in 2014 and 2018 that involved drunkenness and suicidal comments. Police records mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After the 2018 incident Grusch was placed under an emergency custody order and transported to an ER. A mental health specialist requested a temporary detention order, whereupon Grusch was transferred to Loudoun Adult Medical Psychiatric Services, an inpatient program in the Inova Loudoun Cornwall Medical Campus in Leesburg. The article in ''The Intercept'' noted that "Grusch's ability to keep his security clearance" despite this history "appears to contrast with the government's treatment of other employees".

News stories and commentary

Related to the June 11, 2023, broadcast of more Coulthart interview content, NewsNation included multiple voices, such as skeptical investigator Mick West. He was interviewed on June 8 and 11 and said, "I don't think what rusch issaying is accurate" and that, while "it's possible he's believing what he's saying, it's an incredible story that really needs some actual verification".

British journalist Nick Pope, who previously ran the British Ministry of Defense "UFO Desk", initially expressed hope for confirmation or disconfirmation of Grusch's claims, but now that Grusch has lost his security clearance and there is still no "smoking gun" Pope says it is difficult to see how the claims could be confirmed. He added that while he was at the Ministry of Defense if the US government had acquired craft and bodies, "they didn't tell the UK.

Writing for ''The Atlantic'' on June 7, Marina Koren pointed out that the case fits a long pattern of previous unprovable claims and that, "so far, the best evidence rusch hascome up with, besides his own word, is the government's denial". Matt Laslo, writing for '' Wired'' on June 13, described the sympathetic hearing of Grusch's claims by some members of Congress as an indication that in "our strange new political universe of alternative facts turned dystopian reality, once-fringe notions have built-in fan bases in today's Capitol". Conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson gave publicity to the claims in a video posted to Twitter, and more recently a video in which he interviews David Grusch posted to YouTube. Tom Rogan, writing in the ''Washington Examiner'' on June 12, was skeptical regarding the extent of Grusch's claims, but said that they should be further investigated.

Outside the United States, the story received attention from multiple foreign mainstream news outlets, in such countries as Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Croatia and Turkey. The 2023 House Committee hearing at which Grusch testified brought much wider coverage to his claims including major international outlets like the BBC, CNN and others.

Disinformation campaign allegations from media pundits

Accusations of an intentional UFO disinformation campaign have been a feature of the coverage of this story. Grusch said intentional disinformation was being pushed by the US government to cast doubt on the veracity of "non-human" (or alien) claims such as his. Adam Gabbatt of ''The Guardian'' described Grusch's position as "a common conspiracy trope in the UFO community". Others have suggested a different sort of intentional campaign that fed Grusch disinformation about aliens to encourage the public to believe in the extraordinary claim of aliens and crashed ships for ulterior motives. Gareth Nicholson, editor for the ''South China Morning Post'', explored some of the military and technological reasons for the purported existence of such a campaign, "the current UAP flap could be an attempt by the US military to engage in a disinformation campaign to disguise real aerospace breakthroughs or an attempt to flush out advanced technologies held by rivals such as Russia and China".

Additional responses from media pundits

Andrew Prokop, a political news correspondent with '' Vox'', wrote on June 10 that, "skeptics question whether Grusch is just repeating tall tales that have long circulated through the UFO-believing community, suggesting he may be just a gullible sap (if not an outright fabulist)." Prokop went on to state that, "mainstream media sources have so far remained wary of Grusch – ''The'' ''New York Times'', ''Washington Post'', and ''Politico'' were all offered his story but none thought it was publishable. ''The Debrief'', which published it, is a notably UFO-friendly outlet, as are Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, the two journalists who wrote the story. And purported bombshells like this in the past have tended to fizzle out." Sean Thomas expressed confusion in his opinion piece for ''The Spectator'' on June 24 that, preceding Grusch, there have been others trying to convince officials and the public that UFOs are worthy of serious considerations including some who themselves were high-ranking U.S. officials. ''The New York Times'' columnist Ross Douthat noted in a June 10 opinion piece that one interpretation of the flap is that parts of the U.S. government see benefit in promoting belief in UFOs, noting similarities between Grusch's claims and the claims of Garry Nolan, Stanford pathology professor and longtime proponent of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis, among others. (According to Leslie Kean, Nolan knows and respects Grusch.) On June 12, Matt Stieb, writing for ''New York,'' described Grusch's claims in Coulthart's interview as "crazy".

Ezra Klein, a columnist with ''The New York Times'', posted a podcast interview with Kean on June 20, 2023, noting that "the main reactions" to her recent story about Grusch "have been to either embrace it as definitive truth or dismiss it out of hand." Klein asked a series of skeptical questions. Kean agreed that it is hard to imagine the government managing to keep programs secret for so long.

Documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist Steven Greenstreet criticized Grusch in a video with the ''New York Post'' for previously attending UFO conventions and associating with Skinwalker Ranch ufologists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, whom he met at a Star Trek Convention and both of whom sat behind Grusch at the July 26 Hearing and whom Representative Tim Burchett recognized from the dais and read their statements into the record.,23:39

References

External links

US House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee Hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
– via C-SPAN

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grusch, David
2023 in military history
2023 in science
June 2023 events in the United States
21st-century history of the United States Air Force
Whistleblowing in the United States
United States government responses to UFOs